Search Results for
"human"

John M. Legge shows the many ways in which the real world diverges from economics textbooks. He argues that mainstream economic theory took a disastrous turn 140 years ago, when it attempted to use calculus to explain human behaviour. A real economy involves people who are not variables in equations. This error led to a second, mainstream economics becoming obsessed with equilibrium. However, constant change is the reality and one cannot explain the present without understanding the path taken to get here. This book presents economics in historical context. It includes a short account of the contributions by some of the key figures in economic theory, starting with Adam Smith. Smith placed great weight on morality: he believed that economic activity took place in a society and could not be justified except insofar as it advanced the interests of that society. Too many economists have come to believe that the interests of society can be measured by a number: that if a policy change raises GDP it is justified, whatever its impact on people. Legge places the economy within society, and society within the environment, explaining that every significant decision has a social and environmental impact, as well as an economic dimension. Seeking to provide answers to students, professional business managers, and those interested in the political process, this work addresses the gap between theory and reality. © 2016 by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

In recent years sport-based interventions have been implemented as a mechanism via which to target marginalised youth in relation to the development of social inclusion. Much of the political rhetoric surrounding social inclusion programmes highlights engagement with education, employment, or training, as key metrics. This has led some scholars to observe that conceptualising social inclusion in this way can act to further marginalise young people who fail to engage with these metrics. In contrast, this paper seeks to employ an alternative understanding of social inclusion, which uses the concepts of recognition and acceptance, to infer how participation in sports-based programmes may enable marginalised youth to meet mainstream societal expectations and aid with social assimilation. Drawing upon findings from two small-scale studies of sport-based interventions located in three UK cities, this paper places participant accounts at the centre of the analysis to explore broader notions of pro-social development in relation to recognition and interpersonal acceptance. The paper concludes by suggesting that within contexts in which young people are able to generate strong interpersonal relationships with key personnel (such as coaches), and which are built upon trust, recognition and developing self-worth, there is clear potential for sport-based programmes to incubate social assimilation. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Although research has identified many of the competences that human resource management (HRM) professionals need, limited research examines how competence expectations can be met in HRM courses. This study sought to generate the knowledge required to align HRM courses with competence statements in the recently revised Australian human Resources Institute Model of Excellence. To accomplish this aim, focus groups and interviews were conducted with HRM professionals from private, public and not-for-profit organisations. Findings suggest that the process of aligning course curricula with the MoE is challenging for several reasons, including: competence statements are subject to varied interpretation; subjecting each statement to a learning needs analysis is complex; it is difficult to cluster the wide range of knowledge areas that must be covered into coherent units of learning. This paper explores the appropriateness of using a generic competence model in a curricular-influencing role and outlines implications of our findings for practice and research. © 2016 Australian human Resources Institute

Humans are proposed to have evolved to learn through observation, imitation and practice or mimesis. In this article, the contribution of imitation, as an important but poorly understood aspect of mimetic learning, is advocated to create affordances for dyadic learning. However, learning through imitation is often perceived with negative connotations perhaps framed by viewpoints individuals have derived from experiences of rote learning and repetitive work. Yet, learning through imitation plays a key role in the learning of skills, including many of the non-verbal communicative and tacit aspects of trades work. This article explores the ways trade apprentices learn, with emphasis on the contribution of imitation. Recommendations to improve the reciprocal relationships between mentor and apprentice, initiated and developed through learning by ‘imitation’, are discussed and considered. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Background: Student confidence is an important contributor to a successful professional placement experience. The present study aimed to evaluate a placement preparation program for student dietitians and to assess the impact on self-rated confidence with respect to commencing placements. Methods: The present study is part of a design-based research approach that involves students in a cyclic enquiry to evaluate and improve curricula. Nutrition and Dietetics students at an Australian university participated in a 1-week mandatory workshop – Pre-Placement week (PrePW), N = 98 students: in 2015 (n = 54) and 2016 (n = 44). An online survey was conducted before and after PrePW using a five-point Likert scale (1 = not confident; 5 = very confident) to assess self-rated confidence to commence placements. Mean (SD) scores were calculated. Paired and independent t-tests evaluated within- and between-group differences, respectively. Results: Before PrePW, the mean (SD) for student confidence to commence placements overall (in all areas of practise) was ‘somewhat confident’ [2.9 (0.6) in 2015 and 3.0 (0.7) in 2016]. Students were least confident to commence Clinical Practice [2015: 2.5 (0.6); 2016: 2.8 (0.6)] compared to Food Service Management (FSM) [2015: 3.2 (0.9); 2016: 3.1 (0.9)] and Community and Public Health Nutrition (CPHN) [2015: 3.3 (0.9); 2016: 3.2 (0.8)]. Student feedback from PrePW 2015 was used to change the curriculum and PrePW program. The 2016 students reported significantly greater confidence within all areas of practice: Clinical Practice [3.4 (0.6)], FSM [3.7 (0.6)] and CPHN [3.8 (0.6)], including confidence to commence placements overall [3.6 (0.6)] (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Design-based research provides a useful framework for improvement to curricula and, in this case, was successful in enhancing student confidence in preparation for professional placement. © 2017 Commonwealth of Australia. Journal of human Nutrition and Dietetics © 2017 The British Dietetic Association Ltd.

School leavers with low educational attainment face great difficulties in their school-to-work transitions. They are, however, quite heterogeneous in terms of their personal and social resources. These within-group differences may influence who shows initiative during the school-to-work transition period and thereby helps employers recognize their learning potential at labor market entry. Yet this recognition also depends on the ways employers select applicants, which may prevent them from discovering such within-group differences. We therefore investigate the interplay between agency and its constraints, that is, whether higher cognitive and noncognitive skills and more parental resources provide low-achieving school leavers with new opportunities in the school-to-work transition period or whether their low school attainment causes the persistency of their disadvantages. We use panel data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which started in grade 9. The NEPS also includes school leavers from special-needs schools. Our sample consists of 3417 low-achieving adolescents (42% female), defined as adolescents who leave school with no or only a lower secondary school-leaving certificate. Their average school-leaving age is 16 to 17 years. Our key findings are that the transition period opens up new opportunities only for those low-achieving adolescents with better vocational orientation and higher career aspirations, leading them to make stronger application efforts. The success of youth’s initiative varies considerably by school-leaving certificate and school type but not by competences, noncognitive characteristics, and parental background. Thus, the label of “having low qualifications” is a major obstacle in this transition period—especially for the least educated subgroup. Their poor school attainment strongly disadvantages them when accessing the required training to become economically independent and hence in their general transition to adulthood. Our results are also of interest internationally, because participation in firm-based training programs functions as the entry labor market in Germany. Thus, similar explanations may apply to low-achieving adolescents’ difficulties in finding a job. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

The last 20 years have seen a substantial increase in enrolment in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in several European countries. The expansion of ECEC services inevitably requires new staff. There is however a tension between a rapid growth of services via the creation of low-paid, low-qualified jobs and the aspiration, voiced unanimously by policy makers, to improve the qualification and status of ECEC workers. This paper examines the case of the UK, where ECEC services and public expenditure devoted to them have increased substantially. It uses UK Labour Force Survey data to document changes in the pay and educational qualifications of the early education workforce. Results show how despite a general increase in the qualification level of these workers, their pay remains relatively low. Moreover, pay is found to be mostly related to characteristics of the workplace, and its access to public funding, rather than to the productive characteristics of workers. The paper concludes by arguing that the issue of low pay in ECEC is likely to become more salient in the future, as governments expand services while trying to keep down their costs. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.

Education policy is a salient topic both in political debates and in the scholarly literature. Still, the study of individual policy preferences on education policy has received little scholarly attention, mostly because existing comparative surveys provide only very crude measures on education policy. To address this research gap, we conducted a representative survey of public opinion on the details of education policy in eight Western European countries. This article, first, presents analyses of these data, focusing on people’s preferences for public expenditure on education relative to other social policies as well as its distribution across different education sectors (early childhood and pre-primary education, general schools, vocational education and training, and higher education). In contrast to existing surveys, our survey forces citizens to prioritize between different policy areas and education sectors. We investigate determinants of individual preferences, focusing particularly on self-interest, ideological norms and institutional feedback effects. We find that individual educational background, partisan ideology and having children are significantly associated with variation in preferences. Furthermore, we find tentative evidence for self-undermining institutional feedback effects. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.

Vocational education and training (VET) has been described in the sociological literature as a mixed blessing. On one hand, vocational qualifications facilitate the school-to-work transitions of youth (safety net function of VET); on the other hand, placement into vocational tracks dissuades students from attending higher education (diversion function of VET). In this study, I analyse whether VET is perceived to function as a safety net and/or a diversion route by the public at large. VET systems greatly vary across countries with regard to their perceived prestige, the involvement of social partners in the provision of training and the certification of occupational skills. Thus, I focus on whether perceptions of VET vary systematically across countries. Using Eurobarometer data from 2011, I show that in countries with occupationally oriented VET systems, which provide work-based training in the form of apprenticeships, both the safety net and diversion functions are recognized as distinctive aspects of VET. Although public perceptions of the safety net function do not vary across education groups, the analyses show that highly educated individuals are less likely than the other education groups to suggest vocational education as an option, even when they do recognize its role as a safety net. This study contributes to our understanding of the micro-level mechanisms that underlie the formation of educational preferences across social groups. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.

Owing to the recent recession, the German apprenticeship model is once again praised for smoothing out school-to-work transitions. In line with the social policy shift of favouring education as a key means to combat youth unemployment, European Union (EU) recommendations and German national policies encourage young Southern and Eastern EU citizens to apply for apprenticeship training abroad. Yet, young people wanting to go abroad are not only mobile young people but also immigrants. Given the prevalence of ethnic disparities in the German apprenticeship system, the question arises whether employers would be willing to hire these newcomers. Using a factorial survey experiment, we investigate how employers rate applications from Spanish newcomers compared to those from young immigrant descendants of Spanish origin. The results indicate that newcomers are substantially less preferred than immigrant descendants born in Germany. Employers’ expectations about newcomers’ language skills and employers’ interest in training for their own skilled labour force are key barriers to policies promoting apprenticeships abroad. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.