Though the future cannot be accurately predicted, it is possible to envisage a number of probable developments which can promote thinking about the future and so promote a more informed stance about what should or should not be done. Studies in technology and society have claimed that the use of a type of forecasting using plausible but imaginary…

At a time when the national conversation is focused on lagging upward mobility, it is no surprise that many educators point to poverty as the explanation for mediocre test scores among U.S. students compared to those of students in other countries. If American teachers in struggling U.S. schools taught in Finland, says Finnish educator Pasi…

The associations between vocabulary growth and reading development were examined longitudinally for a representative sample of Dutch children throughout the elementary school period. Data on basic and advanced vocabulary, word decoding, and reading comprehension were collected across the different grades. The results showed significant progress on…

This longitudinal investigation on Dutch children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) aimed at determining the predictive value of statistically uncorrelated language proficiencies on later reading and spelling skills in Dutch. Language abilities, tested with an extensive test battery at the onset of formal reading instruction, were…

The present study examined the associations of alcohol-specific socialization practices and heavy parental drinking with alcohol use in early adolescents. Cross-sectional nationwide survey data from 2599 parent-adolescent (mean age = 12.16) dyads were used to conduct logistic regression analyses. Onset of alcohol use as well as infrequent and…

Based on original empirical data collected from adolescents in Europe (N = 9003) this paper focuses the lifeworlds of young people. It analyses negative and positive patterns of attitude and combines them with further concepts: personal life perspectives, various key values and political attitudes. Technically, the attitude towards Europe acts as…

In this article we report on the effects of a digital intervention on the development of algebraic expertise of 17-18 year old students in the Netherlands. The question to be answered was whether the intervention would be effective and what factors influenced the outcome. With notions of formative assessment and symbol sense as guiding theoretical…

Facial attractiveness has been associated with many (social) advantages in life, like greater popularity, acceptance, and social competence. Because social evaluations and acceptance are important factors contributing to self-esteem (SE), we hypothesized that high levels of attractiveness would be related to increased levels of SE. To test this…

Background: Several barriers are hampering the provision of adequate education to students with special educational needs in mainstream primary schools. It is not clear how many and which students in the Netherlands are considered children with special educational needs. The problems that make teachers consider children to have special educational…

In this article, we address the relationship between teacher expectation bias and student characteristics, its effect on long-term student performance, and the development of this effect over time. Expectation bias was defined as the difference between observed and predicted teacher expectation. These predicted expectations were estimated from a…

Background: Teacher-related factors such as gender, experience, conceptions related to mathematics, instructional practices have effects with various magnitudes on students' mathematics achievement. Classroom related factors such as class size, class climate and limitations to teaching and their relation to mathematics achievement have also been…

Current research gives some indications about how inclusive education affects students with special educational needs (SEN), but there are too many different results to draw unequivocal conclusions. It is therefore important to focus on specific factors that could influence outcomes of inclusive education. In this study, we investigated whether…

In this article, an alternative for Tinto's integration theory of student persistence is proposed and tested. In the proposed theory, time available for individual study is considered a major determinant of both study duration and graduation rate of students in a particular curriculum. In this view, other activities in the curriculum, in…

The objective of this study was to investigate the contribution of rapid digit naming, phonological memory, letter sound naming, and orthographic knowledge to the prediction of responsiveness to a school-based, individual intervention of word reading fluency problems of 122 Dutch second and third graders whose reading scores were below the 10th…

Background: In the debate on inclusive education, students without special educational needs (SEN) are an important topic. However, there is a lot unknown about differences between these typical students in inclusive and non-inclusive classes. For example, the neutral results that are often found in earlier research could be caused by positive…