Investigating the centrality of female and immigrant students within teacher-student interaction networks in Chile

18th January 2021 : 12:45 - 14:00

Category: Webinar

Research Group: Quantitative Methods Hub

Speaker: Dr. Lorena Ortega, Universidad de Chile

Location: Zoom webinar, registration required

Convener: Lars-Erik Malmberg

Audience: Public

Please register for the webinar, at this link.

The conceptualizations of educational inclusion, previously restricted to securing access to formal education, recently highlight the promotion of equitable social and academic relations as well. Two studies will be presented that investigated the inclusion of female and immigrant students within their class’ teacher-student interaction networks, while distinguishing by the initiator and content of interactions. The coding of videos using a systematic classroom observation protocol with a focus on dyadic interactions, allowed us to compare how and how much teachers interact with different student groups, analyse the moderating effect of academic achievement in these interactions and explore the differences among classrooms with regard to the inclusion of girls and immigrant students. Teacher-student interaction data, obtained from 79 mathematics school lessons, involving 2,295 Chilean students, were represented via sociograms and modelled using multilevel Poisson regression. We found that girls interact less frequently with their mathematics teachers in interactions of diverse content, and this is the case in interactions initiated by the teacher as well as those initiated by the student. Academic achievement moderates these differences only in pedagogical interactions initiated by students. There is also significant variation in the inclusion of girls among classrooms, which is not consistently explained by the gender of the teacher or the gender composition of the class. In relation to immigrant students, results show that the student’s country of origin significantly predicts frequency of interactions with their mathematics teacher. There is also significant variation in teacher-immigrant student interactions across classrooms, which, for pedagogical teacher-initiated interactions, is partially explained by the teacher’s attitude towards diversity in the classroom.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Ortega, L., Boda, Z., Treviño, E., Arriagada, V., Gelber, D., & Escribano, M.R. (2020). The centrality of immigrant students within teacher-student interaction networks: A relational approach to educational inclusion. Teaching and Teacher Education.

Ortega, L., Treviño, E., & Gelber, D. (2020). The inclusion of girls in Chilean mathematics classrooms: Gender bias in teacher-student interaction networks. Journal for the Study of Education and Development.