The book uses a comparative study of Germany and Britain to reveal how national institutions shape the labour market careers of higher education graduates. It identifies four institutional spheres that are important: the structure of higher education systems, the content of study, the structure of graduate labour markets, and labour market flexibility. Due to country differences, the transition from higher education to work in Germany follows a smooth path, while in Britain it is more comparable to a long and winding road.
Austria, Germany, and Switzerland are increasingly relying on hybridization at the nexus of vocational training and higher education to increase permeability and reform their highly praised systems of collective skill formation. This historical and organizational institutionalist study compares these countries to trace the evolution of their skill regimes from the 1960s to today‘s era of Europeanization, focusing especially on the impact of the Bologna and Copenhagen processes.
This introductory book provides an insight into sociological life course research and informs about its theoretical assumptions, analytical concepts and main results. Sociological life course research - like biographical research - has developed into an independent and fruitful field of research since the end of the 1960s. It is true that half a century earlier, in their famous study of "The Polish Peasant in Europe and America" (1918-20), Thomas and Znaniecki had already used life records to examine the connection between social change, social structures, and the life histories of individuals. However, such a research perspective was supplanted by other methodological-conceptual approaches to empirical social research for over fifty years. It was not until the 1960s that sociological interest in life course and biographical theoretical issues reawakened. Today, life course research is considered one of the most important conceptual innovations in sociology in recent decades. The content The life course as a social construction - What is "life course research"? - The life course as an institution - Collective life courses: generations, cohorts and social change - Structures of the life course - Life course research - a conceptual perspective - Life course research, quo vadis? The author Prof. Dr. Matthias Wingens teaches sociology at the University of Bremen, Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS).
Presented here is ground-breaking comparative research on an underappreciated, yet growing, concurrent alternative process: universities and their expanding research capacity create knowledge and skills, legitimated in new degrees that then become monetized and even required in private and public sectors of economies.
This study seeks to examine the implications of student employment for the studies, the entry into the labour market, and social inequalities in higher education. The main argument is that both the quantity and quality of work alongside studies can affect relevant academic and labour market outcomes. On the one hand, high amounts of work may prolong the studies and decrease academic achievement. Side-jobs during studies may also distract away students from continuing on in education. On the other hand, jobs of better quality—such that provide experience and skills that are important for the future career—may enhance the transition from education to work. Most important, student employment may generate inequalities in the higher education system if the advantages and disadvantages of working are unequally shared among social groups. The study investigates these issues by using rich longitudinal data on the education and employment history of Bachelor’s students in Germany, by looking at various facets of students’ jobs, and by applying methods that aim at proving causality.
Janina Mangold uncovers the contributions of philanthropic foundations in higher education in Germany and the USA. Considering the three regime classifications of Varieties of Capitalism, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, and Social Origins Theory, she examines the role and positioning of German and American higher education foundations vis-à-vis state and market actors in contemporary society. On the basis of both qualitative and quantitative data, she then develops urgent policy recommendations for foundations, higher education, and governments.
At the 1964 annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Panama, Felipe Herrera, then the President of the institution, argued that Cour institution must continue to demonstrate that, being a bank, it is also more than a bank. What is this institution that had the backing of both Latin American countries and the United States, and that since Herrera many have claimed it is more than a bank? And how did it come into existence?
This incisive Handbook offers a timely and critical analysis of the gendered nature of public sector employment. Bringing together key theoretical, conceptual, and empirical research from around the world, Hazel Conley and Paula Koskinen Sandberg examine the ways in which female public sector workers experience intersectional discrimination in the workplace.
