Business,Ethics, and the Physical Activity Field

Already in childhood, (a) high general and visceral fatness and poor cardiovascular (CV) fitness are linked with dyslipidemia, elevated blood pressure, and insulin resistance; (b) higher fatness is associated with low amounts of vigorous physical activity (PA) and relatively low energy intake; (c) higher CV fitness is more clearly associated with vigorous PA than with moderate PA; (d) higher levels of PA are associated with higher bone density only in youths with relatively high calcium intakes. Physical training in youths has favorable effects on total body and visceral adiposity, bone density, CV fitness, and some risk factors for CV disease and type 2 diabetes. Thus, vigorous PA during childhood may help to prevent some major “adult” health problems.     

Gender-specific patterns in patenting and publishing

Measuring the output of men and women in science and technology has previously been mostly restricted to case studies or small-scale surveys. Based on an analysis of patent and publication databases, this paper applies a methodology to systematically assign the gender to the names of inventors and authors. The method is applied to 14 countries. The results of this investigation reveal substantial differences across countries in terms of women's relative contribution¹ to science and technology, with the central European countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland all ranking comparatively low in this respect. We also examine trends over time, showing that the data on women's share of publications - unlike the results for patents - hardly increase over time for the already better-performing nations.     

Interpreting measures of fundamental movement skills and their relationship with health-related physical activity and self-concept

The aims of this study were to determine proficiency levels of fundamental movement skills using cluster analysis in a cohort of U.K. primary school children; and to further examine the relationships between fundamental movement skills proficiency and other key aspects of health-related physical activity behavior. Participants were 553 primary children between 9- and 12-years old, 294 boys and 259 girls, who were assessed across eight different fundamental movement skills. Physical activity behaviors included markers of physical fitness, recall of physical activity behavior, and physical self-concept. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to classify groups based on fundamental movement skills proficiencies and discriminant analysis to predict fundamental movement skills proficiency based upon the physical activity variables. This interpretation of fundamental movement skills performance revealed distinct groups of fundamental movement skills proficiency in both genders with several gender-specific components of physical activity shown to discriminate children with differing levels of fundamental movement skills proficiency (p < .05, r > .40).     

Contribution of formal and nonformal education to obtaining skilled industrial employment in Northeastern Brazil

In an attempt to assess the importance of formal and nonformal education for the acquisition of skilled blue-collar jobs in the Brazilian modern industrial sector, 62 job applicants were interviewed in five factories in Salvador, Bahia. Data pertaining to the applicants' residential background, educational activities, industrial work experience, and the specific context of their applications were subjected to path analytic treatment, utilizing a fully recursive causal model. The analysis reveals that extended participation in nonformal education (mainly vocational preparation courses) performs two important functions on the labor market: it directs participants to the technologically and organizationally more complex factories, and it tends to increase the chances of being contracted. The amount of formal education received, on the other hand, fails to appear as an important predictor for the acquisition of employment. It is suggested that the relationships between formal education and the industrial labor market are of a complex non-linear nature: an effect of ‘academic over-qualification’, likely to occur with white-collar aspirations which are valued negatively by employers, seems to militate against the assumption of a simple linear contribution of formal education to obtaining industrial employment.     

Improving vocational students’ consideration of source information when deciding about science controversies

We present an empirical investigation of a classroom training fostering vocational students’ consideration of source information when deciding about science-based controversies. The training was specifically aimed at raising students’ awareness of the division of cognitive labor and the resulting need to take a source’s competence into account when deciding whom to trust. Data were collected from a training group and a waiting list control group in a pretest–posttest design. The results show that students benefitted from the training in terms of their inclination to agree with pertinent expert sources rather than low-pertinent experts and to refer to the source of information to justify their judgment. Source memory was not affected by the training.     

Zwischen Bildungsaufstieg und Karriere Studienperspektiven „nicht-traditioneller Studierender“

This contribution looks at a series of qualitative and quantitative investigations on the study success and study behavior of so-called non-traditional students. Of particular interest are two aspects: the combination of qualitative and quantitative findings, which are mutually complementary and in a sense present plausible corrections for one-sided observations, and controlled observations over a long period of time, as the first studies were carried out within the framework of an international study in 1998 and the last one within the framework of a project sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2007. This longer time period certainly increases the plausibility of the cautious diagnoses made, which attempt to capture the relevant changes in this field of research. Such mixed methods research (Derzin 1970, 1989; Flick 1992) – i.e. the link between quantitative and qualitative research and survey methods often termed “triangulation” (cf. Prein/Kelle/Kluge 1993; Flick 1995) – has the advantage that a complex field of research can be scanned using different instruments and through a type of “convergence model” (Jacob 2001) the data won from different methods can be used to mutually validate the results. The qualitative material used in this study comes from theoretical sampling (cf. Glaser 1965; Strauss/Corbin 1996) of data from six German higher education institutions from two points in time (1998 and 2005; n=2x c. 400 surveyed respondents). The quantitative analysis, which was especially carried out for our study, profits from the fact that 2500 interested people responded to our recruitment search for biographic-narrative interviews. This group of people was then asked to participate in a special online survey in 2007 – a cooperative initiative in which around one third of the initial respondents took part. That does, however, mean that the quantitative study is not representative. Our overall research design remains complex, but retains an exploratory character     

Zur Bedeutung von ausserschulischen Bildungsmassnahmen bei der Arbeitsplatzsuche in zwei brasilianischen Industriezentren

Zusammenfassung In Anbetracht der hohen Kosten und zum Teil enttäuschenden Ergebnisse, die mit dem massiven Ausbau des allgemeinbildenden Schulwesens in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern verbunden sind, wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit sich für Arbeiter in brasilianischen Industriezentren außerschulische Bildungs- und Ausbildungsanstrengungen über den Erhalt eines entsprechenden Arbeitsplatzes auszahlen. Informationen über den Bildungs- und Ausbildungsgang von 149 Bewerbern um industrielle Arbeitsplätze in João Pessoa und Salvador werden zum Erfolg der Bewerbungen diskriminanzanalytisch in Beziehung gesetzt. Dabei zeigt sich an beiden Orten, daß formale Schulbildung wohl die beruflichen Erwartungen der Arbeiter erhöht, nicht aber mit einer höheren Einstellungswahrscheinlichkeit einhergeht. Die Teilnahme an außerschulischen Bildungsmaßnahmen kovariiert hingegen bei den Facharbeitern positiv mit den Beschäftigungschancen, und zwar je nach Kontext aus unterschiedlichen Gründen: im industriell noch kaum entwickelten João Pessoa sind Programme, die keinen direkten Bezug zur angestrebten Position erkennen lassen, anscheinend ebenso wertvoll bei der Arbeitsuche wie beruflich einschlägige Kurse; dieser Befund verweist für den Kontext beginnender Industrialisierung auf die ökonomische Bedeutung, die sich mit der Teilnahme an Kursen außerhalb der Schule verbindet. Im wirtschaftlich höher entwickelten Salvador ist jedoch ein positiver Einfluß auf die Einstellungswahrscheinlichkeit nur noch für die außerschulische Berufsausbildung nachweisbar; hier setzen sich demnach an nutzbaren Fertigkeiten orientierte Entscheidungskriterien durch, die auch in westlichen Ländern gelten.

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In view of the high cost and the often disappointing results achieved by the massive extension of general education in developing countries, this article investigates the extent to which out-of-school education and training courses assist workers in Brazilian industrial centres in obtaining employment. By discriminant analysis, information on the education and training of 149 applicants for industrial jobs in João Pessoa and Salvador is related to the success rate of their applications. It is shown that, while formal school education raises the vocational expectations of the workers in both towns, it does not coincide with a higher probability of securing employment. On the other hand, participation in out-of-school education or training correlates positively with employment opportunities, for different reasons according to the context. In João Pessoa, where industry is only in the early stages of development, programmes which appear to have no direct relation to the hoped-for job seem to be as useful in the search for employment as specific professional training courses. This indicates the economic importance of participation in out-of-school courses. In Salvador, however, which is economically more highly developed, out-of-school vocational training alone appears to have a positive influence on the chances of finding employment. Apparently, decision criteria here are oriented more to consideration of usable skills, as they are in Western countries.

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Résumé Les auteurs de cet article, prenant en considération le coût élevé et les résultats souvent décevants de l'extension massive de l'éducation générale dans les pays en développement, examinent jusqu'à quel point l'éducation extra-scolaire et les cours de formation aident les travailleurs des centres industriels brésiliens à obtenir un emploi. L'information a été fournie grâce à une analyse discriminante qui a établi un rapport entre l'éducation et la formation de 149 postulants à des emplois dans l'industrie à João Pessoa et à Salvador, et les résultats positifs de leurs demandes. Il est montré que si l'éducation scolaire formelle dans les deux villes suscite des espoirs professionnels chez les travailleurs, elle ne coïncide pas avec une probabilité supérieure d'embauche. Par ailleurs, la participation à l'education extra-scolaire ou à la formation exerce une influence positive sur les chances d'emploi, pour diverses raisons, selon le contexte. A João Pessoa où l'industrie en est encore aux premiers stades du développement, des programmes qui paraissent n'avoir aucune relation directe avec l'emploi convoité semblent se révéler aussi utiles dans la recherche d'un emploi que des cours spécifiquement professionnels. Ceci démontre l'importance économique des cours extra-scolaires. Toutefois, à Salvador, qui est économiquement beaucoup plus développé que João Pessoa, seule la formation professionnelle extra-scolaire paraît exercer une influence positive sur les chances d'emploi. Là, apparemment, les critères de la décision prennent davantage en considération les compétences professionnelles, à l'instar des pays occidentaux.

     

Influences of income change and parental acceptance on adolescent transgression proneness and peer relations

The present investigation examined whether the adolescent's involvement in a deviant peer context, proneness to commit transgressions, and perceived peer rejection were influenced by family income change (loss, gain, or no change) and adolescent perceptions of parental acceptance. The sample consisted of 110 families selected from a longitudinal study of adolescents in Berlin, West Germany. A multivariate analysis of covariance, controlling for sex of the adolescent, revealed a significant interaction between income change and perceived parental acceptance. Followup univariate tests showed that adolescents in families experiencing a loss or no change in income were more prone to committing transgressions when there was low parental acceptance. Adolescents who felt accepted by parents were uniformly low on transgression proneness, regardless of income change status. The role of perceived parental acceptance in buffering the adolescent from the potentially adverse effects of economic hardship is discussed.