Vincent Dupriez

Bio: Vincent Dupriez is an academic researcher from Université catholique de Louvain. The author has contributed to research in topics: Accountability & Academic achievement. The author has an hindex of 26, co-authored 140 publications receiving 2173 citations. Previous affiliations of Vincent Dupriez include University College London & Catholic University of Leuven.

How Do School Systems Manage Pupils’ Heterogeneity?

Abstract: School systems worldwide respond in particular ways to students’ academic heterogeneity, and different countries have developed different strategies to manage such heterogeneity. Whereas some countries separate children according to distinctive educational routes (or tracks) at early ages, others rely on intensive use of grade retention, while others more commonly use individualized teaching or tutoring. Previous studies have investigated the influence of such forms of differentiation on students’ performance and trajectories and have compared the consequences of selective school systems (corresponding to early tracking) and those of comprehensive school systems. This stream of research has shown that school systems based on an early tracking process are characterized by a stronger relationship between students’ performance and sociocultural background. In this article, we base our comparison on the more complex classification proposed by Nathalie Mons (2007), which considers how school systems rely on a configuration of institutional parameters (i.e., tracking, ability grouping, grade retention, and individualized teaching) to manage pupils’ heterogeneity. Using data from the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) database, we use this typology to assess differences between four heterogeneity management models concerning the weakest students’ (1) academic routes, (2) educational environments, and (3) level of achievement and social inequality within school systems. Previous Research

A plant plasma membrane proton-ATPase gene is regulated by development and environment and shows signs of a translational regulation.

Abstract: A proton-pumping ATPase is present in the plasma membrane of plant cells where it sustains transport-related functions. This enzyme is encoded by a family of genes that shows signs of both transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation. The regulation of pma1, one of the Nicotiana plumbaginifolia H+-ATPase genes, was characterized with the help of the beta-glucuronidase (gusA) receptor gene in transgenic plants. pma1 is active in the root epidermis, the stem cortex, and guard cells. This activity depends on developmental and growth conditions. For instance, pma1 activity in guard cells was strongly enhanced when the plant material (young seedlings or mature leaves) was incubated in liquid growth medium. pma1 is also expressed in several tissues of the reproductive organs where active transport is thought to occur but where scarcely any ATPase activity has been identified, namely in the tapetum, the pollen, the transmitting tissue, and the ovules. Several pma genes have a long 5'untranslated region (leader sequence) containing an upstream open reading frame (URF). Analysis of translational and transcriptional fusions with gusA in transgenic plants suggests that the pma1 leader sequence might activate translation of the main open reading frame, even though the URF is translated by a large majority of the scanning ribosomes. As confirmation, transient expression experiments showed that the pma1 leader causes a fourfold post-transcriptional increase of main open reading frame expression. Deletion of the URF by site-directed mutagenesis stimulated the main open reading frame translation 2.7-fold in an in vitro translational assay. These results are consistent with a regulatory mechanism involving translation reinitiation. Altogether, they suggest a fine, multilevel regulation of H+-ATPase activity in the plant.

La régulation dans les systèmes scolaires. Proposition théorique et analyse du cadre structurel en Belgique francophone

Abstract: Dans un contexte d'affaiblissement des consensus normatifs relatifs a l'ecole, quelles formes et quels processus sociaux permettent a l'action educative de se construire avec un minimum de stabilite et de coordination entre acteurs ? Pour traiter cette problematique, les auteurs posent les jalons d'une double approche de la regulation au sein des systemes scolaires, regulation comprise comme « le processus de production de regles et d'orientation des conduites des acteurs ». Methodologiquement, l'identification de ce processus repose simultanement sur une analyse du cadre structurel et un reperage des jeux d'acteurs dans leur activite sociale de production de regles. La regulation est d'abord apprehendee comme un montage composite de formes de coordination qui resulte d'une histoire specifique a chaque societe. L'analyse du cadre structurel pregnant dans le cas de la Belgique francophone permet de l'illustrer. Dans un second temps, l'attention porte sur les jeux et modes de relations entre acteurs, pour saisir le processus de construction des regles de l'action organisee, notamment au plan local.

Does the school composition effect matter? evidence from belgian data

Abstract: Even if the literature on the effects of pupil composition has been extensive, no clear consensus has been reached concerning the significance and magnitude of this effect. The first objective of this article is to estimate the magnitude of the school composition effect in primary schools (6th grade) in French-speaking Belgium. Different indicators of school composition are used: academic, socio-cultural, ‘language’ and sex composition. Except for sex composition, the results show that the school composition effect explains significant amount of between schools variance even after controlling for pupils’ initial performance, socio-cultural background, and non-cognitive dispositions. The second objective is to examine covariance between school composition and several organisational variables and their joint effect on school performance. The second set of analyses is intended to question the conceptual nature of the school composition effect, establishing whether it is direct or indirect.

Nations and Nationalism

Abstract: Series Editor's Preface. Introduction by John Breuilly. Acknowledgements. 1. Definitions. State and nation. The nation. 2. Culture in Agrarian Society. Power and culture in the agro-literature society. The varieties of agrarian rulers. 3. Industrial Society. The society of perpetual growth. Social genetics. The age of universal high culture. 4. The Transition to an Age of Nationalism. A note on the weakness of nationalism. Wild and garden culture. 5. What is a Nation. The course of true nationalism never did run smooth. 6. Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial Society. Obstacles to entropy. Fissures and barriers. A diversity of focus. 7. A Typology of Nationalisms. The varieties of nationalist experience. Diaspora nationalism. 8. The Future of Nationalism. Industrial culture - one or many?. 9. Nationalism and Ideology. Who is for Nuremberg?. One nation, one state. 10. Conclusion. What is not being said. Summary. Select bibliography. Bilbliography of Ernest Gellner's writing: Ian Jarvie. Index

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations

Abstract: In this chapter I examine whether and how the relationship between family socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement has changed during the last fifty years. In particular, I investigate the extent to which the rising income inequality of the last four decades has been paralleled by a similar increase in the income achievement gradient. As the income gap between highand low-income families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in highand low-income families also widened? The answer, in brief, is yes. The achievement gap between children from highand lowincome families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier. In fact, it appears that the income achievement gap has been growing for at least fifty years, though the data are less certain for cohorts of children born before 1970. In this chapter, I describe and discuss these trends in some detail. In addition to the key finding that the income achievement gap appears to have widened substantially, there are a number of other important findings. First, the income achievement gap (defined here as the income difference between a child from a family at the 90th percentile of the family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile) is now nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap. Fifty years ago, in contrast, the black-white gap was one and a half to two times as large as the income gap. Second, as Greg Duncan and Katherine Magnuson note in chapter 3 of this volume, the income achievement gap is large when children enter kindergarten and does not appear to grow (or narrow) appreciably as children progress through school. Third, although rising income inequality may play a role in the growing income achievement gap, it does not appear to be the dominant