Unemployment,the Great Recession,and apprenticeship attrition in the U.S.

The author estimates the impacts of the local rate of unemployment and the Great Recession on the quit and graduation rates of the U.S. construction trade apprentices over the 2001–2014 period. Trade union participation in training sponsorship had a strong influence on attrition rates. The impacts of the business cycle and the Great Recession on the attrition rate also varied across sponsor types. During downturns, apprenticeship duration of the quitters in union-employer jointly sponsored programmes was longer, suggesting that the trainees were able to stay with the programme as jobs become scarcer. However, during the Great Recession the quit hazard among these trainees increased, which indicates declining long-term career prospects. In contrast, apprentices in unilateral multiple-employer programmes dropped out at faster rates during the downturns, except during the Great Recession. The increase in the staying power of the quitters in employer-only programmes during the Great Recession is a puzzle. The eventual probability of cancellation was lower among the union-employer joint programmes than in the employer-only programmes, although the difference narrowed down during the Great Recession.     

Winch,Christopher, and Gingell,John. 1999. Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Education. London: Routledge.

International Review of Education -     

Lords,squires, and yeomen: Collegiate middle-managers in the U.S.

This essay examines (a) the causes of growth, elaboration and differentiation in middle-level collegiate administration; (b) the roles and status of mid-level administrators; and (c) the functions of national occupational associations in the professional lives of these campus officials. It is based on data gathered in an extensive search and analysis of the literature, a survey research questionnaire, and structured interviews with more than two hundred administrators, faculty, and search committee chairpersons at twenty colleges and universities of different sizes and types.The metaphor lords, squires, and yeomen represents a conceptual model for understanding the roles and prospects of mid-level collegiate administrators: they are in the center of a status hierarchy that permits only limited mobility. The effects of organizational size and complexity on middle-management functions, the way these functions are organized, and their specialized nature have much to do with the value dilemma of service for others versus control of activities which confronts collegiate administrators in both U.S. and European institutions.This research was supported by the Exxon Education Foundation in 1977.