Las funciones culturales de la traducción: historia y traducción

The target school settings in this study were state-funded secondary schools that differ in ethos. The researcher aimed to identify two schools from the same local authority, one with an inclusive ethos and another less so, whilst being similar otherwise. A detailed conceptualisation of inclusive ethos and the systematic process that was followed to identify such schools is described below.

3.2.2.1 Conceptualisation of Inclusive Ethos

For the current research, the construct of inclusive ethos is conceptualised in two ways: objective and subjective. The objective way refers to measurable characteristics that capture the inclusive ethos of a school setting. Conversely, the subjective way pertains to the perceived construct of an inclusive school as conceived by pupils and educational staff. Each of these can be further clarified by employing both a conceptual and an operational definition.

Conceptual definitions describe the meaning of the inclusive ethos. The School Census14 is used by the UK government as a way to track social inclusion policy, by monitoring such numerical characteristics as “information on class sizes, pupils with statements, pupils with SEN but without statements, free school meals, ethnicity, absences, and permanent exclusions” (DfE, 2013). These statistics were used as an objective measure to define the inclusive ethos of a school. The second conceptual definition has been formulated by the researcher after a thorough review of the current literature, and refers to the perceived and subjective construct of an inclusive school. Collating research outcomes for various studies regarding pupils and educational staff’s perspectives on inclusive ethos, the researcher theorised two emerging themes that underpin a school’s inclusivity: inclusive educational policies and inclusive behaviour management.

Inclusive educational policies are expressed through access to equal treatment in learning and participation, encouragement and celebration of all types of academic achievement aligned with pupils’ individual needs, opportunities for collaborative work, and active

14 _{The School Census is statutory and takes place during the autumn, spring, and summer terms. All} maintained schools should take part in the census. Information drawn from https://www.gov.uk/school- census.

involvement in decision making. As evidenced in the literature, inclusive behaviour management policies are manifested through consistency, clarity, and fairness in school rules. As shown in section 2.3.5.2 of the literature review, research outcomes have elicited that when pupils are aware of the rules, experience fairness and consistency in the way teachers apply them, they are more likely to stop misbehaving, and conform to the school rules. Reduction in misbehaviour leads to fewer exclusions and thus, engenders more inclusive schools.

Operational definitions specify how the construct of inclusive ethos is measured. The first, refers to the characteristics that underpin the inclusivity of a school setting by using objective measures. Thus, rigorous statistical analysis on the School Level Census Metadata was conducted to identify the inclusivity of each school. The identification of the school’s inclusivity was made by taking into account the proportion of pupils with special educational needs, as well as the proportion of exclusions and absenteeism per school (for further information see below). The second operational definition refers to the perceived inclusivity as measured by the subjective opinion of pupils and educational staff. Specifically, in the current study, perceived inclusivity was measured by asking educational staff and pupils to complete the school ethos questionnaire (see Appendix III, and IV), where they had to state their views about the inclusivity of the school ethos. Semi-structured interviews with pupils were also applied to explore their opinion qualitatively. Finally, the schools' educational psychologists were also asked to give their professional perspectives in order to triangulate the data on the inclusivity of the schools.

3.2.2.2 Schools Ethos Identification: DfE Statistics

Schools with a specific ethos were identified for the purpose of the current research, thus demonstrating the employment of a purposive sampling strategy.

3.2.2.2.1 School Identification Process: “Pairs of Schools”

For the identification of settings with different ethos (i.e. inclusive vs. less-inclusive) a rigorous statistical analysis was carried out, involving the School Level Census Metadata along with statistics of the local authorities of Inner and Outer London provided by the Department for Education (DfE, 2013).

3.2.2.2.2 Total Number of BESD15 _{and MLD Pupils}

Initially, all mainstream secondary schools of all the local authorities within the Inner and Outer London were identified. The first aim was to detect those schools that had high numbers of BESD and MLD16 pupils, the two SEN categories on which the current study is focused. Schools that had more than 50 pupils in one and no fewer than 18 in the other of these SEN categories, or at least 25 pupils in both categories were included. Conversely, schools that had a lower number of pupils than the above cut-off criteria were excluded from the subsequent analysis, as they would have restricted the size of the recruitment sample.

3.2.2.2.3 School Pairs

The next step was to identify pairs of the remaining schools from each local authority that differed in inclusivity, but had scored similarly on the Ofsted inspection17 and had relatively similar socioeconomic and ethnicity characteristics. The comparison, in terms of the inclusivity, was based on the percentage of SEN pupils in the school and the percentage of absenteeism, which included both authorised exclusions and unauthorised absences. The socioeconomic status and the ethnicity background were based on the percentage of pupils’ premium (i.e. eligibility for free school meals), and on the percentage of pupils who spoke English as a first language.

3.2.2.2.4 Refinement of the Schools’ Identification Process

There are five criteria on which the identification of the “pair of schools” was based.

15 _{Pupils with behaviour, emotional social difficulties (BESD). Since the fieldwork was carried out during} 2012-2013, when the old SEN Code of Practice (2001) was still in use, from now on the term BESD will be strictly used to refer to statistics taken from DfE during that period, while for other reference the new applied term SEMH will be used across the study.

16_{Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD).}

17 _{Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. It inspects and regulates} services that care for children and young people, and those providing education and skills for learners of all ages; retrieved from http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/about-us.

First criterion: The “inclusivity” of each school was measured by the difference in the

percentage of SEN pupils in each school with the average for the Local Authority (LA) to which it belonged. The criterion for pairing two schools was satisfied when one school had a higher percentage, and the other had a lower percentage of pupils with SEN than the percentage of SEN pupils who attended mainstream schools within the LA. For a better conceptualisation of schools’ inclusivity, the differences in the percentages of pupils identified as having SEN were banded, and the schools were classified, as presented in Table 3.1.

Second criterion: Another indication of “inclusivity” was the percentage of exclusions.

School pairs were considered to be the ones that had high and low percentages of these, when compared with the LA’s average. Schools with a lower percentage of exclusions were characterised as inclusive, while those with a higher percentage were characterised as less so.

Table 3.1 Classification of Inclusivity among Schools

Intervals (difference in percentages between the school and LA)

Characterisation 40 – 30 Extremely inclusive 30 – 20 Highly inclusive 20 – 10 Very inclusive 10 – 5 Fairly inclusive 5 – 0 Just inclusive 0 – −5 Slightly inclusive −5 – −10 Not inclusive

The percentages of exclusions were calculated by dividing the sum of the sessions that had authorised exclusions by the sum of possible sessions both for the schools and LAs.

% 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 =𝐬𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

% 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐀 =𝐬𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

Similar calculations were made for the percentage of unauthorised absenteeism in a school, and at the LA level.

Third criterion: Only schools with similar Ofsted reports were paired. According to

Ofsted, schools are assessed on a 4-point scale: 1 (Outstanding), 2 (Good), 3 (Satisfactory) and 4 (Inadequate) in relation to the effectiveness, quality and standards in education.

Fourth criterion: Paired schools had similar socioeconomic status, which was controlled

as it could have an influence on pupils’ belonging. Findings in literature are contradictory with respect to this, so this variable was controlled to ensure quality of results. The variable was manipulated by taking into account the percentage of pupils eligible for pupil premium18 (or free school meals) at each school. Pairs of schools were considered to be those that did not differ by more than 8 percent.

Fifth criterion: Due to contested views found in the literature, ethnicity was controlled

by taking into account the percentage of pupils speaking English as a first language. Pairs of schools were considered to be those that did not differ by more than 19 percent. After the above statistical analysis was completed, 20 pairs of schools from 13 LAs of Inner and Outer London were identified and approached to take part in the current study (detailed analysis for each school can be provided in excel format on request). It should be noted that the five criteria used were the five best operational criteria that could be identified to objectively measure “inclusivity”. The characteristics of the recruited schools are provided in section 3.13.