Student engagement in Higher Education, age and parental education level / Envolvimento dos estudantes no Ensino Superior, idade e habilitações acadêmicas dos pais

Within the scope of socio-cognitive theories, student engagement in school has been studied as a multidimensional construct. A four-dimensional perspective was adopted, with the dimensions: affective, cognitive, behavioural and agentic. The objective, to analyse how the variables age and parental education relate to student engagement in school. The sample consisted of 715 Portuguese public Higher Education students from the Lisbon area. The data was collected through an online survey, which included the Student Engagement in School: a Four-Dimensional Scale - Higher Education Version. Data analysis not only revealed that students of age 26 or older scored considerably higher results in engagement than younger colleagues, but also highlighted significant differences of engagement in the affective, behavioural and agentic dimensions, depending on parental education. The results, while partially corroborating the revised literature, suggest future in-depth studies.

No âmbito das teorias sociocognitivas, o envolvimento do aluno na escola tem sido estudado como um constructo multidimensional. Para este estudo, optou-se por uma perspetiva quadridimensional a partir das dimensões afetiva, cognitiva, comportamental e agenciativa. Pretendeu-se analisar como as variáveis idade e escolaridade dos pais aparecem associadas ao envolvimento dos estudantes na escola. A amostra foi constituída em 715 estudantes portugueses do Ensino Superior Politécnico público da região de Lisboa. Os dados foram recolhidos através de um inquérito online que incluiu a escala, Envolvimento dos Alunos na Escola: uma Escala Quadri-Dimensional - Versão para Ensino Superior. A análise dos dados destacou que estudantes com 26 ou mais anos mostraram resultados no envolvimento significativamente superiores aos colegas mais jovens e salientou diferenças significativas no envolvimento deles nas dimensões afetiva, comportamental e agenciativa em função do nível de escolaridade dos pais. Os resultados corroboraram parcialmente a literatura revista e sugerem futuros estudos de aprofundamento.

Trends of Social Inequalities in the Specific Causes of Infant Mortality in a Nationwide Birth Cohort in Korea, 1995–2009

The relationship between social disparity and specific causes of infant mortality has rarely been studied. The present study analyzed infant mortality trends according to the causes of death and the inequalities in specific causes of infant mortality between different parental social classes. We analyzed 8,209,836 births from the Statistics Korea between 1995 and 2009. The trends of disparity for cause-specific infant mortality according to parental education and employment were examined using the Cox proportional hazard model for the birth-year intervals of 1995–1999, 2000–2004, and 2005–2009. Adjusted hazard ratios were calculated after adjusting for infants' gender, parents' age, maternal obstetrical history, gestational age, and birth weight. An increasing trend in social inequalities in all-cause infant mortality according to paternal education was evident. Social inequalities in infant mortality were greater for “Not classified symptoms, signs and findings” (International Classification of Diseases 10th revision [ICD-10]: R00–R99) and “Injury, poisoning and of external causes” (S00–T98), particularly for “Ill-defined and unspecified causes” (R990) and “Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)” (R950); and increased overtime for “Not classified symptoms, signs and findings” (R00–R99), “Injury, poisoning and of external causes” (S00–T98) and “Conditions in perinatal period” (P00–P96), particularly for “SIDS” (R950) and “Respiratory distress syndrome of newborns (RDS)” (P220). The specific causes of infant mortality, in particular the “Not classified causes” (R00–R99 coded deaths) should be investigated more thoroughly to reduce inequality in health.