This article explores which students-with regard to gender, socio-economic background and migration background-skip school in Germany, Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom (UK) according to PISA ...data. Students who skip school are observed in many countries, but there is not much systematic research that studies this across countries. Comparable data is to a large extent missing. PISA data offers an opportunity to use comparable data. In PISA, students were asked in 2018, 2015 and 2012 whether they had skipped school a whole day in the last two weeks prior to their completion of the PISA student questionnaire. Patterns of how absence relates to sociodemographic factors vary in countries and school systems. In the comparison between the four countries the UK stands out as having a higher percentage of students who have reported that they have skipped school than in the other countries. This does not seem to be related to any specific group of students. Japan also stands out with a lower percentage of students who have reported that they have skipped school. According to PISA data, skipping school is more related to socio-economic background than any other of the variables studied. The socio-economic background seems to be related to skipping school in all three PISA studies in Sweden and the UK. Gender seems not to be an important factor in the four countries. In Sweden and Germany there is a lower percentage of non-immigrant students who report that they have skipped school than first-and second-generation immigrant students. In the UK the figures are more ambiguous. When the percentages of students skipping school are compared over time and in the countries, it is difficult to find any trends, but the data only covered three measurements during a period of six years, which may be too short a time span to see trends.
Background
Influence of external factors in general, and socioeconomic background factors in particular, on traditional reading performance has been extensively researched and debated. While ...traditional reading is well investigated in this respect, there is a lack of studies on equity aspects related to digital reading achievement, in spite of the fact that time spent on reading from digital devices such as computers, tablets, and smart phones without doubt is increasing all over the world. In the hope of contributing to an area that up until now to a great extent has been left unresearched, the present study aims at investigating to what degree external factors, such as cultural and economic capital, parental pressure, and school choice, are related to 15-year-old students’ achievement in digital reading and in overall reading on both the student level and the school level in Norway and Sweden.
Methods
To conduct the analysis, multilevel structural modeling techniques have been used on PISA data from the two countries.
Results
The results for the Norwegian as well as for the Swedish sample showed that overall reading achievement was related to cultural capital in both countries, as expected, and in line with previous research. An identified digital reading factor, representing the unique aspects of digital reading achievement when overall reading was controlled for, was less influenced by the external factors of cultural and economic capital, and by parental pressure and school type, compared to performance in overall reading. Interestingly, on the school level, it was found that the external factors, school choice, and parental pressure related to overall reading achievement differently in the Norwegian and Swedish samples. School choice influenced overall reading in the Swedish data but not in the Norwegian data, and the opposite pattern was found for parental pressure.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is suggested that the results indicate aspects of inequity in the school systems in Norway and Sweden. However, no influence of background factors on the unique aspects of digital reading ability was found, and a tentative interpretation could be that digital reading ability is not (yet) perceived as a part of a cultural capital.
The article is based on a longitudinal study in a municipality that decided to organise a projectincluding the use of computers and extra remedial education in initial reading and writing ...instructionfrom the first to the third grade. The study may be regarded as quasi-experimental with 110students in two project schools and 59 students in two control schools. To explore the extent towhich the use of computers in reading instruction made a difference, we followed students in thefour schools from Grade 1 to Grade 3. The students’ language skills were tested regularly withdifferent test instruments. In addition to the tests, the students answered a questionnaire, andteachers and principals were interviewed. It was not possible to conclude that the teaching methodsin the control schools yielded better reading and writing development than the project schools orvice versa. The results were ambiguous, the control schools performed slightly better in one test ingrade 3 and the project schools on another test, when accounting for linguistic awareness in grade1 and other factors.
There is general consensus on the negative consequences of school non-attendance, but from an international comparative perspective, it is surprising how few studies have compared school attendance ...problems (SAPs) in different societies and education systems. In this article, SAPs are analysed through the lens of official statistics in four countries with different education systems: England, Japan, Germany (represented by two federal states), and Sweden. The purpose of this article is to investigate which data on school attendance and absence are available in four different countries and to facilitate a comparison between school attendance statistics and possibly different conceptualisations of SAPs. The article analyses statistics and official data collected by national school authorities and education agencies. Backgrounds within systems are provided and differences between the countries are analysed. England and Japan provide official data to the public on a regular basis, while Sweden and most federal states in Germany do not. A lower threshold for how much absence is considered problematic is found for Japan, England, and Thuringia (one of the investigated German federal states) compared to Sweden and Berlin (the other German federal state under study). Due to differences in recording and reporting school attendance, it is not possible to compare the quantitative extent of the problem or trends regarding SAPs across the four countries based on the available official school statistics.
Background and purpose: The purpose is to investigate whether regular and temporary staff differ in their perceptions of preconditions for learning and if there are some qualitative aspects that can ...be considered particularly significant in these differences. Design/Methodology/Approach: The approach consists of a case study based on both quantitative and qualitative data collected via an online questionnaire and individual interviews. Results: The paper question the understanding of the organization as a singular and more or less cohesive unit. On an organizational level, the project owner who hires staff does not care for competence transfer between regulars and temps, or between different groups of staff. At the individual level, temps are more focused on their specific task compared to regulars. Regulars’ seems to safeguarding a community or an organizational perspective, while temps are looking for their own good. Conclusions: There is a risk that one social unit differs, in attention payed to preconditions for learning, from another, when an organization use temporary staff. Therefore, the scientific value of this paper is that using temps may result in or be a consequence of a fragmented organization. The findings show no competence transfer in projects with both temps and regulars, and the project owner takes no active responsibility for human resource planning in terms of competence transfer between different groups of staff. The implications underline that long-term efficiency and rationality in an organization does not always have priority over organizational affiliation even with the hiring of expertise. When this happens, it may lead to a fragmented personnel group that is divided in thinkers/organizers and, performers/doers. When this happens, important practical skills fall outside of the organization, which in a metaphorical sense means that the hand is separated from the brain. Therefore, organizations with temporary staff need to plan for how to enable competence transfer between temporary and regular staff.
Density‐driven convection has been identified to accelerate the rate of CO2 solubility trapping during geological CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers. In this paper, we present an experimental method ...using the refractive properties of fluids (their impact on light transmission), and an analogous system design, which enables the study of transport mechanisms in saturated porous media. The method is used to investigate solutally induced density‐driven convective mixing under conditions relevant to geological CO2 storage. The analogous system design allows us by choice of initial solute concentration and bead size to duplicate a wide range of conditions (
Ra‐values), making it possible to study the convective process in general, and as a laboratory analogue for systems found in the field. We show that the method accurately determines the solute concentration in the system with high spatial and temporal resolution. The onset time of convection (
tc), mass flux (
F), and flow dynamics are quantified and compared with experimental and numerical findings in the literature. Our data yield a scaling law for
tc which gives new insight into its dependence on
Ra, indicating
tc to be more sensitive to large
Ra than previously thought. Furthermore, our data show and explain why
F is described equally well by a
Ra‐dependent or a
Ra‐independent scaling law. These findings improve the understanding of the physical process of convective mixing in saturated porous media in general and help to assess the CO2 solubility trapping rate under certain field conditions.
Key Points
A refractive‐light‐transmission technique to quantitatively study transport processes in porous media was developed
An analogue system design allowed study of convective mixing under conditions relevant to geological CO2 storage
Scaling laws for the onset time and mass flux of convection were derived, useful for assessment of CO2 solubility trapping potential
An interest in reading literacy in different modes as well as implications for assessment provides the basis for the present study. The design aimed to investigate differences in performance when the ...same reading literacy test was administered on paper and on screen to a sample of Swedish students. The results showed a minor overall difference in favour of the paper mode. When the analysis was broken down and conducted on different text types, it showed that this pattern applied to shorter texts and texts with much factual information in particular. Adapted from the source document
Industrial CO2 emissions to the atmosphere can be reduced through geological storage, where the gas is injected into the subsurface and trapped by several mechanisms. Residual and solubility trapping ...are two important processes providing trapping, and their effectiveness ultimately determines the feasibility of geological storage. By means of numerical modeling, a systematic analysis was made concerning the factors potentially affecting trapping, to guide the planned injection experiments at the Heletz test injection site. The effect of enhanced-trapping injection strategies along with the role of geological heterogeneity and the choice of trapping model (TM) were evaluated. The results showed that adding chase-fluid stages to a conventional CO2 injection enhanced the trapping. Taking into account the geological heterogeneity decreased trapping, as this retarded the buoyant migration, resulting in less imbibition and residual trapping. The choice of TM was significant, with the simplified Land TM producing the highest trapping, and the Aissaoui TM the lowest. The results stress the importance of using an appropriate TM as well as heterogeneity model for the site in question for any predictive modeling of CO2 sequestration, as different assumptions may lead to significant discrepancies in the predicted trapping.
•A pore-network model was presented and used to study residual CO2 trapping.•The PNM was calibrated using core sample data from Heletz sandstone.•Drainage-imbibition scenarios were simulated to ...estimate trapping curves.•The simulated trapping curves complemented experimental data.•Occurrences of pore-scale events and the cluster size distribution were studied.
To reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2 to the atmosphere, sequestration in deep saline aquifers is a viable strategy. Residual trapping is a key containment process important to the success of CO2 storage operations. While residual trapping affects CO2 migration over large scales, it is inherently a pore-scale process. Pore-network models (PNMs), capturing such processes, are useful for our understanding of residual trapping, and for upscaling trapping parameters for larger scale models. A PNM for simulation of quasi-static two-phase flow; CO2 intrusion (drainage) followed by water flooding (imbibition) was developed. It accounts for pore-scale displacement mechanisms, and was used to investigate residual CO2 trapping. The sensitivity of the residual CO2 saturation to several parameters was studied, to validate a trapping behavior in agreement with earlier studies. Then the PNM was calibrated to core sample data and used to simulate drainage-imbibition scenarios with different turning point saturations. From these the initial-residual saturation curves of CO2 in Heletz sandstone were estimated, essential for future macroscopic-scale simulations. Further, the occurrence of different pore-scale mechanisms were quantified and the size distribution of the residual clusters was shown to exhibit a bimodal appearance. The findings improve the understanding of residual trapping in Heletz sandstone.
In construction and engineering, workers from different organisations work together, often on a project‐by‐project basis. Drawing on the theoretical framework of inequality regimes as presented by ...Acker (2006a), and the externalisation of employment relations presented by Kalleberg et al. (2003), this article investigates the gendered implications of the externalisation of technological work in the construction industry. The empirical material is based upon interviews and a questionnaire answered by regular employees, contracted staff and independent contractors working in the construction industry. The data reveal how non‐standard employments are parts of the organising processes that produce gendered inequalities between core and peripheral workers. This finding does not suggest that peripheral work indicates poor working conditions, to be more precise, peripheral workers can be in the most privileged positions.
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