‘Go west young man!’ Youth apprenticeship and opportunity structures in two Canadian provinces

Most Canadian provinces offer high-school apprenticeships to facilitate students’ transitions to skilled work and address employers’ concerns about labour shortages. Using interview data with graduates from high-school apprenticeships in Alberta and Ontario, we analyse the impact participation in these programmes has had on their educational and occupational pathways. Findings show the importance of opportunity structures on the employment and education trajectories of young apprentices. High demands for skilled workers in Alberta, associated with the province’s exploration of large oil sands deposits, are contrasted with a contracting labour market in Ontario, which is more dependent on employment in the service and manufacturing sectors. Findings show that economic conditions and the availability of post-secondary alternatives affect young people’s decisions to enter and persist in apprenticeships. We also argue, however, that tighter regulatory frameworks are required to protect young people in apprenticeships from exploitative practices.     

A meta‐analysis of the effectiveness of telecourses in distance education

Abstract

This study used meta‐analytic procedures to examine experimental research literature about the use of telecourses in adult and higher education. Weighted effect size analysis procedures were used. The study included experiments that used video and either one‐way or two‐way audio. The purpose of this study was to review evidence concerning the effectiveness of telecourses. The instructional features that impacted learner achievement were type of interaction during the broadcast, type of course, and type of remote site. Two‐way interaction was found to be the best method of interaction between learners and the instructor. Most of the studies failed to provide information about their learner attrition rate, thereby casting a shadow on the results.     

Obstacles faced at various stages of capability regarding distance education in institutions of higher education

Conclusions Faculty compensation concerns and the lack of development and maintenance time are the greatest barriers to distance education across all organizational stages of capabilities. It may be that certain factors such as legal issues and evaluation, both of which show a steady increase from Stage 1 organizations to Stage 5 organizations, are the last to be tackled because other obstacles are more important in the earlier stages of maturity. The evidence from the responses to this survey indicates that there is a relationship between an organization’s level of capability in distance education and the barriers to distance education reported by respondents for some but not all barriers. Separately, we found evidence to support Moore’s assertions that barriers associated with     

The "geography" of child maltreatment in Israel: Findings from a national data set of cases reported to the social services

OBJECTIVES: This article examines the "geography" of reported cases of child maltreatment in Israel by determining its frequency and rates according to nationality, area of residence, and size and type of locality. METHOD: The study collected data at the local level in Israel based on reports to social services of cases of child maltreatment during 2000; locality is the unit of analysis. RESULTS: The rate of reported cases of child maltreatment was 17.8 per 1,000 children in Israel in 2000. The rates varied, however, among different localities. They were lower in Arab localities (9 per 1,000 children) than in the Jewish ones (20 per 1,000), higher in large cities and other socioeconomic affluent localities (19 per 1,000), and varied according to the geographic area. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates considerable variation in rates of reported cases of child maltreatment by locality and by population makeup. Thus, to fulfill the Israeli legislation of mandatory reporting of any reasonable suspicion of child maltreatment, the state should better develop policies and services that encourage reporting of child maltreatment among the Arab and ultraorthodox populations and in smaller or socioeconomic disadvantaged localities. Furthermore, the social services must build a bridge to the minority populations in Israel, developing their trust in these services and increasing their propensity to use them.     

Writing home/decolonizing text(s)

The article draws on postcolonial and feminist theories, combined with critical reflection and autobiography, and argues for generating decolonizing texts as one way to write and reclaim home in a postcolonial world. Colonizers leave home to seek power and control elsewhere, and the colonized suffer loss of home as they know it. This dislocation from home is analyzed in terms of the material (outer), educational, and psychic (inner) reaches of colonization. Furthermore, under colonization, the self is split, alienated from itself, ‘home’ becomes rife with contradictions, and text(s) and education are shaped by Eurocentrism and ‘us–them’ binaries. Finally, implications for decolonization – including engaging and generating decolonizing text(s) – are discussed.     

Asking queer(er) questions: epistemological and methodological implications for qualitative inquirers

This collection of distinct scholarly essays deliberatively turns to queer experience and theorizing as a resource for constructing vibrant qualitative research designs. Queer theory offers a breadth of epistemological and methodological possibilities for qualitative projects that are too frequently overlooked for many reasons. These reasons include frequently strict association of queer theory with queer research topics and researchers, as well as a concurrent reluctance to interrogate the representational needs of heterosexist culture served by the metaphor of the ‘closet.’ Queer theory also compels inquiry that takes up the unique circumstances of queer subjects. Locating educational inquiry within globally complex socio-historical dynamics and a post-Obergefell/post-2016 election U.S. context, this article poses multiple trajectories through which various scholars explore queer(er) qualitative inquiry in educational studies. These perspectives invite researchers to rethink qualitative inquiry designs through engagement with the queer, inclusive of research topics not initially perceived to be queer.     

Projecting headcount and credit hour enrollment by age group,gender, and degree level

Political debate about how the changing age distribution of the population would affect higher education enrollments led presidents of Michigan's constitutionally autonomous state universities to sponsor systemwide enrollment projections based on calculations of the participation rates and credit hour loads of 66 student subgroups that were defined by age, gender, and degree level. The 1985 figures were applied to cohort population projections in order to assess the impact of an aging population on the enrollments of 1990, 1995, and 2000. Recession and recovery regression models were then developed and used to explore the 1974–1985 relationship between enrollments and economic variables and to generate alternate projections.Presented at the Twenty-Eighth Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Phoenix, Ariz., May 1988.