2017 - Currently : Data Analyst
- Production of school-level indicators for the school monitoring
- Production of indicators and analyses on the educational system of the FWB
- Estimation of the requirement regarding the creation of new places in schools
- Production of geographical indicators
- Research
Previous working experiences
Equal opportunities in educational systems with high levels of social and ethnic segregation
Principal investigator: Dirk Jacobs
Although a gap in educational performance of migrant children compared to children without a migration background can be observed in most industrialized countries, it is particularly large in countries as Belgium, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, as has been attested by the PISA-data. Social and ethnic segregation, which is particularly high in these educational systems, seems to be one of the important explanatory factors. This project seeks to disentangle what are the crucial factors by which this highlevel of segregation impacts on unequal opportunities for immigrant children. Going beyond the classic composition effect model (looking at peer group effects, i.e. positive or negative influences of pupils on each other), this project wants to also examine the potential impact of differentiated teacher profiles on group performance. The project wishes to test the hypothesis that the link between school composition and educational performance is a (partly) spurious effect, caused by mediating effect of teacher characteristics. We hypothesize that better skilled and more positivelyoriented teachers are overrepresented in schools with an 'easier' school population, while so-called 'difficult' schools (populated by working-class immigrant children) have difficulty in attracting and - especially - keeping competent and motivated staff. In order to examine this hypothesis a mixed methods approach will be used, combining quantitative statistical analysis (on new and existing data, for instance multi-level analysis ofthe PISA-data set and other eligible datasets), qualitative case studies and focus groups. Secondary analysis of existing data-sets (PISA, TIMMS, PIRLS) will be undertaken and new data will be collected (taking the Flemish and Francophone educational systems in Belgium as case-studies).
Place: Université libre de Bruxelles - GERME
(2016 - 2017). Postdoctoral researcher
(2012 - 2016). PhD student
- Measure of segregation and its effect, including, the effect of school composition
- Statistical modelling (hierarchical modelling, factor analyses, structural equation modelling, segregation indexes)
- Analysis of local and international data
- Data collection and linkage with administrative data
- Collaboration in working group for the Educational reform ("Pacte pour un enseignement d'excellence")
- Collaboration in production of the new administrative socioeconomic index
- Publication of scientific papers and papers for the general public
- Thesis: Little Matthew has also chosen the wrong school: secondary analyses of compositional effect in a segregated educational system
- Jury: Dirk Jacobs (supervisor), Andrea Rea, Catherine Vermandele, Marc Demeuse, Orhan Agirdag
Programmer Analyst at the Statistical Service of the Federation Wallonnie-Bruxelles
(2007 - 2012). Entreprise des technologies nouvelles de l'information et de la communication (ETNIC - French-speaking community)
- Students database
- School dashboard for basic and secondary education (TABOR)
- Indicators of the French-speaking community education
- Data Warehouse