Disadvantaged

About: Disadvantaged is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 17050 publications have been published within this topic receiving 337157 citations. The topic is also known as: disadvantaged person.

'New students' in South African higher education : institutional culture, student performance and the challenge of democratisation

Abstract: South African universities confront a situation that most advanced countries face : the increasing enrollment of the so-called 'new students' ("non-traditional" in SA) from disadvantaged milieus, less prepared for the requirements of the traditional university culture. They are urged to respond to this challenge within a moral system that upholds justice, equality and solidarity, while confronted with a neo-liberal discourse that emphasises efficiency, performance, competition, and individualism. The university practice thus reflects a tension between two hardly reconcilable logics, the logic of performance and the logic of competence, which renders difficult the adjustment of 'new students', the work of the lecturers, often guided by the logic of performance. Lecturers and students are subject to these contradictory logics, characterised by ambivalences and lack of clarity about expectations and what constitutes good academic practice - source of misunderstandings and frustrations. Most institutions strive to articulate both perspectives, constrained however by their peculiar histories. With reference to the University of the Witwatersrand, I seek to unpack how higher education addresses the problems arising out of the increasing intake of students from the historically disadvantaged social groups and the insufficiency of results they achieve, particularly the processes of learners' affiliation to the university culture, and the difficulties associated with their academic success or failure.

Ethnicity, Gender and Age: Predicting Resilience and Academic Achievement among Urban High School Students

Abstract: This study evaluated urban student protective factors predicting resilience and academic achievement. A questionnaire was used to gather the data from 480 high school students. Findings suggested that ethnicity, gender, and age influenced protective factors predicting resilience and academic achievement. It was concluded that there is need for attention to non-instructional aspects of schooling. Schools, parents, community and peers should provide students with care, support, and opportunities for participation in activities that promote social bonding and life skills. Urban schools educate the majority of students who are at risk of school failure. Many of these children are ignored, while others suffer the humiliation of labels such as retarded, learning disabled, socially or emotionally disturbed, educationally deficient, or culturally disadvantaged (Wang, 1996). With stakes raised even higher in the "No Child Left Behind Act," urban schools face more challenges to enable each student to succeed. Helping students become resilient learners who assume "responsibility for acquiring knowledge and skills and sustains a pattern of self-directed lifelong learning" is needed now more than ever (Wang & Palinscar, 1989, p.71). Resilience is critical to urban students because they have been found to experience significantly higher school stress and significantly lower social support from family, friends, and school personnel (Wenz-Gross & Parker, 1999). Resilience may provide students with the capacity to endure in school. Resilience is the "capacity of individuals to overcome personal vulnerabilities and environmental adversities effectively or the ability to thrive physically and psychologically despite adverse circumstances" (Wang, Haertel, & Walberg, 1994). Resilient children exhibit verbal fluency, sense of competence, and good problem solving skills. They have high self-esteem, self-control, malleability, even temper, and openness to new experiences. Resilient children also set goals, maintain healthy expectations and have a clear sense of purpose (Benard, 1996; Wang, et. al, 1994; WestEd, 2000). Resilient children have abilities and adaptive characteristics that enable them to improve their health, social, and academic outcomes. Unlike social economic status, which teachers, parents, peers, and community cannot influence, resilience is represented by the different innate capacities that all children possess. Resilience is influenced by the environment, and may be used to exploit positive features of the environment for positive outcomes (Wang et al, 1998). It is not a genetic trait that only a few children possess (Benard, 1996). As such, resilience may provide some solutions to improving quality of life and education for urban and minority youth. Resilience studies may also counteract and change negative attitudes of those who believe that nothing can overcome the backgrounds of students. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The major tenet of the youth resilience approach is that resilience is a capacity for healthy development and academic achievement. Resilient students are motivated to meet their human needs for love, belonging, respect, identity, power, mastery, challenge, and meaning. When students experience home, school, peer and community environments rich in the developmental supports and opportunities of caring relationships, high expectations, and opportunities for meaningful participation, they develop individual characteristics that define resilience and successful learning. WestEd (2000) has described this framework as The Youth Development Conceptual Model (YDCM). Based on this framework, the study determined which protective factors predicted resilience and academic achievement among urban high school students. Figure 1 (WestEd, 2000) illustrates the YDCM framework on which this study was based. Although researchers have documented the impact of socio-economic status on academic achievement (Caldas, 1993; Coleman, 1966; Jencks, 1973; Rumberg & Williams, 1992), a growing body of research focusing on healthy development and learning has indicated that social support networks are positively related to the development of resilience (Benard, 1996; Levitt, Guacci-Franco, & Levitt, 1993; Wang, & Kovach, 1996; Wang, et al, 1998; WestEd, 2000). …

Women in Science, Engineering and Technology: A Review of The Issues

Abstract: Concern continues to be expressed over women’s difficulties in advancing their careers as academic scientists. Though some sciences may be numerically ‘feminised’, few women reach the upper echelons of science. Scant attention has been paid to issues of the progression of women from non–traditional backgrounds, such as those from ethnic minorities, who may be particularly disadvantaged. What research there is indicates a variation between the sciences in terms of women’s careers and patterns that are replicated globally. Explanations are now focusing on how the scientific culture itself acts as a barrier to women rather than on the notion that women themselves lack the requisite skills. The Athena Project is a policy response to this issue. Future research and policy needs to look more closely at differences between the sciences, how women from diverse backgrounds experience the academic labour market and epistemological connections between employment and engagement with the scientific agenda.

Bridging the gap between service need and service utilization : A school-based mental health program

Abstract: In an effort to bridge the gap between service need and service utilization, an urban based, university affiliated children's psychiatric outpatient clinic has implemented a program which provides mental health services in inner city schools. When compared with the central clinic populations (N = 304), the school sample (N = 44) was markedly socioeconomically disadvantaged, minority, and as psychiatrically impaired as the central clinic population. School based mental health services have the potential for bridging the gap between need and utilization by reaching disadvantaged children who would otherwise not have access to these services. Implications for such services are discussed.