Journal of Educational Sciences

10

Authors: Usama HEIB, Theofild-Andrei LAZĂR

In Israel, the awareness on the youth dropout from school problem has increased in the last decade. There is no doubt that dealing with this phenomenon poses a challenge to the Israeli society and to the authorities responsible for educational services. It turns out that certain groups among the Israeli population are at a higher risk of dropping out from school than others. As a result of it, many teenagers from these groups do not complete their high school studies and are unable to integrate in a qualitative and significant manner in the army and the labour market. Moreover, dropping out of the education system may have a significant impact on the mental and economic well-being of young generations of citizens. Therefore, preventing the problem of dropout and helping the youths to get back into the loop is a tremendous challenge to the Israeli education system. Even if in the last decade Israel registered lower rates of educational dropout then before, middle, and high-school students are still struggling with the issue. Therefore, the article underlines theoretical aspects regarding educational dropout as general framework and presents the specifics of the phenomenon in the Israelian educational system. The last part of the paper follows, based on secondary data analysis extracted from national official data, the differences between the two main state educational systems in Israel (Hebrew and Arabic) in terms of tendencies on educational dropout in the last ten school years. The data reveals that, even if there is progress in preventing educational dropout in both systems, the Arabic system registers significantly higher rates that the Hebrew educational system.

11

Authors: Elena-Alina VOAIDEȘ - COJAN , Theofild-Andrei LAZĂR

Higher education dropout, or abandonment, represents a contemporary worldwide socioeconomic problem that may be one of the main barriers in the future efforts of the younger generations to bring the world economy forward. Why do students leave higher education prematurely? What can be done to help solve this problem? Does our Higher Education System have a coherent support system to prevent dropout? are the core questions on this important issue. The role of education in the young generation’s development and the different factors that support or impede this process represent frequently researched topics in the field of applied socio-human sciences, especially during the last decades that are also characterised by important changes in the educational services delivery. The current article constitutes the preliminary work for a future doctoral thesis that aims to investigate the issue of contemporary educational dropout in Romanian universities following data from the last decade. Firstly, some theoretical elements on educational dropout in general will be explored, starting by defining the concept, continuing with the exploration of the main theories and finalising by detailing the main factors that influence university dropout. The last part of the present work follows as a study case the dropout rates of the last three generations of bachelor level students from a social sciences faculty of a state university from Romania. Based on secondary data analysis, the dropout rates are calculated in four steps in order to reveal the dynamics of the process during a bachelor study cycle, being presented the specificities of all four departments of the faculty.

16

Authors: Speranța Rodica Pantelie

The first year of life is an essential phase for all psychological areas in the child development. The key competences, vital for all development processes of the child, focus on the communication and the socio-emotional competencies, mostly because the infant is strongly dependent of adult care environment. The quality of the primary caregiving relationship can configure the cognitive, affective and social development of the child in the first year of life. This study is aiming to identify the objective and psychological factors related to the development of early communication competences of the child in the first year of life and to identify the best predictors of these competencies, in order to conceptualize the best strategies to help the parents in their parental educational tasks and to prevent any delays in infant development. The study identifies a complex system of factors influencing the infant's communication skills, the prerequisites of communication being in relation both with the individual characteristics of the child in the first year of life, mainly the temperament and resilience, and with maternal and paternal factors, such as emotional maturity, patterns of primary attachment of the parents and the mother/father reflective functioning.