Rudolf Tippelt
Education and Attachment – Connecting and Ambivalent Aspects. Introduction
Ute Ziegenhain/Gabriele Gloger-Tippelt
Attachment and Action Control as Early Emotional and Cognitive Prerequisites of Education
The authors examine the significance of the emotional attachment between child and parents for a person’s successful educational career. While the relevance of secure attachment for the development of social competences and mental health has been well substantiated, there exists little empirical research on the importance of attachment for the cognitive development and educational career. On the basis of recent findings in developmental psychology, the authors try to show that both emotional attachment and executive functioning are important components of a child’s successful educational development. Both aspects can be promoted through sensitive and structuring parental behavior and ought to be taken more into account in future interventions and basic research.
Keywords: Attachment Quality, Parenting Behavior, Cognitive Development, Executive Functioning, Academic Development
Daniela Mayer/Kathrin Beckh/Julia Berkic/Fabienne Becker-Stoll
Student-Teacher Relationships and Child Development: The impact of gender and migration background
Data from the national study on education and care in early childhood (NUBBEK) were analyzed to examine the relations between the quality of student-teacher relationships and children’s development, taking into account effects of gender and migration background. Data come from 714 four-year-old children living in Germany. In addition to an assessment of the relationships between kindergarten teacher and child and mother and child, mothers and kindergarten teachers reported on social-emotional competencies, problem behavior, and communication skills; moreover, test values provided by a receptive language test were taken into account. Adjusting for family characteristics, the quality of student-teacher relationships had a significant effect on each child’s outcome: children experiencing student-teacher relationships of high quality showed the highest scores in social, language and receptive vocabulary skills and the lowest scores in problem behavior. Regarding language development, results indicate that the quality of student-teacher relationships is more important for children with migration background, especially for boys. High-quality student-teacher relationships can have a compensatory influence on the social-emotional development of boys.
Keywords: Student-Teacher Relationships, Language Development, Social-Emotional Development, Migration Background, Gender Differences
Elena Harwardt-Heinecke/Lieselotte Ahnert
Attachment Experiences in Kindergarten and School and their Effect on School Achievement: Summary results of the BSB study
The present study summarizes empirical findings of a longitudinal study which investigates school achievement from the perspective of the attachment experiences made by children starting school. While positive relationship experiences made in kindergarten led to an efficient use of the existing achievement potential also after starting school, the negative and conflict-rife characteristics of the student-teacher relationship took effect in elementary school. According to these findings, conflicts between students and teachers impeded the willingness to exert oneself and had thus a negative effect on school achievement. By applying Cortisol analyses, it could also be shown that there is an increasing impairment of the students’ stress management from Monday to Friday.
Keywords: Closeness, Conflict, Mastery Motivation, Academic Achievement, Cortisol Release
Alfred Richartz/Almut Krapf/Karen Hoffmann
The Quality of Coach-Child Relationships from the Perspective of Research on Attachment – Attachment and attachment-specific processes among children in competitive sports
The authors examine the concordance of patterns of attachment between children in competitive sports and their parents, on the one hand, and their coaches, on the other. Attachment patterns are reconstructed through a procedure of story supplementation. The concordance between the two patterns of attachment is unusually strong compared to thematically related studies among preschool- and primary-school teachers. Thus, it is shown that attachment-specific processes of regulation play an important role in highly instruction- and task-oriented settings, too. In connection with other data, the perceived solicitousness and competence of the teachers as well as peculiarities of the action field „competitive sports“ are discussed as cause variables.
Keywords: Attachment Research, Competitive Sport, Affect Regulation, Coach-Child Relationship, Relationship Quality
Lothar Krappmann
Attachment in Child Relationships?
Research on attachment has proven that it is of great significance for developmental processes and processes of learning whether children have a secure attachment bond with their parents or with other persons caring for them. In menacing or challenging situations, into which children will get in the social world of their peers, however, parents or other adults taking an interest in the child are not in a position to help the older child directly. In such situations, however, the reliable support of a child of the same age can be helpful and sometimes even decisive. The author examines whether there are relationships among children which are of such a quality that they constitute an equivalent to the secure bonding with adults. Results of research on peer groups which enquired into this question are outlined and commented upon.
Keywords: Attachment, Peer Relationships, Friendship, Parent-Child Relationship, Middle Childhood
Jörg M. Fegert/Tanja Besier
Developmental-Psychopathological Considerations on the Deficient Integration of Aspects of the Theory of Attachment, of Pedagogics, and of Family Law
So far, attachment, education, and developmental psychopathology have constituted mostly non-integrated concepts with parallel discourses which play a continuously important role within the framework of child development. To these are added, in some cases (such as separation or divorce as well as endangering parental behavior), aspects of family law which, in turn, are discussed separately and are not systematically integrated. The authors look at the different resulting discourses and fields of tension from the perspective of a child and adolescent psychiatrist and point out references and possible approaches for a successful conflation and integration.
Keywords: Developmental Psychopathology, Attachment, Family Law, Education, Child Development
Rudolf Tippelt
Education and Attachment – An ambivalent, insecure-avoiding or secure relationship?
Pedagogical action is, among other things, characterized by proximity and distance. What do research on education and research on attachment have to tell each other in this context? It is shown that the two disciplines differ in their approach to the learner, that they have divergent cognition-inducing interests, but that they also offer the opportunity for a fruitful dialogue between the two sides. The general pedagogical considerations focus on topicalizing the socio-cognitive and socio-emotional development of people and on substantiating the emotional promotion and social interaction in educational processes as both aim and means of pedagogical action. In this respect, secure relations between these two highly disparate disciplines can be rather helpful.
Keywords: Educational Relationship, Social-Emotional Encouragement, Social Competence, Professional Educational Roles, Education
Rainer Bölling
The French Central Baccalaureate – a Model for Germany?
In view of the demand for a nation-wide central school leaving exam – a demand which has been raised by the public for years now – the question arises whether the French baccalaureate, which constitutes a central and anonymous examination procedure par excellence, could prove to be a model for the German system. A survey on the development of the baccalaureate since 1808 and on its present structure is followed by a critical look at the most recent examination and correction procedures. Subsequently, the significance of this exam for access to university education is investigated. The results of the study as well as the ongoing debate on the value of the baccalaureate in France yield a somewhat problematic finding with regard to the baccalaureate’s potential as a possible model.
Keywords: Baccalaureate, Germany, France, Central School Leaving Exam
Hartmut Ditton
Educational Careers in Secondary Education. Results of a longitudinal study on the changes between school types and courses of education
On the basis of data provided by a longitudinal study, the author examines the change between school types and courses of education on the level of secondary education. Particular emphasis is placed on the analysis of the importance of school achievement and social background. Since the study uses primarily data collected in elementary education, the author also enquires into the question in how far the phase of elementary education is predicative for the later educational career. The explanations given for the changes up and down between the different types of secondary schools are not always satisfactory. All in all, it appears that, through the corrective measures taken in educational careers, the social selectivity of the school system is not reduced but rather increased.
Keywords: Type of School Attended, Course of Education, Educational Career, Tracking System, Social Inequality
Svenja Mareike Kühn/Christina Drüke-Noe
Quality and Comparability through Educational Standards and Central Exams? – A nation-wide comparison between examination requirements in the field of mathematics when acquiring the intermediate leaving certificate
In order to guarantee quality and comparability, all German Länder are asked to carry out statewide exit examinations for the acquisition of the intermediate leaving certificate on the basis of the educational standards. The authors present the findings of a longitudinal study which analyzed examination tasks in the field of mathematics (N = 3530) across all German Länder by means of a system of categories based on the educational standards. On the basis of theoretical assumptions posited by implementation research, the study investigates the level of concordance between the educational standards valid for the entire country and the actual assignment practice in the examinations carried out in the individual Länder with regard to the acquisition of the intermediate leaving certificate. It is shown that the examination tasks are highly unbalanced in their reproduction of the three dimensions of the educational standards (central themes, competencies, fields of requirements). Furthermore, the tasks are characterized by a considerable Länder-specific heterogeneity. The findings point to a discrepancy between the impact expected in education policy and the effects actually experienced, because the aim of implementing comparable examination requirements throughout the country has obviously hardly been fulfilled yet.
Keywords: Standards, Statewide Exit Exams, Implementation, Task Analysis, Mathematics
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