Gode skoler - gode for alle?

The project Does the Knowledge Promotion reform also promote equality in achievement? is part of an ongoing evaluation of a major educational reform which takes place in Norwegian primary and secondary schools from 2006 (“Kunnskapsløftet” – the Knowledge Promotion reform). A research program to evaluate implementation processes and learning outcomes of the reform was initiated by the Ministry of Education and Research and is organized and financed by The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. NOVAs project within this program aims at investigation whether the reform contributes to a reduce inequalities in school achievement among lower secondary school students having different parental education, gender and minority status. The project is concerned with whether the reform influences learning outcomes of different groups of students throughout the lower secondary school (grade 8 – 10). The project will end in 2012 with a final report. This is the third report from the project, presenting the results of a case study which aims to gain knowledge about what role schools play for the achievement gaps related to parental education, gender and minority status. Six strategically schools have been studied, selected by their internal and deviant achievement profiles. On the one hand, we have identified and studied three schools where respectively boys, minority students and working class students achieve better results than usual. These schools are contrasted to schools where these pupil groups achieve poorer results than usual. Because developing a better "learning culture" in Norwegian schools is a central aspect of the educational reform, a guiding principle in the case study is to grasp what a positive learning culture is and how this is expressed – or not expressed – within classrooms and schools. Based on extensive class room observations and interviews with staff, we give "thick descriptions" of the school culture and what is going on in the class rooms and at the management level of these "deviant" schools. The qualitative data collected has been analysed in the context of students' learning results (e.g. progress in school achievement during lower secondary school) and the pupil mix of the schools. The intention has been that this is a design that might open up and uncover some patterns that can provide knowledge about the relationship between school achievement and pupils' gender, minority status and parental education. The main findings are as follows: - There is considerable variation between schools and between classes in terms of how well a learning culture is developed - Students' social class background is a pervasive dimension of all schools that have been studied - Reproduction of inequality occurs regardless of how well the school has succeeded in developing a positive learning culture There is considerable variation in the learning culture between classes and between schools Observations of about 50 teachers in 300 lessons at the 10th grade shows that Norwegian lower secondary school teachers are highly committed to their task as a teacher and that they are truly involved in and concerned about their students. An important result is still that the schools in varying degrees, has succeeded in establishing a well-founded learning culture in the classroom. On the one hand, we have observed many lessons completely in line with what international research describes as characteristics of good schools and teaching, where teachers are tight on to their students, having a clear focus on learning goals and where the teaching time is utilized in effective ways. On the other hand, we have observed lessons not working particularly well and where the learning outcomes for the students probably have been very low. These lessons are characterised by poor classroom management, noise, low commitment to learning and non-efficient teaching. Some of this variation has to do with what kind of school culture that has evolved locally and is partly related to the directly involvement of school management in pedagogical issues and what goes on in the class rooms. Our findings suggest that when new reforms are to be implemented at the school level, it is particularly important to have a clear leadership that has the power to implement the changes that reform requires. At the schools where there was stability in the leadership and the school had succeeded in creating a culture of cooperation between all partners in school (management, teachers, pupils, parents), it was also greater capacity and energy to deal with changes that the new reform has led to schools and teachers. At one of the schools having the greatest problems to implement nationally set demands the teachers could in many ways continue as before and the reform could be more of a "word game," as one of the teachers put it. In line with international research, our observations suggest that how well lessons work is highly dependent on the teacher and how he or she carries out the teacher role. We find the highest levels of student engagement – and also probably the greatest effects on learning outcomes – in lessons where the teachers were well prepared, where the teaching were structured, where the teachers used diverse teaching strategies during the lesson, where the teacher maintain a delimited and clear task orientation in the class room, where the teacher is responsive to students needs, where there is a rapid lesson pace and time is used well. Low student engagement has been observed in classes where the rules of conduct and behaviour are not clear and especially in the classes where the teachers allow students to negotiate class room rules and activities. Social class a pervasive dimension in Norwegian schools Although there were only two of the six schools studied that were selected due to a deviant social class gap in school achievement, class inequality has been a consistent dimension to take into account when we analyze all schools. Our observations suggest that the social class mix among students in the same school and in the same class is a dimension that the teachers have to deal with in a way that influence their pedagogical practice. When teachers are faced with a heterogeneous student base, it is not only the students varied base of knowledge teachers must take into account, but also the students' differing living conditions and ways of being. At the three schools where there was the greatest class differences within the pupil population, there was a tendency for teachers to view diversity as problematic. The case study indicates that in many cases social class is a more relevant "mental category" for teachers than ethnicity, but very often these dimensions coincide. The study emphasizes that there is an alternate interaction between school activities and student composition or mix on one side and the school's ability to develop the students according to the national curriculum on the other. After what we can see, this dimension is barely considered in Norwegian school research. Quality and inequality A major concern in our evaluation of the Knowledge Promotion reform is the relationship between quality of education ("good school practices") and differences in students' learning outcomes. The question is whether the explicit goal of the reform to create better learning arenas for all also means that the goal of reducing the systematic performance differences for students' gender, minority status and parental education is less. The analysis in this report does not indicate that it is so. When we see the achievement progress for different student groups in relation to the qualitative data collected in the case study, a main conclusion from this study is that the secondary schools we have studied – with one exception – reproduces performance differences between student groups that were already present when the students started in lower secondary school. This reproduction of inequality occurs both in schools where we have observed school culture and pedagogical practices that are completely in line with the intentions of the school reform to create better "learning culture" and in schools where the management, organization and classroom practice is less well developed. Our interpretation is that it is primarily external factors that contribute to the systematic performance differences that can be observed when students complete the secondary schools we have studied. One of the schools makes an exception from this general pattern. In this school our analysis showed that performance differences were increasing (more than usual) between different groups of pupils during the three years in secondary school. The students that were initially the academically weakest had a weaker progress in achievement than similar pupils groups elsewhere in the country. At the opposite – students with the best conditions for learning and with the highly educated parents showed a greater progress in this school than usual. As far as we have been able to observe, this was one of the schools in our study who had long believed in principles found in Knowledge Promotion reform. The school had already long before the reform was initiated worked systematically to break down what students should learn into bounded learning, which was written and verbally communicated to all students with the introduction of new subjects. This goal-oriented form of education was evident in our classroom observations, e.g. teachers always made clear learning goal at the start of a lesson on the blackboard. The school has many similarities with what school research often cites as the hallmark of good schools – close teacher cooperation, good relations between pupils and teachers and a clear and pedagogical involved management, where the head among other things, spent a lot of time observing and advising teachers. The school's leadership was also concerned that the school also should be a school for the academically talented students. Our interpretation is that the steps the school met the differentiated pupils helped to complicate the task of creating a unity out of school. The school's student mix can be described as very different, both in terms of social class background, students' interests and future orientation. Parents were also described in differential terms. In response to the differentiated pupils the school initiated teaching for different ability groups, which according to the principal contributed to the school's exam results were improved. Our own observations suggest that the measure did not work particularly well for students in the weakest group. When such measures are taken in a context where there is lack of parental involvement and students are mentally not focused on what is in the textbooks, it could result in a large achievement gap between students. When it comes to this school, it seems to follow a well-known social pattern related to parental educational background. The main conclusion is still that good schools are good for all and the least effective schools are bad for all. From an efficiency point of view it can be viewed as a positive thing that everyone has something to gain from attending schools that deliver good results and that good schools will not only benefit certain groups. From a social inequality point of view, the results are less optimistic. It suggests that although the Knowledge Promotion reform would achieve the objective of improving Norwegian pupils' learning outcomes, it will not automatically make the achievement differences between student groups become smaller