Women in STEM Majors and Professional Outcome Expectations: The Role of Living-Learning Programs and Other College Environments

Using data from the 2004–2007 National Study of Living Learning Programs, the only national dataset offering longitudinal information on outcomes associated with living-learning (L/L) program participation, this study investigated the role of L/L programs and other college environments in the professional outcome expectations of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. Specifically, we examined an overall measure of professional outcome expectations, along with participants’ anticipation of the chances that they will “get a good job in their field,” “achieve success in their career,” and “combine a professional career with having a balanced personal life.” Findings indicated that attending a coeducational STEM L/L program and discussing academic and career issues with peers were positively related with three of the outcome measures. Additional findings spoke to the importance of self-efficacy and interactions with diverse peers in the development of professional outcome expectations among women in STEM. Implications are presented for higher education institutions’ efforts to support coeducational and women-only STEM-related L/L programs, peer and faculty interactions, and diverse peer interactions.     

高职院校教师专业发展规划研究

高职院校教师专业发展规划设计,是教师专业发展的保证,也是提高高职院校教师队伍素质的关键。在调查中发现,大部分教师对于从事的职业具有较高的认同、重视个人职业发展,但专业发展规划还需要加强、希望自己的职业生涯发展能够得到院校的支持。高职院校有必要基于各展所长、分类发展的原则,帮助教师做好专业发展规划设计。通过对教师进行分层和分类,帮助教师进行专业发展定位、帮助教师制定个人专业发展方案,设计个性化的专业发展目标和发展路径、设计不同类型教师的专业发展的支持框架,为教师专业发展提供全方位支持等措施,达到实施教师职业发展规划的效果。     

Women teachers in Hong Kong: stories of changing gendered identities

In a time of mass schooling in most parts of the world, the discourse of the “woman primary teacher” is often the subject of discourse. Yet most stories of these women teachers emerge from other (Western) contexts, with little known about how changing education processes affect the gendered identities of women in other cultural settings. This paper explores how women teachers negotiate their gendered identities in Hong Kong, where modernization has already mingled with the indigenous Chinese culture. It provides the stories of four Chinese women teachers as they engage in ongoing construction and negotiations of gendered identities over their life histories in Hong Kong. All are ethnically Chinese, of different ages and at different stages of their personal and professional lives, and all have grown up in Hong Kong. A framework of post-colonial concepts of hybridity and border crossing helps to suggest how identity resources develop in relation to a range of contemporary practices which are experienced as both pressures and opportunities. These Chinese women teachers' identities are seen to be complex, fluid and multi-faceted, continually under construction in their daily lives, with changes experienced in both work and family settings.     

Research: Students' Perceptions of Need for Personal Counseling Services in Community Colleges

Although the need for personal counseling services is on the rise across college campuses in the United States, many community colleges do not offer personal counseling services on campus. Instead, community college counseling services focus primarily on academic and career advising. The purpose of this study was to survey community college students in North Carolina to determine their interest in and need for a personal counseling center on campus. Participants were 134 men and 202 women, 18–68 years of age. Of the participants, 70% indicated that having a personal counseling center on campus would be “very helpful” or “helpful.” Results are discussed, and recommendations are made for college counselors working in community college settings.     

高校职业生涯规划课程辅导探析

大学生就业及职业发展是当今社会与高校关注的焦点,高校职业生涯规划课程辅导是引导大学生明确职业选择与定位、提高学习积极性、实现人职匹配、个人发展与社会需求相统一的重要措施.我国高校大学生职业规划起步较晚,仍存在诸多问题,近年来针对大学生职业生涯规划的现状与改进措施,国内学者进行了一系列研究探索,就近年来大学生职业生涯规划...     

Understanding higher education-based teacher educators’ identities in Hong Kong: a sociocultural linguistic perspective

While teacher educator identities have received increasing attention over the past decade, there is a lack of research on teacher educators’ professional identities in the complex and shifting higher education contexts. Informed by the sociocultural linguistic perspective, this study investigates two language teacher educators’ professional identities in Hong Kong universities. The findings show that the participants discursively constructed their identities, such as “accidental teacher educator,” “teacher educator-researcher,” “struggling researcher,” “teacher of teachers,” and “inactive researcher” in their professional work. By drawing on the three interrelated processes of identity formation (i.e. adequation/distinction, authentication/denaturalisation, and authorisation/illegitimation), the study adds to our knowledge of the complex and contested nature of teacher educator identity in relation to the ongoing restructuring and reform in higher education. The study concludes with some implications for teacher education and higher education.     

Constructing a Sense of Purpose and a Professional Teaching Identity: Experiences of Teacher Candidates with Disabilities

Abstract

Using grounded theory, we examined the ways in which undergraduate teacher candidates with disabilities developed a sense of purpose and constructed professional identities. Our findings suggest K-12 experiences with advocacy as well as exclusionary school experiences influenced their emerging professional identities. Resistance to a deficit view of disability was central to teachers’ professional identities and influenced their desire to become “change agents” in their future professions. We describe collegiate experiences that affirmed or presented roadblocks to their career path.     

The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities

In much educational literature it is recognised that the broader social conditions in which teachers live and work, and the personal and professional elements of teachers' lives, experiences, beliefs and practices are integral to one another, and that there are often tensions between these which impact to a greater or lesser extent upon teachers' sense of self or identity. If identity is a key influencing factor on teachers' sense of purpose, self‐efficacy, motivation, commitment, job satisfaction and effectiveness, then investigation of those factors which influence positively and negatively, the contexts in which these occur and the consequences for practice, is essential. Surprisingly, although notions of ‘self’ and personal identity are much used in educational research and theory, critical engagement with individual teachers' cognitive and emotional ‘selves’ has been relatively rare. Yet such engagement is important to all with an interest in raising and sustaining standards of teaching, particularly in centralist reform contexts which threaten to destabilise long‐held beliefs and practices. This article addresses the issue of teacher identities by drawing together research which examines the nature of the relationships between social structures and individual agency; between notions of a socially constructed, and therefore contingent and ever‐remade, ‘self’, and a ‘self’ with dispositions, attitudes and behavioural responses which are durable and relatively stable; and between cognitive and emotional identities. Drawing upon existing research literature and findings from a four‐year Department for Education and Skills funded project with 300 teachers in 100 schools which investigated variations in teachers' work and lives and their effects on pupils (VITAE), it finds that identities are neither intrinsically stable nor intrinsically fragmented, as earlier literature suggests. Rather, teacher identities may be more, or less, stable and more or less fragmented at different times and in different ways according to a number of life, career and situational factors.     

基于“社交-机会”模型的个人财富积累影响因素仿真研究

目前世界个人财富差距逐渐拉大,研究影响社会财富分配的原因对于缩小财富差距具有重要意义。人与人之间财富的不平等分配,可能是由于他们在天赋、技能、智力等方面自然差异的结果。对人生正面影响机会、负面影响挫折与个体间交互的社交等因素进行建模与分析。将机会、挫折与社交能力作为影响财富积累的因素进行综合考虑,采用基于代理的方法进行仿真,量化实际的机遇、挫折和社交能力在成功的职业生涯中的作用。提出“社交—机会”（SO）模型。对一批工作年限为40年的人群职业发展情况进行仿真。研究表明,机会在成功个体中起着重要作用,其影响可以部分弥补挫折对个人造成的打击,且重要性优于社交能力。同时,社交能力强的人在生活中更容易取得成功。机会和挫折在个人成功中体现出非常明显的初始敏感性,早期出现机会较多的人成功的可能性更高。     

WOMEN FACULTY: SATISFACTION WITH EMPLOYMENT IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

To ascertain the satisfaction of women full‐time community college faculty with their employment in the community college, an open‐ended questionnaire was sent to over 100 women faculty in the Chicago City Colleges. Although the low response rate precludes much generalizability, the responses indicate that most women in the study found employment in the community college to be ideal for them. The employment enabled them to find professional fulfillment without the pressure to publish and with sufficient time for family responsibilities. Reservations about how “ideal” employment in the community college is for women stemmed from concerns about the institution's negative image. University researchers who decry teaching in the community college as marginalization of women as faculty are diminishing the achievements of the many women who find teaching in the community college to be ideal employment.     

Filling the Space: Education,Community, and Identity in British Internment Camps during World War II

The British government interned 24,000 men and4000 women of “enemy” nationality living in Britain in the spring of 1940. Some were Nazis but most anti‐Nazi Jewish refugees. Using oral histories, supplemented by documentary sources, this paper explores the experiences of these refugees, especially their educational experiences. It describes how, with little outside assistance, the refugees developed a rich cultural and educational life in the empty space of the internment camps, creating “universities”, technical schools, children's schools, newspapers, lectures, concerts, and art exhibits. Emphasis is placed on the refugees ‘ educational and cultural agency, or activism; on the educational impact of age, gender, and other forms of diversity; and on the refugees’ use of education to help them cope with wartime changes in their social and political status and in their personal identities.     

Positioning ourselves in our academic lives: exploring personal/professional identities,voice and agency

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a rationale for understanding personal/professional identities to support personal/professional learning and positioning in academe and higher education. It explains the importance of women writing and speaking out the stories of their lives (everyday and academic), having their voices heard and responded to, and using embodied knowledge to question and challenge workplace systems and structures of power and sexism and invisibility. Importantly, this paper opens the space for women’s visibility, voice and agency in academic and educational life.     

Defining and Measuring College and Career Readiness: A Validation Framework

This article reviews the intended uses of these college‐ and career‐readiness assessments with the goal of articulating an appropriate validity argument to support such uses. These assessments differ fundamentally from today's state assessments employed for state accountability. Current assessments are used to determine if students have mastered the knowledge and skills articulated in state standards; content standards, performance levels, and student impact often differ across states. College‐ and career‐readiness assessments will be used to determine if students are prepared to succeed in postsecondary education. Do students have a high probability of academic success in college or career‐training programs? As with admissions, placement, and selection tests, the primary interpretations that will be made from test scores concern future performance. Statistical evidence between test scores and performance in postsecondary education will become an important form of evidence. A validation argument should first define the construct (college and career readiness) and then define appropriate criterion measures. This article reviews alternative definitions and measures of college and career readiness and contrasts traditional standard‐setting methods with empirically based approaches to support a validation argument.     

Reproducing “academic successors” or cultivating “versatile experts”: influences of doctoral training on career expectations of Chinese PhD students

This investigation focuses on Chinese doctoral students’ career expectations, and examines how the students’ career expectations changed over time under the influence of doctoral training based on survey data of 1467 doctoral students from 8 Chinese universities. Doctoral students’ evaluations of doctoral training were identified. The examination indicates that more than half of doctoral students expect a non-academic profession, and more than 70% of students did not alter their professional expectations radically over time. Logistic regression model results indicate that doctoral students’ career expectations and their changes over time were influenced by doctoral training in their university environment, students’ relationships with supervisors, and students’ experiences of collaboration with non-academic organizations. Doctoral students are dissatisfied with doctoral training that does not encourage and prepare them for diverse career paths. We conclude that in the present environment, the goal of doctoral training should not only be the reproduction of “academic successors” but also be the cultivation of “versatile experts.”     

Soft and hard variables in determining pre‐service teachers' intentions and decisions to pursue a special education career

This study examined the roles of hard variables and soft variables in determining college teachers' intentions to pursue a special education career and education majors' actual decisions to major in special education. This study surveyed 243 college students taking special education courses at a state university, including 213 education majors. The survey questions included four blocks of variables, pertaining to demographics, training and work experience, soft variables (i.e., personal connections to people with disabilities, personal value and commitment and perceived social support) and hard variables (i.e., estimated salary, workload, professional development opportunities and job security). Results suggest that (1) after controlling for other variables, hard factors such as salary did not add significant contributions to college students' intention or education majors' actual action to pursue a special education career; (2) soft variables, such as value, commitment to special education and perceived social support, significantly predicted college students' intention to pursue a special education career, but did not significantly influence education majors' actual decision to choose a special education program, and (3) workloads significantly affect education majors' decisions making decisions of enrolling in a special education program. Implications are discussed about the importance of enhancing soft‐variable aspects of working conditions for special education recruitment and retention.     

The Female Stranger in a Male School

A questionnaire was issued to 18 girls undertaking their Year 12 studies at an Australian private Catholic boys’ day school of 700 students. The questionnaire encompassed several factors in regard to gender issues and differentiation in education — subject choices, career ambitions, interaction between the sexes, female friendships, perception of gender differentiation and stereotyping in teaching styles and school structures. The girls were also asked to consider various feminist principles in relation to personal future goals. The theoretical framework within which the study was conducted was Schutz's notion of the “stranger” attempting to interpret and accommodate to the “cultural patterns” of the “approached group”; of the “thinking‐as usual” of the “foreign group” confronting that of the “approached group” and its “unquestioned and unquestionable reality”. The results indicate the girls’ high level of awareness of gender differentiation amongst peers, teachers and in‐school structures; criticism of and unwillingness to accept the new “cultural pattern”; and a modelling of their future lives along liberal feminist principles.     

95后大学生“慢就业”现象成因及引导策略——以浙江省X高校为例

大学生就业问题始终是国家和社会关注的焦点,伴随着市场经济的多元化,社会发展的多样性,大学生的求职选择也在急剧转变,尤其是95后大学生“慢就业”现象愈加凸显。通过对95后大学生“慢就业”现象的调查发现,成因呈现正负极分化的意见倾向。基于此,探索政府、学校、家庭、社会、个人的多维联动分层次、分阶段、分类别的择业教育,助力95后大学生根据自身特质合理规划择业方向,客观看待“慢就业”有促进意义。     

大学生职业生涯规划教育的问题与对策

职业生涯规划不仅影响大学生学习,而且影响他们将来的职业成长。高校应大力开展大学生职业生涯规划教育和指导,使大学生根据自身的实际情况和社会发展需要,制定适合自己职业成长的职业生涯规划。虽然政府和高校都十分重视大学生职业生涯规划教育,但是高校的职业生涯教育体系还不完善。大学生就业心理不成熟,高校应明确职业生涯规划教育目标,把握职业生涯规划教育与专业教学的关系,引导大学生积极参与社会实践,充分利用网络技术开展职业生涯规划教育,以提高大学生职业生涯规划教育的实效性。     

Diversifying Academic and Professional Identities in Higher Education: Some management challenges

This paper draws on an international study of the management challenges arising from diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education. These challenges include, for instance, the introduction of practice‐based disciplines with different traditions such as health and social care, the changing aspirations and expectations of younger generations of staff, a diffusion of management responsibilities and structures, and imperatives for a more holistic approach to the “employment package”, including new forms of recognition and reward. It is suggested that while academic and professional identities have become increasingly dynamic and multi‐faceted, change is occurring at different rates in different contexts. A model is offered, therefore, that relates approaches to “people management” to different organisational environments, against the general background of increasing resource constraint arising from the global economic downturn.     

Stuck and sticky in mobile academia: reconfiguring the im/mobility binary

Dominant maternal ideologies impinge upon the career progression of academic mothers and non-mothers. Using “narratology” as a theoretical lens, this article offers insights into the working lives of academic mothers and non-mothers by drawing upon narratives collected by phenomenologically interviewing Palestinian women academics working at Palestinian universities. The analysis of the emerging persistent narratives shows that, as women, both mothers and non-mothers are influenced by socially constructed notions of “motherhood” and are accordingly put at a disadvantage within academia. In Palestine’s conservative, patriarchal context, academic non-mothers are expected to shoulder the burden of care within their families and to extend their mothering capacity to their students and co-workers. Furthermore, this study contributes to the contemporary debates on the tensions that exist between the prevailing discourses of the “altruistic mother” and the “career woman,” as well as the institutional demands that restrict women’s ability to simultaneously fulfill their work expectations and domestic roles.