Hello all...
I'll take the plunge in this thread... For those who do not know me, I've posted an introduction in the general discussions forum.
About acceleration "positives" and "negatives", I do not have a synthetic article to submit on acceleration, so unfortunately I don't think it's something which you can use, but in my country:
- the % of students with one grade skip or more entering an average university is around 5%
- the % of students with one grade skip or more entering the more selective part of the system (which probably serves some 5-10% of the population) is 15%
- I could not find again the % of students with one grade skip or more entering the most selective University, but, if I remember well, it must be around one third.
As for social issues... I think that, if we were a little less strongly set against acceleration, it would be much less of a social issue. In the old times (in my parents' times, around the sixties), in my country, 20% of kids or so were grade skipped... When I was in school, two grade skips were exceptionnal, but one skip was "normal enough", with, in my environment, some 10% of kids who had skipped a grade... Nowadays, it is much more uncommon, with, in many places, something like 1 grade skipped kid every two classes... and then, it becomes more of an issue to have been skipped, because of the environments' prejudice rather than because of the grade skip per se.
Ah, by the way, my parents' generation is well-adjusted enough, despite the high percentage of skips!
Light
