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Decreasing class sizes, even by as little as one student, comes with a price tag. It is possible to “pay” for this increase by compensating with one of the other factors influencing the salary cost of teachers: lower teachers’ salaries, less required instruction time for students or more teaching time for teachers. Across OECD countries there seems to be a trade-off between smaller class sizes and higher teachers’ salaries, thus prompting the question of which policy leads to the best student outcomes. The evidence points to the importance of ensuring high-quality teaching above all else. Although higher salaries can help achieve that, several other factors will also influence the quality of the teaching force and of the country’s educational system as whole.

The conditions under which young workers find their first real post-graduation jobs are important for their future careers and insufficiently documented given their potential importance for young workers welfare. To study these conditions, and in particular the role played by social ties, we use a Swedish population-wide linked employer-employee data set of graduates from all levels of schooling that includes detailed information on family ties, neighbourhoods, schools, class composition, and parents' and children's employers over a period covering years with both high and low unemployment, together with measures of firm performance. We find that strong social ties (parents) are an important determinant for where young workers find their first job. The effects are larger if the graduate's position is \"weak\" (low education, bad grades), during high unemployment years, and when information on potential openings are likely to be scarce. On the hiring side, by contrast, the effects are larger if the parent's position is \"strong\" (long tenure, high wage) and if the parent's plant is more productive. The youths appear to benefit from the use of strong social ties through faster access to jobs and by better labour market outcomes as measured a few years after entry. In particular, workers finding their entry jobs through strong social ties are considerably more likely to remain in this job, while experiencing better wage growth than other entrants in the same plant. Firms also appear to benefit from these wage costs (relative to comparable entrants) starting at a lower base. They also benefit on the parents˒ side; parents˒ wage growth drops dramatically exactly at the entry of one of their children in the plant, although this is a moment when firm profits tend to be growing. Indeed, the firm-side benefits appear large enough for (at least small) firms to increase job creation at the entry level in years when a child of one of their employees graduates.

Peers have long been found to be of relevance for educational aspirations and hence educational success. While sociological and social psychological theories often assume concrete social mechanisms that focus on ‘significant’ peers, past research predominantly had to rely on classroom-level aggregates. This study examines how educational aspirations among adolescents cluster in friendship networks within school classes. Through the utilization of social network measures from the CILS4EU data on Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden (15,203 individuals, 50 per cent girls, MAGE 14.9 years), we construct two measures of the most significant peers around individuals, i.e. of the peer milieu, and explore the salience of educational aspirations in these milieus. Applying longitudinal logistic regression models and first-difference models with individual-level fixed effects, we find evidence for clustering of individuals with the same educational aspirations within classrooms, underlining the relevance of peers for educational success.

Personalized education-the systematic adaptation of instruction to individual learners-has been a long-striven goal. We review research on personalized education that has been conducted in the laboratory, in the classroom, and in digital learning environments. Across all learning environments, we find that personalization is most successful when relevant learner characteristics are measured repeatedly during the learning process and when these data are used to adapt instruction in a systematic way. Building on these observations, we propose a novel, dynamic framework of personalization that conceptualizes learners as dynamic entities that change during and in interaction with the instructional process. As these dynamics manifest on different timescales, so do the opportunities for instructional adaptations-ranging from setting appropriate learning goals at the macroscale to reacting to affective-motivational fluctuations at the microscale. We argue that instructional design needs to take these dynamics into account in order to adapt to a specific learner at a specific point in time. Finally, we provide some examples of successful, dynamic adaptations and discuss future directions that arise from a dynamic conceptualization of personalization. (DIPF/Orig.)

The concept of school engagement has attracted increasing attention as representing a possible antidote to declining academic motivation and achievement. Engagement is presumed to be malleable, responsive to contextual features, and amenable to environmental change. Researchers describe behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement and recommend studying engagement as a multifaceted construct. This article reviews definitions, measures, precursors, and outcomes of engagement; discusses limitations in the existing research; and suggests improvements. The authors conclude that, although much has been learned, the potential contribution of the concept of school engagement to research on student experience has yet to be realized. They call for richer characterizations of how students behave, feel, and think - research that could aid in the development of finely tuned interventions. (DIPF/Orig.).

Can smaller classes lead to better educational outcomes and greater equality in achievement? We estimate the causal effects of class size on achievement tests by using discontinuous changes in class size under the Japanese public compulsory education system. We employ a value-added model that uses achievement tests conducted at two different times during the same school year. Our results show that a reduction in class size has significantly positive effects on Japanese language test scores in the sixth grade, especially at schools in wealthy areas. However, we find no evidence that a universal small class policy closes the achievement gap among schools.

Classroom management is an emotionally demanding task for mathematics teachers, especially if students exhibit frequent discipline problems. Intense classroom conflicts can result in persistent latent emotional dispositions, such as fear or anger, that teachers are not directly aware of but that have a strong influence on their classroom management. However, little is known about the relationship between mathematics teachers' latent emotions and their classroom management strategies. This paper reports on findings from an exploratory, video-based single case study in an urban secondary school in Germany. One mathematics double lesson (95 minutes in total) was videotaped to conduct a depth-hermeneutical analysis of identified classroom management strategies and the corresponding latent teacher emotions. The results suggest that mathematics teachers use classroom management strategies not only to establish orderly lessons but also to regulate intense latent emotions that arise during classroom teaching.

Leistungsheterogenität findet sich in vielen Schulklassen. Durch Differenzierung (DI) können Lehrkräfte auf die verschiedenen Leistungsniveaus eingehen, wobei der Einsatz dieser Strategie von wahrgenommener Ausbildungsqualität und Kooperation beeinflusst wird. Die vorliegende Studie untersuchte sowohl die Struktur und Prädiktoren von DI als auch Mediationseffekte durch Lehrkrafteinstellungen und -motivation. Konfirmatorische Faktorenanalysen bestätigten eine dreidimensionale Struktur von DI sowie die Ausbildungsqualität und Kooperation als Prädiktoren. Der erwartete Erfolg als ein Maß von Motivation wurde als Mediator zwischen wahrgenommener Ausbildungsqualität und DI von den Daten gestützt, allerdings nicht die Einstellungsaspekte wahrgenommene Nützlichkeit und Kosten. Die Relevanz der Ergebnisse für Lehrkraftausbildung und den Arbeitsplatz Schule wird diskutiert. (DIPF/Orig.). Heterogeneity in achievement characterizes many classrooms. Teachers can adapt to students' varying achievement levels by engaging in differentiated instruction (DI). Applying this strategy adequately is influenced by perceived teacher training quality and collaboration. The current study examined the dimensional structure and predictors of DI as well as a mediation of both teachers' attitudes and motivation. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a three-dimensional structure of DI. Teacher training and collaboration were proved to be predictors of DI. Expected success as a measure of motivation was confirmed as a mediator of perceived quality of teacher training on DI, but not the two attitude aspects perceived utility and costs. The relevance of the findings for teacher education and school as a workplace is discussed. (DIPF/Orig.).

Der Klassenrat wird nicht nur als Instanz demokratischen Lernens verstanden, sondern auch als gemeinschaftsstiftende Maßnahme, in der Schüler*innen selbstorganisiert (Konflikt)Themen bearbeiten sollen. Abstimmungen bilden in der Praxis ein zentrales Moment, mit dem Partikularinteressen in einen anzuerkennenden Mehrheitsbeschluss überführt werden. Anhand ethnographischer Beobachtungsprotokolle dreier Klassenräte haben wir Abstimmungsprozesse rekonstruiert und unterschiedliche Modi herausgearbeitet, wie dort Bezüge zu Gemeinsamem hergestellt werden, die zugleich schulisch rational sein sollen. Die (Klassen)Gemeinschaft, die dabei performativ von Schüler*innen, Pädagoginnen und Pädagogen entworfen wird, ist als eine funktionale und pragmatische Arbeitsgemeinschaft zu verstehen. Die Abstimmung fungiert hierfür als methodische Lösung. (DIPF/Orig.) The class council is not only understood as an entity of democratic learning, but also as a community-building measure in which students can work on (conflict) issues independently. In practice, voting transforms particular interests into a majority decision that is to be accepted. On the basis of ethnographic observations of three class councils, we analyzed voting processes and reconstructed different modes of how references to the commonality are made there, which at the same time are supposed to be rational in school terms. The performatively produced class community is therefore to be understood as a functional and pragmatic working community. Voting serves as a methodical solution for this. (DIPF/Orig.)

In der Schulklasse wird zwar viel geforscht, zu der Frage, wie Schulklassen hergestellt werden, jedoch kaum. Angesichts bisher vorliegender explorativer ethnografischer Studien, die sich für die Performativität von Schulklassen als diskursiv und körperlich hergestellte Ordnung interessieren, wird in dem Beitrag für den Anfang neuer 5. Klassen nach den in Artefakten und ihren Praktiken hergestellten normativen Vorstellungen der Schulklasse gefragt. Erkundet wird damit das Potenzial einer praxistheoretischen Perspektivierung der Erforschung der Schulklasse als eine sich materialisierende Kultur, die auch schrift- und zeichentragende Artefakte einbezieht. An Daten aus ethnografischen Beobachtungen zum Anfang neuer 5. Klassen werden Artefakte und ihr situativer Gebrauch in Bezug auf implizite, normativ erwünschte Vorstellungen zur Schulklasse betrachtet. Insgesamt zeigt sich die Herstellung der Schulklasse in dieser praxistheoretischen Perspektivierung auf die ersten Tage neuer 5. Klassen als eine zuvorderst auf ein gemeinsames Tun ausgerichtete soziale Praxis. (DIPF/Orig.) A lot of studies are interested in relationships between students and teachers and students that develop within school classes, but there is hardly any research on the social construction of school classes. Against the background of ethnographic studies available so far, which investigate the performativity of school classes as a discursively and bodily produced order, this article asks for the normative conceptions of the school class, which is produced in artefacts and their practices in the beginning of new 5th grades in secondary schools. This paper explores the potential of a practice-theoretical perspective on the study of the school class as a materializing culture, therefore it concentrates on artefacts bearing writing and signs. Using empirical data from participant observations of the beginning of new 5th grades, artefacts and their situational use are considered in relation to implicit, normatively desired conceptions of the school class. Overall, this practice-theoretical perspective on the first days of new 5th grades reveals the production of the school class as a social practice that is first and foremost oriented towards doing things together. (DIPF/Orig.)