The purpose of this interview is to gain insight from the career of policy‐maker and researcher, Jane Oates, on the collaborations between academia and government to effect social…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this interview is to gain insight from the career of policy‐maker and researcher, Jane Oates, on the collaborations between academia and government to effect social change.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is based on an interview with Jane Oates conducted in May of 2007.
Findings
Based on her experiences, she states that social change requires a three‐way partnership between academia, government, and the people they serve. She makes specific recommendations for the ways these groups can find a common language to reach their shared goals.
Originality/value
This account provides the unique perspective of a professional who has spent years in both academia and policy‐making.
Details
Keywords
Yana van der Meulen Rodgers and Teresa Boyer
Seeks to examine the extent to which education systems around the world embrace vocational schooling and the degree to which exposure to vocational schooling differs by gender and…
Abstract
Purpose
Seeks to examine the extent to which education systems around the world embrace vocational schooling and the degree to which exposure to vocational schooling differs by gender and race.
Design/methodology/approach
Uses distributional analysis applied to cross‐country data from Unesco to examine shares of secondary school students enrolled in the vocational track, by gender. Also uses descriptive statistics based on US Department of Education data to examine fields of study within the vocational track.
Findings
The emphasis on vocational education and access to different types of training across demographic groups varies considerably around the world. European countries in particular, long known for their heavy emphasis on specialized vocational schooling, have relatively high vocational school shares in secondary school. At the other end of the distribution, almost 30 countries in the sample, most of them low‐income, have vocational school shares below 4 percent. In the majority of countries, a higher share of male secondary school students enroll in the vocational track compared with female students. Latin American countries stand out for having a high female representation among vocational school students. In the USA, male students cluster in trade and industrial courses, while female students cluster in business preparation courses. Also, white students are relatively concentrated in the trades, black and Hispanic students cluster in business courses, and Asian students are concentrated in technical courses.
Originality/value
These stylized facts set the stage for new research on vocational education and for new policy initiatives that create new opportunities for specialization in vocational training.
Details
Keywords
Iain Davies, Caroline J. Oates, Caroline Tynan, Marylyn Carrigan, Katherine Casey, Teresa Heath, Claudia E. Henninger, Maria Lichrou, Pierre McDonagh, Seonaidh McDonald, Sally McKechnie, Fraser McLeay, Lisa O'Malley and Victoria Wells
Seeking ways towards a sustainable future is the most dominant socio-political challenge of our time. Marketing should have a crucial role to play in leading research and impact…
Abstract
Purpose
Seeking ways towards a sustainable future is the most dominant socio-political challenge of our time. Marketing should have a crucial role to play in leading research and impact in sustainability, yet it is limited by relying on cognitive behavioural theories rooted in the 1970s, which have proved to have little bearing on actual behaviour. This paper aims to interrogate why marketing is failing to address the challenge of sustainability and identify alternative approaches.
Design/methodology/approach
The constraint in theoretical development contextualises the problem, followed by a focus on four key themes to promote theory development: developing sustainable people; models of alternative consumption; building towards sustainable marketplaces; and theoretical domains for the future. These themes were developed and refined during the 2018 Academy of Marketing workshop on seeking sustainable futures. MacInnis’s (2011) framework for conceptual contributions in marketing provides the narrative thread and structure.
Findings
The current state of play is explicated, combining the four themes and MacInnis’s framework to identify the failures and gaps in extant approaches to the field.
Research limitations/implications
This paper sets a new research agenda for the marketing discipline in quest for sustainable futures in marketing and consumer research.
Practical implications
Approaches are proposed which will allow the transformation of the dominant socio-economic systems towards a model capable of promoting a sustainable future.
Originality/value
The paper provides thought leadership in marketing and sustainability as befits the special issue, by moving beyond the description of the problem to making a conceptual contribution and setting a research agenda for the future.
Details
Keywords
Maria Teresa Beamond, Marina Schmitz, Miguel Cordova, Maria Vasileva Ilieva, Shasha Zhao and Daria Panina
This paper aims to clarify how business education has and should incorporate more resources, policies and stakeholder engagement towards the incorporation of sustainability, by…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to clarify how business education has and should incorporate more resources, policies and stakeholder engagement towards the incorporation of sustainability, by conducting a literature review on sustainability in business and international business education and proposing future opportunities for researchers and practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors take a systematic, qualitative analysis approach to evaluate multidisciplinary literatures on sustainability in business education. The authors identify 192 qualifying papers published in 68 journals between 2015 and 2023.
Findings
The authors propose five categories of education solutions. Four of them are integrated, in two macro–micro levels: university (stakeholders and shared-mindset change) and student (pedagogical methods and curriculum); and one at meso level: international business (holistic integration) serving to unify the university and student levels.
Research limitations/implications
The review highlights the value of applying a holistic approach and interdisciplinary pedagogical methods in future research on sustainability education in business school to effectively prepare future business leaders to contribute to a more sustainable future.
Practical implications
Insights from this review can usefully guide scholars and programme directors in their future research and administrative efforts towards business curriculum design, stakeholder management and policy-making.
Social implications
The findings highlight how by embracing holistic perspectives, proper policies and self-awareness, business education shapes the mindsets and skill sets of the next generation of socially conscious practitioners.
Originality/value
The review stands out as one of the few that offers a forward-looking trajectory for the adaptation of international business education in response to sustainability challenges, through a holistic perspective.
Details
Keywords
Günseli Berik and Cihan Bilginsoy
This paper aims to evaluate the variations in the entry and exit of women apprentices in the USA, overall and by race/ethnicity, over the 1995‐2003 period. Also aims to examine…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate the variations in the entry and exit of women apprentices in the USA, overall and by race/ethnicity, over the 1995‐2003 period. Also aims to examine how women's representation among new apprentices and their attrition and retention rates vary with individual, training program, and occupational characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
An individual‐level dataset from the US Department of Labor is used to estimate econometrically women's representation in apprenticeship programs and women's odds of completing programs.
Findings
Women's representation among new trainees is very low and deteriorating. The results confirm previous findings based on data for the early 1990s that program sponsorship has significant impact on women's representation and retention. Women have better chances of joining the high‐skill construction workforce if they enroll in union‐contractor joint programs. Joint programs feature higher shares of women in the incoming classes and higher odds of graduation in comparison with the unilateral contractor programs. While White women have higher completion rates than Latinas and Black women, the union impact on shares of enrollees is the largest for Black women and the lowest for White women.
Research limitations/implications
The dataset is not nationally representative. It covers 31 states or about 65 percent of all apprentices.
Practical implications
Union sponsorship is necessary but not sufficient to enhance women's integration in the trades. Increasing participation of women in apprenticeship and the trades requires major changes in policies, priorities, and behavior of contactors, unions, and the government to actively recruit women and improve working conditions at the construction site.
Originality/value
This is the first systematic analysis of performance of women apprentices that utilizes the most recent data from the USA.
Details
Keywords
Ellen Eardley and Jessica Manvell
The purpose of this article is to document the extent of girls' under‐representation in nontraditional high school career and technical education courses, examine the role of sex…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to document the extent of girls' under‐representation in nontraditional high school career and technical education courses, examine the role of sex discrimination in these disparities, and identify legal remedies for addressing the problem.
Design/methodology/approach
This article uses high school CTE enrollment data from 12 states to document female students' under‐representation in nontraditional courses and uses wage data to show the negative implications for girls' future earnings. Drawing on the experiences of female students, this study explains how sex discrimination contributes to their low rates of participation in nontraditional training. The study then discusses how laws and regulations at the federal and state levels may provide means to address such discrimination.
Findings
Finds high levels of sex segregation in CTE course enrollment, with female students making up on average 15 percent of students in nontraditional courses and 87 percent in traditionally female fields. Substantial evidence of sex discrimination in CTE makes a strong case for its role in contributing to girls' low enrollment in nontraditional courses. Varied state laws can be utilized to address this underlying cause.
Originality/value
While much research has looked at girls in math and science, less attention has been paid to their participation in nontraditional CTE. This paper offers quantitative evidence of girls' under‐representation in such courses and qualitative evidence of the role sex discrimination plays. Offers a unique solution by showing how state laws can be used to address such discrimination and increase girls' participation in nontraditional training.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to examine the impact of vocational training on unemployed workers not typically studied: women enrolled in engineering or computer programming training and high…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of vocational training on unemployed workers not typically studied: women enrolled in engineering or computer programming training and high school dropouts.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from New Jersey's Individual Training Grant (ITG) program and a quasi‐experimental design, the study compares the ITG groups' re‐employment and wage recovery rates with a matched comparison group.
Findings
The article finds that women enrolled in the male‐dominated fields of engineering or computer programming experience re‐employment rates that are lower than or similar to those in the comparison group, but they experience higher wage recovery in 8th and 12th quarters after claiming unemployment insurance (UI). Hispanic high school dropouts experience both higher re‐employment and wage recovery rates than their comparison group, but the wage recovery advantage disappears when those enrolled in truck driving training are removed from the sample. Further, white and black high school dropouts experience no re‐employment or wage recovery advantage. For all participants, the study finds participants experience a higher re‐employment rate than the comparison group beginning in the fifth quarter and experience no wage recovery advantage.
Research limitations/implications
To address the concern of selection bias, a difference‐in‐difference wage model controls for time‐variant differences in unobservables and an employment regression model controls for remaining differences in the matching variables.
Practical implications
These results suggest that training improves re‐employment chances and that type of training matters with respect to wage recovery. In this sample, those enrolled in truck driving training, engineering, and computer programming tended to experience higher wage recovery than their comparison group.
Originality/value
This paper examines the impact of vocational training on unemployed workers not typically studied.
Details
Keywords
This study sets out to investigate the pattern of benefits from education along the earnings distribution and compares this pattern between general and vocational/technical…
Abstract
Purpose
This study sets out to investigate the pattern of benefits from education along the earnings distribution and compares this pattern between general and vocational/technical education in Singapore, with a particular focus on male‐female differences.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantile regression methodology is used, which allows for estimates of education benefits that differentiate the contribution of the quantity and quality of education along the earnings distribution. The quantile regression estimates highlight where in the income/ability distribution the impact of education is more pronounced.
Findings
Finds that, while the pattern of returns to an additional year of education for general education follows that of other high income countries, exhibiting increasing returns to education as one goes from lower to higher income quantiles, the returns to vocational education exhibit much lower heterogeneity. Based on the findings, the vocational education system in Singapore has served women with secondary vocational qualifications particularly well. They earn more, have higher labor force participation, experience higher employment rates and are associated with a narrower gender earnings gap compared with women with general education. However, this is not the case for women with polytechnic qualifications, who earn much less than men with such qualifications.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that, by and large, Singapore's vocational education system at the secondary level has successfully addressed the needs of the industry and has contributed towards narrowing gender earnings differentials. It has also contributed towards less overall earnings inequality, because it results in less heterogeneity in the returns to education, compared with general education. However, the curricula of polytechnics need to be re‐examined to identify the cause of the sharply lower female benefits from this type of education.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the empirical literature with its use of the quantile regression methodology in evaluating the benefits of vocational versus general education for men and women.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this article is to investigate whether family background and the choice of vocational field explain the observed gap in dropout rates from vocational upper…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to investigate whether family background and the choice of vocational field explain the observed gap in dropout rates from vocational upper secondary education between natives and children of immigrants in Denmark and to investigate ethnic and gender differences in educational choices.
Design/methodology/approach
A parsimonious version of Cameron and Heckman's (2001) dynamic statistical model of educational progression is estimated. By parceling educational attainment out into a series of transitions by grade, the model is able to identify barriers to educational progression and to determine the effects of explanatory variables at different stages of the educational career. In addition, the model is able to accommodate the institutional structure of an educational system with parallel branches of study at the upper secondary level and to control for educational selection and unobserved heterogeneity.
Findings
The main findings are: that family background variables do not explain the gap in dropout rates between natives and children of immigrants; that the dropout rates from different vocational fields are significantly different but affect natives and children of immigrants equally; that girls do better than boys in immigrant families; and that intergenerational mobility is greater among children of immigrants than natives.
Research limitations/implications
The statistical model used is not available in any standard statistical package. For the purpose of this paper it was coded in GAUSS. Furthermore, the model demands fairly large data sets to be useful in empirical research.
Originality/value
The analysis provides more detailed information about differences in educational attainment between population groups than most previous studies.
Details
Keywords
Inquiry-based learning is a fruitful way to create “effective, independent learners” (Baird, 1988, p. 142) and set up the pattern for lifelong learning, but inquiry skills demand…
Abstract
Inquiry-based learning is a fruitful way to create “effective, independent learners” (Baird, 1988, p. 142) and set up the pattern for lifelong learning, but inquiry skills demand significant practice to master and incorporate in both academic and personal dimensions. The Bachelor of Health Sciences Honours program at McMaster University provides a model of an undergraduate program that balances knowledge and the complex transferrable skills associated with inquiry. By devoting considerable resources to the first year experience and integrating the curriculum so that meaningful use is made of the inquiry skills developed there, the program fosters the curiosity, confidence, and capability of students. The curriculum demonstrably meets or exceeds the standards for quality set out by governing bodies within and outside of the university known as the degree level expectations. The current chapter provides an overview of the program, including lessons for anyone engaged in curriculum design that builds undergraduate research capability.