Our research

1 February 2022

30

ERASMUS+ KA220-VET – Cooperation partnerships in vocational education and training

Réginald Burton

Actions Intégrées de Développement ; Centre de Recherche pour l’Insertion par la Formation et le Conseil ; Cooperativa Sociale Cooss Marche Onlus Societa’ Cooperativa per Azioni ; Fundación Esplai Ciudadanía Comprometida ; LE FOREM ; Institut bruxellois francophone pour la formation professionnelle ; Reconnaître – Open Recognition Alliance

All sectors of activity, as well as actors from the training and socio-professional integration field, agree on the relevance of “behavioral know-how” in professional situations, which is commonly called “soft skills” in the framework of learning pathways. The impact of the health crisis has brutally reshaped our working world. Everyone has had to reinvent themselves, adapt and react. This insecure context, which has forced us to turn inward, has also created, as a reaction, a greater need for networking, cooperation and social contact, even more so for people with fewer opportunities, such as job seekers and adult learners with few qualifications and far away from the labor market. It has changed learning and highlighted the importance of continuing education and access to distance learning for all.

• NextStep4SFC

1 December 2020

24

Observatoire national de la qualité scolaire (ONQS) ; Observatoire national de l’enfance, de la jeunesse et de la qualité scolaire (OEJQS)

Christophe Dierendonck ; Mélanie Tinnes-Vigne ; Débora Poncelet

The Consultation nationale des acteurs de l’école fondamentale (CAEF) study aimed to answer four main research questions:

(1) How do actors position themselves in relation to the different elements of reform?
(2) How do school actors perceive their job?
(3) What are the main difficulties that teachers and educators encounter in their work?
(4) To what extent are the competency-based approach, pedagogical differentiation and formative evaluation implemented in the classroom and what are the determinants of this?

The study was carried out in two phases: (1) a large-scale consultation phase with school stakeholders by means of an online questionnaire in November/December 2021 and (2) a participatory analysis phase of the results of phase 1 during thematic workshops with different types of voluntary stakeholders in June and October/November 2022.

This scientific report, written independently by the UL team, serves as the basis for the OEJQS thematic report (in press). The results of the study are to be presented to the Chamber of Deputies and then made public on the OEJQS website during 2023.

• ORBilu-10993/54254

15 July 2019

18

Ministère de l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes

Sylvie Kerger ; Laurence Brasseur

Textbooks convey norms and values and have an impact on the socialization of students. In this research we analyze the representation of gender particularly in school textbooks of primary education.

The aim is to reveal the construction of gender inequalities in school textbooks by cataloging, questioning and analyzing gender representations in the teaching material. The subjects analyzed are: French, German, Mathematics, Science, History, Life and Society. We consider texts and images representing, for example, “typically” feminine and masculine professions, habits and characteristics that convey certain prejudices, stereotypes and values.

Les représentations du genre dans les manuels scolaires

Les représentations du genre dans les manuels scolaires – une étude à l’école fondamentale luxembourgeoise (PDF)

1 September 2021

24

Fondation Losch

Sylvie Kerger, Enrica Pianaro and Claire Schadeck

The aim of this research is to show the prevalence and the persistence of gender stereotypes in visual and written representations through (1) the counting of female, male and non-binary characters, and authors, (2) the description of professional, leisure and domestic activities classified as “feminine” and “masculine”, (3) the use of gender inclusive language, and (4) the intersectional in/visibility with race, disability, and sexual orientation.

Les représentations du genre dans les manuels scolaires – Cycle inférieur de l’enseignement secondaire (PDF)

1 September 2017

76

Chambre de Commerce ; Chambre des Salariés ; Chambre des Métiers

Claude Houssemand ; Paul Milmeister ; Merlin Rastoder

Chambre des Salariés ; Chambre de Commerce ; Chambre des Métiers ; Chambre d’Agriculture

This aim of this research project is to investigate the added value of vocational education and training (VET) and specifically of work-based training (apprentissage) for companies, students and the Luxemburgish society. For this, our survey covers the totality of students in work-based VET and a large number of companies providing training to apprentices.

The results are providing a good overview of students’ and companies’ satisfaction as well as an understanding of quality and challenges of the apprenticeship system. In a next step, companies not providing training to apprentices are being polled about their motives.

Un parcours gagnant pour les entreprises et les apprentis avec des potentialités avérées pour développer des programmes duals à tous les niveaux d’enseignement

Rapport synthétique (PDF)

15 September 2016

24

Internal Research Project

Débora Poncelet ; Joëlle Vlassis ; Mélanie Tinnes-Vigne ; Sylvie Kerger ; Christophe Dierendonck

University of Lorraine; Teacher University of Vaud; University of Liège

Our play-based approach was based on selected and adapted traditional math games, well known by families, to target competencies of counting, conservation ability and magnitude comparison as well as (de)composing numbers. The research design included one experimental group with two treatment conditions (Kindergarten Group, KG: math games in class; Kindergarten and Family Group, KFG: math games in class and at home) and one control group (CG). Early Numeric Competencies (ENC) were tested three times: before intervention (pretest), directly after intervention (posttest1) and 8 weeks after intervention (posttest2). This test was largely inspired by two validated instruments: 1) TEDI-MATH (Van Nieuwenhoven et al., 2001) and 2) TEMA-3 (Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003). To collect data among KFG families, we used three tools: a questionnaire, a logbook and a final interview. Before the intervention (from all the four countries) and after (in Luxembourg), parents filled out a questionnaire to determine their beliefs about ENC and PI. The purpose of the logbook was twofold: 1) to promote two-way communication between parents and teachers during the 8-week intervention and 2) to collect research data from families on how the games were played at home. A final interview was led, by telephone, at the end of the intervention, with volunteer Luxembourgish parents only. Multilevel regression equations were used to analyze the relationships between the intervention and the posttest scores (de Chambrier et al., 2021). The MathPlay intervention led to significantly greater mean gains than in the business-as-usual condition. But while the KG was the most beneficial to initially average and above average children, it still had a positive impact on very low achievers whereas the CG was more beneficial to very low achievers and less so to very high achievers, reducing the achievement gap between children.

01.04.2011

36

University of Luxembourg

Débora Poncelet; Véronique Pelt; Sylvie Kerger; Giovanna Mancuso; Christophe Dierendonck

École de Sanem; École de Reisdorf; Écoles de Mondercange et de Pontpierre

Since the 2000s, there has been a growing interest in the study of school-family-community relationships, given their importance for school education. Numerous longitudinal studies, syntheses and meta-analyses have highlighted the positive impact of parental involvement and school-family relationships on children’s academic performance, as well as on other conative variables such as school motivation, students’ engagement in learning tasks or development of school-appropriate behaviors (see, for example, Axford et al, 2019; Englund et al., 2004; Kim, Mok & Seidel, 2020, Roy & Giraldo-García, 2018; Huat See & Gorard, 2015). Furthermore, given the great diversity of families encountered in Luxembourg and the importance given to partnership with families in the law of February 6, 2009 on the organization of elementary schools, this topic appears to be crucial for elementary school teachers in Luxembourg.

Within the “Partners” project, a research team conducted action research with a few volunteer teachers from four elementary schools. The goal of the collaborative research was to implement concrete actions in the schools to facilitate the school-family relationship. These projects were jointly designed, developed, and implemented by the researchers, the educational teams, the parents, and even other actors at the level of the school institution (e.g., the school board). In this kind of research, the team of researchers limited itself to the role of facilitator, supporting the reflection and implementation of the innovation decided by the actors in the field. The assumption was that the problems were more likely to be thoroughly investigated by the people who experience them on a daily basis. The results were immediately implementable and met the specific requirements of the school environment engaged in innovation. Finally, the actions benefited the students, their parents, and teachers. Like any action research, the project had a dual objective: to transform reality and to gain knowledge about these transformations. The intervention mechanism we proposed was to accompany educational teams in a sample of elementary school in a specific area: strengthening school-family-community relationships.

It is in this research context that the toolbox on school-family-community relations was developed. The toolbox is based on Epstein’s typology (2009). Action proposals have been developed for the six areas of the typology: Parenting, Communication, Volunteering, Learning at home, Decision Making and Community Collaboration. The toolbox is designed for anyone interested in the relationship between school and family. Although we have worked more specifically in the context of elementary classes (cycle 3), the list of projects, created in collaboration with educational teams (teachers and parents), is intended to be an adaptable tool. With this in mind, we have established a set of guidelines to help teachers adapt the actions presented to the characteristics of their teaching environment. In short, this toolkit is not intended to be a “ready-to-use kit”, but rather a “guide” for transposing experiences from one situation to another.

La collaboration école-famille-communauté : Bôite à outiles

Compte rendu : Facteurs clés de la réussite scolaire de l’enfant