Vocational education,on-the-job training,and labour market integration of young workers in urban West Africa

Young people in Africa encounter many difficulties in entering the labour market and in searching for decent and productive jobs. Research on the links between formal education and vocational training and their economic returns are especially crucial in understanding the inadequate demand for their labour. This article presents evidence based on the 1-2-3 Surveys conducted in seven West African countries; the surveys provide a consistent and comparable picture of the urban youth employment situation in these countries. The analysis also indicates that vocational education could be helpful in integrating the formal sector and that it often offers better earnings and better firm performance than general education, especially at higher levels of schooling. Overall, young workers with no formal vocational education and training face poorer working conditions, while those who have had a traditional apprenticeship in a small firm occupy an intermediate position. Finally, on-the-job training plays a crucial role in the informal sector of the West African cities.     

Welcoming mobile children at school: institutional responses and new questions

Switzerland, like other countries in Europe, has long depended on migration and mobility for its economy. Facilitating the integration of migrant children in school, primarily through the acquisition of the local language, has therefore been a priority for policymakers. In recent years, mobility has been on the increase and mobility trajectories have become more diverse. A growing percentage of families arriving in the country have experienced repeated mobility and may not plan to settle in Switzerland for good. This paper examines institutional responses to the increasing number of mobile children in Swiss public schools, in particular, the manner in which such children are welcomed. It presents the main findings of an exploratory research project focused on children in repeated mobility, defined as having lived in multiple countries before their arrival in Switzerland, regardless of family background or legal status. Adopting a sociocultural psychological approach, the paper examines the macro-social level of cantonal educational policies regarding welcome processes, the meso-social level of local school policies, and the microsocial level of teachers’ practices and interactions in classrooms that welcome mobile children. Data include documentary analysis, interviews, and observations. Our analysis shows that a deficit view of mobile children and the preoccupation with language proficiency dominate policies and practices, resulting in the diversion of mobile children into special integration classes (so called “classes d’accueil” in the French speaking region, and “Integrationsklasse” in the Swiss German-speaking region). Mobility is conceptualized by Swiss policymakers, school directors, and teachers in terms of its challenges. In particular, school directors and teachers conceptualize mobility as increasing heterogeneity of the classroom. However, the situation varies greatly according to the personal orientations of school directors and teachers’ personal engagement. The paper emphasizes the ambiguous role of the integration classes: while they may impair the long-term chances of educational success by reducing academic expectations for non-native-speaking mobile children, they may also be used as “third spaces” which afford pedagogical freedom for dedicated teachers, potentially of benefit for children. The paper examines these propositions in the light of sociocultural educational literature and draws upon the case of welcoming mobile children to question a series of assumptions about the ultimate purposes of public schooling in Europe today.

     

Employability: review and research prospects

Professional transition, employment, and reemployment are major concerns for nations facing adverse economic situations. The employability construct represents a scientific challenge in order to better understand the relationship between the job seekers’ issues and the expectations of the world of work. This paper presents a review of the concept of employability. Three main perspectives (educational and governmental, organizational, and individual) that are not exclusive can be identified. This review highlights the importance of adopting a systemic integrative approach and a wider interpretation of employability. A research agenda to develop the theory and applications of the concept of employability is proposed.     

Charlotte's Birth

A young mother shares her story of normal birth at home. Her story includes a thank-you letter written to Ina May Gaskin, who shared her wisdom in her book, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth.     

Kinesthetic Perception of the Vertical as a Function of Sport Experience

Abstract

Near-infrared spectroscopy is currently used to assess changes in the oxygen saturation of the muscle during exercise. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the reliability of near-infrared spectroscopy in determining muscle oxygen saturation (StO₂) in the vastus lateralis during cycling and the gastrocnemius during running for exercise intensities at lactate threshold and maximal effort. Test-retest reliability was determined from an intraclass correlation coefficient obtained from a one-way analysis of variance. Reliability of muscle StO₂ for the gastrocnemius at lactate threshold was R = .87, and R= .88 at maximal effort. Reliability of muscle StO₂ for the vastus lateralis at lactate threshold was R= .94 and R = .99 at maximal effort.     

On domain expertise-based roles in collaborative information retrieval

Collaborative information retrieval involves retrieval settings in which a group of users collaborates to satisfy the same underlying need. One core issue of collaborative IR models involves either supporting collaboration with adapted tools or developing IR models for a multiple-user context and providing a ranked list of documents adapted for each collaborator. In this paper, we introduce the first document-ranking model supporting collaboration between two users characterized by roles relying on different domain expertise levels. Specifically, we propose a two-step ranking model: we first compute a document-relevance score, taking into consideration domain expertise-based roles. We introduce specificity and novelty factors into language-model smoothing, and then we assign, via an Expectation–Maximization algorithm, documents to the best-suited collaborator. Our experiments employ a simulation-based framework of collaborative information retrieval and show the significant effectiveness of our model at different search levels.