Ist Akademikermangel unvermeidbar?

Für die kommenden Jahre wird ein drastischer Akademikermangel in Deutschland vorausgesehen. In den letzten 150 Jahren sind Akademikermangelphasen wiederholt aufgetreten. Der Beitrag verknüpft bildungshistorische und aktuelle Daten, um einen Mechanismus zu rekonstruieren, der aus einer Akademikermangelphase unausweichlich die n?chste entstehen l?sst. Er besteht aus der Folge von Eigenausbauphasen des Bildungssystems und Breitenwachstumsphasen der anderen akademischen Berufe. Die Unvermeidlichkeit des Mangels ergibt sich daraus, dass die Berufsdauer der Lehrer/-innen gleich lang ist wie diese Phasenfolge (ca. 30–35 Jahre). In der „Tiefe“ dieses Mechanismus liegen die Altersstrukturwellen der Lehrer, die die Zeitpunkte der Mangelphasen bestimmen.     

Towards a Realist Sociology of Education: A Polyphonic Review Essay

This review essay evaluates Karl Maton's Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education as a recent examination of the sociological causes and effects of education in the tradition of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu and the British educational sociologist Basil Bernstein. Maton's book synthesizes the scholarship of Bourdieu and Bernstein and complements their work with “discoveries” from the world of systemic functional linguistics to produce a new “realist sociology of education.” It does so by means of Legitimation Code Theory, defined as a “toolkit” to analyze knowledge construction in cultural fields, especially education. The authors of this review essay take a polyphonic approach in assessing this ambitious synthesis, offering four perspectives on Maton's book. Brian Barrett provides a Bernsteinian perspective; Dan Schubert approaches the book from his grounding in Bourdieu; and Susan Hood contributes a view from systemic functional linguistics. Michael Grenfell weaves these three perspectives together and provides introductory and concluding reflections. They aim, through their combined expertise, to use Maton's book as an occasion to take stock of the state of the field of sociology of education generally and to reflect on the questions: What is its nature and what type of knowledge does it express? To what uses may it be set and what is its place within the larger project of educational theory?     

Work integrated learning for engineering qualifications: a spanner in the works?

Work-integrated learning (WIL) has been identified as a way of equipping graduates with attributes that make them work-ready. Many higher education institutions (HEIs) require their students to go through a compulsory work place learning form (WPL) of WIL. The complications of WPL can affect HEIs’ student throughput. To address this challenge, a university of technology (UoT) in South Africa is curriculating engineering diplomas and degrees which do not make WPL a compulsory module. This is in line with the new Higher Education Qualifications Sub-framework and Engineering Council of South Africa requirements. We employed in-depth interviews to gain an insight into the new programmes without WPL. Our findings indicate that WPL, in its current form, does not make graduates work-ready. Employers use it either to get extra cheap labour or as a recruitment process. It is envisaged that the new programme will increase the UoT’s throughput without adverse effects on the graduates’ attributes. These findings have important implications for HEIs, students and employers. It implies that HEIs will greatly improve throughput, which is desirable for both the HEIs and the students. For employers, this means they will have qualified people who might need higher wages, in comparison with students on WPL and they will need to plan for more in-house induction.     

Grenzen von leistungsbasierten Auswahlverfahren

Meritocracy, that is to admit only the “best” if there is a limited number of positions, is seen as a central moment of mobility in modern societies. A key example is the high school Abitur-examination in Germany, where the average score can be used to filter applicants for over-subscribed study places in universities. Based on a quantatitive-formal argument, this article firstly deduces that the prognosis of the score of the final exam can be improved only marginally, if the average Abitur-score at entry to university is taken in consideration. Secondly it proves that the amount of “non-detected talent” is high under all possible circumstances and, therefore, that even if the selection procedures to universities were improved a lot, sobering fundamental limits would still exist. Thus meritocracy represents a potential for structural injustice.