Young people are surrounded by many peers in their daily lives. One of the most important topics in adolescent development is peer influence among adolescents. But which peers influence what? A paper by Mary Page Leggett-James, René Veenstra, Goda Kaniušonytė and Brett Laursen answers part of that question. The authors directly compare the influence of… Read More Not all peers are equal: who influences what among young people?
Curiosity has an almost mythical status in education. We want to spark it, stimulate it, and place it at the centre of learning. That makes sense. If you are curious, you want to know, you seek information, and you learn. A lot of research supports that idea. But, as is often the case, the story… Read More Is curiosity always good for learning?
Last week I was staying in a hotel for work. The kind of hotel where everything feels right. Clean design, nice materials, everything neatly integrated. Until I took a shower. I wanted to turn the tap. Or rather, I tried to turn it on. Because there was no tap anymore. You can still adjust the… Read More Sometimes, Things Are Simply… Done
It has been going on for some time. As a parent today, you can track almost everything about your child. Grades, feedback, assignments, deadlines, and sometimes even how often your child has revisited something. Through Smartschool, apps, emails and all kinds of dashboards. The stream of data and information never really stops, although some good… Read More When parental involvement becomes performance management
You have probably noticed it too. When it comes to young people’s mental well-being and, more specifically, the decline of it, there is almost always a clear explanation somewhere. Social media, smartphones, parents, school pressure, the spirit of the times… Pick one, and you have a story that sounds convincing and is easy to remember.… Read More Can Soft Drinks Affect Teen Anxiety? A New Study Adds a Small Piece to a Big Puzzle
What helps with ADHD? You might immediately think of specific medications or therapies. But as you read this umbrella review by Gosling and colleagues in the BMJ, it quickly becomes clear that this is not a study that ends with one clear answer. Quite the opposite. Its main contribution is to bring structure to a… Read More What works for ADHD? A new review highlights the gap between effect and evidence
The digital divide – and its effect on reading – is often framed as a question of access. Those with fewer resources have fewer devices and less bandwidth. Those with more resources have more technology. It sounds simple. Too simple. And it ignores a common mistake in how we think about inequality called Gap Thinking.… Read More The digital divide is often not where we think it is
Sometimes, a finding does not overturn a field but quietly reframes it. That is how I read the recent population-based study in The BMJ by Caroline Fyfe and colleagues on time trends in the male-to-female ratio in autism diagnoses. For decades, the story seemed relatively stable. Autism spectrum disorder was said to be three to… Read More Rethinking the Male to Female Ratio in Autism
We like to tell ourselves that education is an elevator. If you have talent and show effort, you go up. The path may be steep, but the rules are clear and apply to everyone. For a long time, that story held some truth. In places like Flanders, education did function as a powerful engine of… Read More Meritocracy Is Not an Elevator, but an Escalator with Missing Steps
Communication between parents and school has become increasingly digital in recent years. Email, parent portals, learning platforms and messaging apps are now the backbone of how many schools communicate with families. It is often assumed that this is more efficient. But what do parents themselves actually think about it? That question is central to a… Read More What Parents Expect from Digital Communication with Schools