SoPaKo – An intervention study to strengthen social cohesion in primary school classes: Differences between treatment and control networks?

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Abstract

The social integration of children is a key function for wellbeing and a main goal for educational inclusion. Not all children, however, are socially well integrated in their classes. Research has shown that some children are more at risk of isolation or social exclusion than others (e.g. students with SEN). Previous trainings that attempted to improve social integration in classes focused on the individual child, risking further stigmatization. We developed an intervention that focuses on the class as a whole, expecting that individual integration should increase in line with class cohesion. We present the intervention and its theoretical foundation. The study design is a longitudinal quasi-experiment, in which 46 primary school classes (grade two and three, nstudent = 1065) in North‐Rhine Westphalia (Germany) were assigned to treatment and waiting-control group. Trained test administrators conducted surveys in all classes at three times of measurement. All items were read aloud. Second graders worked on the questionnaire in small groups of three to six children. Students nominated an unrestricted number of children with whom they play most by ticking names on a list of all classmates. We analyze social network data from the second time of measurement, when the treatment classes have already had the intervention and the control classes have not. We expect the intervention to have an impact on processes of network self-organization and on influences of actor attributes. More specifically, we hypothesize that the treatment networks will have more reciprocated ties, more closed and transitive tie configurations, and a more even distribution of ties (activity/popularity) than the control networks. Further, we expect actor attributes to have less influence on the formation of ties compared to control networks. We will compare the social structure of the classes by using ERGMs.

Speakers from the University of Münster

Marticke, Sophie

Professorship for methods of empirical educational research (Prof. van Ophuysen)