The lived experience of students with an invisible disability at a Canadian university

University institutions are required by law to make their services accessible to students with disabilities. Canadian universities have gone a long way to eliminate the physical obstacles that present barriers for students. Many students with disabilities have invisible disabilities that require different types of adjustments. Although some researchers have evaluated the needs of students with disabilities in higher education, the unique needs of students with invisible disabilities have received less attention. The best means of assessing these needs is through direct consultation with students with disabilities. Thus, in-depth interviews were conducted with university students with dyslexia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and mental illness. Themes were developed that related to the nature of the disability, the accessibility of the university context, the social and organizational barriers, and recommendations for change. This research lends insight into how individuals with invisible disabilities believe that they are perceived within the university context.     

社会工作专业本科毕业生的就业去向及原因探析——以保定市X大学社会工作专业为例

在我国,社会工作专业虽发展迅速,但仍面临许多问题,尤其是社工需求量大与就业率低、专业不对口、流失率高等矛盾突出。本文基于保定市X大学2009～2012届社会工作专业本科毕业生就业去向的调查数据研究发现,近四年来,社会工作专业本科毕业生的整体就业状况较好,但是就业不对口现象严重;攻读研究生的比例虽不断提高,但继续选择社会工作专业的寥寥无几;女生从事对口专业的比例较高。社会环境、制度安排、培养机制、毕业生个人因素是影响社工本科毕业生就业的主要因素。本文在此基础上,提出改善社会工作专业就业状况的政策建议。     

Do Teacher Strikes Harm Educational Attainment of Students?

This paper investigates the effects of a teacher strike on student achievement. From May 1990 until November 1990 teachers in the French community of Belgium stroked to obtain a salary increase. We exploit the political division of Belgium in a French community and a Flemish community, with similar educational institutions, for estimating the long‐term effects of the strikes. Based on a difference‐in‐differences approach, using data from two different surveys, we find some evidence that the strikes reduced educational attainment and increased class repetition. We also find that the strikes led to a significant reallocation of students to a lower level of higher education. Overall, the results suggest that teacher strikes can lead to substantial costs for those not involved in the conflict.     

Strategic ambiguity and decision-making: an experimental study

We conducted a set of experiments to compare the effect of ambiguity in single-person decisions and games. Our results suggest that ambiguity has a bigger impact in games than in ball and urn problems. We find that ambiguity has the opposite effect in games of strategic substitutes and complements. This confirms a theoretical prediction made by Eichberger and Kelsey (J Econ Theory 106:436–466, 2002). In addition, we note that subjects’ ambiguity attitudes appear to be context dependent: ambiguity loving in single-person decisions and ambiguity averse in games. This is consistent with the findings of Kelsey and le Roux (Theory Decis 79:667–688, 2015).     

Le SAT et l’accès aux études supérieures : le recrutement des élites américaines en question

James Conant developed the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in the 1930s in line with thought about the mobility of elites, a subject that many American as well as European intellectuals were discussing. This test, now used for the admission of high school graduates to universities, was to be a means for detecting talented youngsters and, in fine, producing a model of society. Nowadays, the SAT has a value as a means of effectively comparing students nationwide; but in practice, it serves to reproduce a certain social elite. Far from measuring pure intelligence disconnected from culture, it has turned into a commodity advantageous to certain social groups and ethnic communities.     

Measuring bullying at work with the short-negative acts questionnaire: identification of targets and criterion validity

The current study aims to investigate the psychometric properties of the abbreviated version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire, also known as the SNAQ (Short Negative Acts Questionnaire). A Latent Class analysis of 7,790 observation from 38 Belgian organizations demonstrated that four latent classes of respondents can be distinguished in our data: ‘not bullied’, ‘work-related criticism’, ‘occasionally bullied’, and ‘severe targets’. Like with the original full version, both occasionally bullied and the severe targets align with the theoretical definition of workplace bullying as exposure to repeated and systematic negative behavior. The extent to which these clusters report bullying does not only account for their difference, yet also the type of behavior sets the two categories apart. Whereas severe targets had a high probability to report social isolation, this type of social behaviors was more likely to be absent among the occasionally bullied group. The results from the HSD post-hoc test demonstrated that both occasionally bullied and severe targets experienced deteriorating health, more sickness absenteeism and lower for job satisfaction than the two other latent class clusters. Hence, the SNAQ seems to be a psychometrically sound and easy to use instrument to identify targets exposed to varying degrees of workplace bullying.     

Valuing mortality risk reductions from environmental, transport, and health policies: a global meta-analysis of stated preference studies

We conduct, to our knowledge, the first global meta-analysis (MA) of stated preference (SP) surveys of mortality risk valuation. The surveys ask adults their willingness to pay (WTP) for small reductions in mortality risks, deriving estimates of the sample mean value of statistical life (VSL) for environmental, health, and transport policies. We explain the variation in VSL estimates by differences in the characteristics of the SP methodologies applied, the population affected, and the characteristics of the mortality risks valued, including the magnitude of the risk change. The mean (median) VSL in our full data set of VSL sample means was found to be around $7.4 million (2.4 million) (2005 U.S. dollars). The most important variables explaining the variation in VSL are gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the magnitude of the risk change valued. According to theory, however, VSL should be independent of the risk change. We discuss and test a range of quality screening criteria in order to investigate the effect of limiting the MA to high-quality studies. When limiting the MA to studies that find statistically significant differences in WTP using external or internal scope tests (without requiring strict proportionality), we find that mean VSL from studies that pass both tests tend to be less sensitive to the magnitude of the risk change. Mean VSL also tends to decrease when stricter screening criteria are applied. For many of our screened models, we find a VSL income elasticity of 0.7-0.9, which is reduced to 0.3-0.4 for some subsets of the data that satisfy scope tests or use the same high-quality survey.