School Placement Decisions in Luxembourg: Do Teachers Meet the Education Ministry’s Standards?

Abstract

In Luxembourg, the assignment of primary-school

Test‐ or judgement‐based school track recommendations: Equal opportunities for students with different socio‐economic backgrounds?

“…These tracks differ in the educational qualifications students can acquire and determine students' educational career (Contini & Scagni, 2011;Glock et al, 2012;Korpershoek et al, 2016). A substantial body of research (e.g., Driessen et al, 2008;Dutch Inspectorate of Education, 2018c;Klapproth et al, 2012;OECD, 2016;Pietsch & Stubbe, 2007) has reported that students' background characteristics, including their families' socio-economic status (SES), have an impact on students' allocation to specific secondary school tracks. To create equal opportunities for all students, it is important that students are allocated to the secondary school track that is most appropriate based on their abilities, regardless of their SES (Tieben & Wolbers, 2010).…”

“…In some countries, such as Great Britain and Singapore, track recommendations are based on students' results on a standardized, multisubject school leavers' test (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;Le M etais, 2003). In other countries, such as Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and France, track recommendations are based on teachers' expectations about the most optimal level of secondary education for students to develop and perform successfully (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;De Boer et al, 2010;Glock et al, 2012;Klapproth et al, 2012;Le M etais, 2003;Timmermans et al, 2015). These expectations are teachers' inferences about students' potential achievement, usually based on teachers' judgements of students' current performance as well as other characteristics, such as their motivation or behaviour (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;Feron et al, 2015;Klapproth et al, 2012;Riley & Ungerleider, 2012).…”

“…In other countries, such as Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and France, track recommendations are based on teachers' expectations about the most optimal level of secondary education for students to develop and perform successfully (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;De Boer et al, 2010;Glock et al, 2012;Klapproth et al, 2012;Le M etais, 2003;Timmermans et al, 2015). These expectations are teachers' inferences about students' potential achievement, usually based on teachers' judgements of students' current performance as well as other characteristics, such as their motivation or behaviour (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;Feron et al, 2015;Klapproth et al, 2012;Riley & Ungerleider, 2012). In short, track recommendations can be mostly based on test results, hereafter referred to as 'test-based recommendations', or on teacher judgements, hereafter referred to as 'judgement-based recommendations' (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;Glock et al, 2012;Klapproth et al, 2012).…”

“…These expectations are teachers' inferences about students' potential achievement, usually based on teachers' judgements of students' current performance as well as other characteristics, such as their motivation or behaviour (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;Feron et al, 2015;Klapproth et al, 2012;Riley & Ungerleider, 2012). In short, track recommendations can be mostly based on test results, hereafter referred to as 'test-based recommendations', or on teacher judgements, hereafter referred to as 'judgement-based recommendations' (Boone & Van Houtte, 2013;Glock et al, 2012;Klapproth et al, 2012). Since teachers' judgements are partly based on (standardized) test results as well, a strict distinction between test-based and judgement-based recommendations cannot be made.…”

Beyond dislike: Blatant dehumanization predicts teacher discrimination

“…For example, American teachers evaluate Hispanic students less positively than IQ-matched White students (McCombs & Gay, 1988); provide top Black students less praise, less direct questions, and less feedback after mistakes than non-Black peers (Casteel, 1998; Ferguson, 2003), or provide different forms of feedback and praise for the same work (Harber, 1998); and discipline Black students more severely than White students for equivalent offenses (Horner, Fireman, & Wang, 2010; Okonofua & Eberhardt, 2015). In Europe, students’ ethnic minority status influences the judgments of preservice teachers (i.e., teachers in training) about student competence (Glock & Krolak-Schwerdt, 2013), and shapes decisions to place migrant students into lower track secondary schools, regardless of students’ prior academic achievement (Klapproth, Glock, Böhmer, Krolak-Schwerdt, & Martin, 2012). Similar results have been observed in India, where essays ostensibly belonging to lower caste students are graded approximately 10% lower than the same essays associated with high-caste students (Hanna & Linden, 2012).…”