The wider impacts of high-technology employment: Evidence from U.S. cities

Innovative, high-technology industries are commonly described as drivers of regional development. ‘Tech’ workers earn high wages, but they are also said to generate knock-on effects throughout the local economies that host them, spurring growth in jobs and wages in nontradable activities. At the same time, in iconic high-tech agglomerations like the San Francisco Bay Area, the home of Silicon Valley, the success of the tech industry creates tensions, in part as living costs rise beyond the reach of many non-tech workers. Across a large sample of U.S. cities, this paper explores these issues systematically. Combining annual data on wages, employment and prices from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Consumer Price Index, it estimates how growth in tradable tech employment affects the real, living-cost deflated wages of local workers in nontradable sectors. Results indicate that high-technology employment has significant, positive, but modest effects on the real wages of workers in nontradable sectors. These effects appear to be spread consistently across different kinds of nontradable activities. In terms of substantive wider impacts, tech appears benign, though fairly ineffectual.     

A national study of kindergarten transition practices for children with disabilities

This study used data drawn from a large, national sample to describe transition practices provided to 1989 children with disabilities as they entered their kindergarten year, obtained through a survey administered to kindergarten teachers. Using path modeling, we examined the child and family, school, and district factors that predict which children and families receive high- and low-intensity transition support as they enter kindergarten and, in particular, what types of high-intensity practices they receive. The type of support kindergarten teachers provided was generally comparable to or higher than previously reported data, with low-intensity transition supports more commonly used than high-intensity supports. In a path model that included a range of child and family, classroom, and district factors, four variables emerged as predictors of transition support. Children from larger districts and higher poverty districts who were entering kindergarten from a different setting were less likely to receive support during the transition period. Rural districts differed little overall from suburban districts because they are, on average, higher poverty, but smaller in size. Urban districts demonstrated efforts that counterbalanced the barriers of size and poverty. We include policy implications based on these findings.     

少年派——惊艳奥斯卡的奇幻漂流

3D技术风行,李安也来赶个时髦。奥斯卡金牌导演李安执导的3D视效大片《少年派的奇幻漂流》,在纽约影展被《时代》杂志盛赞为下一个《阿凡达》。影片在创造视觉奇观的同时也给观众带来巨大的心灵震撼。其讲述的是一名16岁男孩的故事,他和一只老虎同住一艘救生艇,展开横渡太平洋的旅程。"通常我拍片时,不会考虑风格,而是思考角色需要什么。我会贴     

God's antipodean teaching force: An historical exposition on Catholic teaching religious in Australia

From the 1850s to the 1970s the teaching force in Catholic schools in Australia was dominated by priests, female religious and brothers. This paper details the scope of existing research on these teachers, the demands of their religious vocation, their own education, the atmosphere which they established in the schools, leadership opportunities, and the ‘darker side’ of their way of life. Such expositions can promote reflection on the possibility that teaching can be influenced by discourses of ‘vocation’ and ‘the giving of service’, every bit as much as it can be by ‘industrial’ and ‘labour’ perspectives.