Social Sources of Failure in Education: The Case in East and Southeast Turkey

The efficiency of education in East and Southeast Turkey (E&SE) has long been a subject of debate. Both regions are similar to each other and different from the other regions in terms of economy, culture, ethnic origin, and languages spoken. Sahin (1997) studied the efficiency of education in the E&SE and proposed that illiteracy is significantly the highest in both regions, the female student population is significantly lower, and students are significantly less successful in nationwide general proficiency examinations (OSS and OYS) compared to all the other regions. Social sources of failure were studied in terms of the distinguishing characteristics of both regions, from both practical and theoretical standpoints. The findings indicated inequality of educational opportunity rooted in geographical, economical, social (cultural, linguistic), and political factors.     

On predictive distributions and Bayesian networks

In this paper we are interested in discrete prediction problems for a decision-theoretic setting, where the task is to compute the predictive distribution for a finite set of possible alternatives. This question is first addressed in a general Bayesian framework, where we consider a set of probability distributions defined by some parametric model class. Given a prior distribution on the model parameters and a set of sample data, one possible approach for determining a predictive distribution is to fix the parameters to the instantiation with the maximum a posteriori probability. A more accurate predictive distribution can be obtained by computing the evidence (marginal likelihood), i.e., the integral over all the individual parameter instantiations. As an alternative to these two approaches, we demonstrate how to use Rissanen's new definition of stochastic complexity for determining predictive distributions, and show how the evidence predictive distribution with Jeffrey's prior approaches the new stochastic complexity predictive distribution in the limit with increasing amount of sample data. To compare the alternative approaches in practice, each of the predictive distributions discussed is instantiated in the Bayesian network model family case. In particular, to determine Jeffrey's prior for this model family, we show how to compute the (expected) Fisher information matrix for a fixed but arbitrary Bayesian network structure. In the empirical part of the paper the predictive distributions are compared by using the simple tree-structured Naive Bayes model, which is used in the experiments for computational reasons. The experimentation with several public domain classification datasets suggest that the evidence approach produces the most accurate predictions in the log-score sense. The evidence-based methods are also quite robust in the sense that they predict surprisingly well even when only a small fraction of the full training set is used.     

Kairos economies in the post-Soviet transition period of Central Asia

There are times when entire populations of certain countries have had to readjust their lives and economic strategies as all of society is under transition. Post-Soviet Central Asia underwent this period after 1991. During times of transition, there are always people that tend to be able to make use of the new uncertainties, even at the risk of entering legal grey areas. Here new social groups emerge, ethnic origin becomes relevant and new kinship ties are made. These transformation periods are often short and provide limited opportunities for analysing the strategies of those pioneers that I call Kairos economists. They often act only in cooperation with residents of the border and with duty customs and security personnel. This article analyses this special economy with the help of case studies that have been observed during the transformation period from the Soviet to an independent Central Asia.     

Nah der Wissenschaft und fern der Führung in einer Fach‑/Expertenlaufbahn?

In order to motivate and retain technical employees, representatives of strategic career management face the challenge of establishing alternative career paths in addition to the common leadership/management career. Surveying a sample of 629 doctorate holders from the STEM fields, we differentiated between five career paths within and beyond structured career models. Structured career ladders were predominantly present in major enterprises. Female participants less frequently reported to be part of a structured career path. Entering a leadership/management career seems to occur at a later stage compared to other paths. Generally, advancement on a leadership/management path was related to stronger increases in incentives than climbing up the technical/expert or project management ladders. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find members of a technical/expert career to work closer to basic research and their initial qualification than their colleagues on other career paths. Members of leadership/management paths reported to have significantly more leadership responsibility than those working on alternative paths.     

Distress or disability? Could a theoretical framework drawn from disability studies be a way forward when trying to understand experiences of oppression on the grounds of mental distress?

This article explores whether it is possible to use a theoretical framework drawn from disability studies to understand experiences of social oppression on the grounds of mental distress. Thomas’ extended social relational theoretisation of disablism was used in a PhD project concerned with experiences of mental distress. The tentative conclusion was that Thomas’ conceptualisation of disablism and impairment could offer a way of improving understanding of mental distress and oppression on the grounds of mental distress. However, Thomas and Reeve’s theorisation of the different forms of disablism was not readily transferred to the field of mental distress. Thus, tentative definitions of the different forms of disablism in relation to the field of mental distress were created. Perceived impairment type and disablism appear to be interconnected, and one has to acknowledge what kind of perceived impairment type one is focusing on when theorising disability and the different types of disablism.     

Different Pathways from Transformational Leadership to Job Satisfaction

Transformational leaders are known to inspire and motivate their followers, thereby leading to enhanced job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is an intellectual concept regarding individuals’ attitudes toward their jobs. This study asserts that the underlying mechanisms for transformational leadership to affect employee satisfaction are trust in the community, including the leader (that is, organization) and trust in the self, namely self‐efficacy. Leadership is specifically associated with continual transformations in the higher educational context, and collectivist cultures may manifest different processes underlying the transformational leadership–satisfaction relationship. This study investigated the mediating effects of trust and self‐efficacy on the relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction. The study sample included academicians from a nonprofit higher education institution in Turkey. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that the relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction is fully mediated by both trust and self‐efficacy. The mediator effect of trust was shown to be stronger than self‐efficacy, which is assumed to be the result of the cultural context. The results are discussed in the context of employee satisfaction and cultural determinants of employee satisfaction.     

Avian haemosporidian parasites in an urban forest and their relationship to bird size and abundance

Urbanization has been identified as a threat to biodiversity due to landscape modifications. Studies of parasite ecology in urbanized areas lagged behind those made on macro organisms. Here we studied infection prevalence of haemosporidian parasites in an avian community of an urban forest from Germany, and its relationship with bird abundance and body mass. We used PCR to amplify a fragment of the mtDNA cyt b gene to determine the infection status of birds, and bird point counts to determine bird relative abundances. The avifauna was dominated by two small sized insectivore passerines (Parus major, Cyanistes caeruleus), representing ~40 % of the total bird records. The highest haemosporidian prevalence was recorded for Turdus philomelos (100 %) and for Fringilla coelebs (75 %). Bird abundance and body mass were positively associated with infection status for two haemosporidian genera: Plasmodium and Leucocytozoon. Infection rate was lower in juveniles compared to adult birds. We recorded a total of 7 Plasmodium, 26 Haemoproteus, and 10 Leucocytozoon lineages. Avian malaria (P. relictum) was detected infecting 5 individuals of P. major, the most abundant species in the community. These results, together with those of previous studies at the same site, suggest that potentially any of the genetic haemosporidian lineages detected in this urban forest can be transmitted across native and pet bird species, and to species of conservation concern housed at aviaries.     

Making Sense of Neoliberal Subjectivity: A Discourse Analysis of Media Language on Self-development

The influence of neoliberalism on culture and subjectivity is well documented. This paper contributes to understanding of how neoliberal ideology enters into the production of subjectivity. While subject formation takes place in multiple and contradictory ways and across multiple social sites, we focus on the increasingly popular media discourse of self-development, and examine it as a technology of neoliberal subjectification. Drawing on Foucauldian understandings, we analyze data from two different newspapers from two different national contexts, both of which are heavily influenced by neoliberalism. Based on our analysis, we detail four interrelated discourses—rationality, autonomy and responsibility, entrepreneurship, and positivity and self-confidence—demonstrating how these discourses constitute the neoliberal subject in ways consonant with neoliberal governmentality. There is no observable resistance to subject positions offered within these discourses. Self-development discourse instills stronger individualism in society, while constraining collective identity, and thus provides social control and contributes to preserving status quo of neoliberal societies.