The involvement of the European Union in career guidance policy: a brief history

The history of the involvement of the European Union in the development of policy related to career guidance is analysed in terms of three broad periods. In the first two of these, interventions were confined to pilot projects, exchanges and placements, study visits and studies/surveys, with particular attention to young people; whereas the period since 2000 has seen greater attention being paid to lifelong activities that support the implementation of EU policy priorities and their mainstreaming at national level. These trends reflect both the EU’s “creeping competence” and the emerging concept of “lifelong guidance.”     

Analysis of library associated information needs of staff in a specialist palliative and gerontological care centre in Mid-West Ireland

Background: Milford Care Centre is a major centre for specialist palliative and gerontological care in the Mid‐West of Ireland. In August 2008, a Librarian was employed to support the information, research, teaching and professional development needs of staff and students. In planning associated with this role, it was necessary to undertake an analysis of the information needs of staff. Objectives: (1) To understand the information needs of staff with regard to the new Library and Information Service. (2) To identify current access to and levels of skill in information literacy and ICT. (3) To ascertain the need for training in those skills. Methods: A web‐based questionnaire was disseminated in November by email and printed copies were left at other locations. Results: Assistance with obtaining journal articles was rated most highly by respondents as being an important service. Eighty‐three per cent indicated that they did not have access to online health databases. Small group classes were considered the preferred method of providing training. Afternoons were also considered more convenient for visiting the library. Conclusion: The results will be used to plan the development of the library with a better insight of users needs and assist us to utilise resources more effectively.     

Politics of refugee education: educational administration of the Syrian refugee crisis in Turkey

The main contention of this paper is that the interrelationship between ideology and policy shapes both the overall organisation of refugee education and the operational practices and procedures of staff working to provide education for refugees. Accordingly, this paper tries to answer how the education dimension of the Syrian refugee crisis is managed by the central education authorities in Turkey by assessing the political dynamics and milieu regarding the education of refugees. Building on a document analysis and interviews, this article traces educational administration of Syrian children with a focus on the political dynamics at play affecting the status quo in national education agenda in Turkey. While the impact of the refugee crisis on the greater national education agenda is revealed, the trade-offs involved in adopting certain governance strategies including decentralisation and recentralization is explored.     

Conditions influencing rural and town women's participation in the labor force : Some important considerations

This paper suggests that changes in the basic conditions of subsistence of Bangladeshi families, particularly increasing destitution and landlessness, are prime factors in forcing increasing numbers of rural and urban women into the wage sector of the economy. It has been found that as an initial step towards women's control over their own lives, participation in the labor force may be considered an advance for women in comparison to previous forms of labor. It is suggested, however, that the patterning of wage labor in less developed capitalist countries, to the extent that it follows Western trends, has every possibility of duplicating in Bangladesh the structures of women's exploitation and differential income earning opportunities hindering women's development in other countries, It is also suggested that traditional forms of social control legitimating and governing the subordination of women in Bangladesh are being undermined by worsening socio-economic conditions. It has been found that the traditional system controlling women's subordination, which is known as purdah, may be losing saliency for increasing numbers of rural families. This leads one to conclude that the development and extension of a wage economy brings new forms of social control involving contradictory results, exploitation, and dependence on the one hand, and changing conditions of independence and control on the other.     

An examination of US first-year teachers’ risk for occupational stress: associations with professional preparation and occupational health

Previous research has demonstrated associations between teacher stress and occupational burnout, but few studies have attempted to operationalize a central tenet of most stress theories, namely that teachers’ appraisals of their classroom demands vis-à-vis their classroom resources is a central driver of vulnerability to stress. The research is particularly silent on risk for stress among the most vulnerable workers in the education sector – first-year teachers. The current study, utilizing data from the US National Center for Education Statistics Beginning Teachers Longitudinal study, sought to replicate prior research, conducted with more experienced US teachers, demonstrating that perceptions of classroom demands and resources can be used to classify new teachers according to their risk for stress. In an extension to previous analyses, the current study also examined the association between first-year teachers’ risk for stress and professional preparation. Results from this study aligned with previous findings, teachers classified at risk for stress reported more burnout symptoms (d = 1.48) and less classroom control (d = .62). Teacher education characteristics and exposure to first-year support programming were also found to be associated with first-year teachers’ risk for stress classification. Findings have implications for how US teacher education potentially shapes first-year teachers’ appraisal of their working conditions and corresponding risk for stress.     

Stress in school-aged children and youth

This article reviews the literature on stress in students of grades 1–12. A model to understand stress as the inequality between perceived demands and perceived resources is presented. Student stressors are identified in the family and school environments. Coping with these stressors is conceptualized as problem-focused, emotion-focused, or appraisal-focused strategies that make use of personal, social, and cognitive resources. Physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms of ineffectual coping efforts are then identified. After gender differences in stressors and coping are noted, instruments measuring stressors, coping strategies, and coping resources in children and youth are reviewed. Finally, representative intervention programs developed for school-aged youth are described and evidence of their efficacy is presented. The article concludes that there is a paucity of research on stress in children as compared to research on stress in adults.