Her research focusses on teacher expectations and teacher expectation effects in the Chinese secondary school context.Shengnan is particularly interested in teachers' behaviours that could communicate differential expectations to students, the stability of teacher expectations, and teacher expectations for children of migrated workers in China.

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The 'summer learning effect' (SLE) is described as a stall or drop in achievement over summer, especially in schools serving poor or 'minority' communities. There has been little research in Europe on the effect, and research internationally has primarily focused on the effect in reading, with minimal focus on writing. This paper describes the extent and nature of the SLE in reading comprehension and writing in second grade classrooms in Germany. The SLE was evident in both subject areas with all students experiencing lower progress rates over summer. In reading, students attending the high-income school progressed significantly more over summer than their low-income peers, while there was no significant difference in writing progress over summer. Literacy logbooks over summer and interviews with a subset of students provided information on how home literacy practices influenced the effect.