Enrolment in Mathematics and Physics at The Advanced Level in Secondary School Among Two Generations of Highly Skilled Immigrants

This research focuses on enrolment in advanced level Mathematics and Physics in secondary school among first and second generations of Former Soviet Union immigrants and third generation Israeli‐born Jews. The article made use of the Israeli Ministry of Education's database, which includes data on all students who finished their secondary education with a matriculation certificate in 2013. Our findings show the advantage of enrolment in Physics, which is perceived as the most difficult subject, among FSU immigrant students compared to the third generation of Israeli‐born students. This advantage may be explained by their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)‐related cultural capital. However, first‐generation FSU students were less likely to be enrolled in advanced‐level Mathematics compared to third‐generation Jews. These findings may emphasize the role of the Israeli education system as a gatekeeper in entering more prestigious Mathematics.     

“Migrant Capital” and Domestic Work: Labour Trajectories of Immigrant Women in Spain

This article analyses the labour trajectory of migrant women in domestic service. The research considers women's working conditions upon arrival, or their “migrant capital” (i.e. their human, social and economic capital) as the defining factors in their labour trajectories. The study, conducted on a sample of migrant women in domestic service, reveals the different value each type of capital has at each stage of a labour trajectory. The social network is the core capital in their first job. Nevertheless, the key factors in labour mobility are human capital and a household's financial needs. The processes of administrative regularization and family reunification prompt far‐reaching changes in these women's labour trajectories. Finally, labour trajectories during the economic crisis have been shaped by financial needs, leading to a decapitalization of the human capital acquired, with even legal status surrendering its value.     

Innovative approaches to regulating decent work for domestic workers in Côte d'Ivoire: Labour administration and the judiciary under a general labour code

The authors offer a contextualized analysis of judicial decisions rendered during 1971–2013 in Côte d'Ivoire, where domestic work is regulated by a general labour code. Assessments of those decisions, alongside qualitative interviews of institutional actors, elucidate how innovative practices were mainly derived from the code by attentive inspectors and by jurisprudence evolving to treat domestic work like any other. Yet limitations emanating from the inability to grapple with the specificity of domestic work are also identified. Reaffirming that the regulation of domestic work must embrace its duality (work like any other and work like no other), the authors conclude with a call for an international community of learning on decent work for domestic workers.     

SODA WARS: THE EFFECT OF A SODA TAX ELECTION ON UNIVERSITY BEVERAGE SALES

We examine how soda sales changed due to the campaign attention and election outcome of a local excise tax on sugar‐sweetened beverages. Using panel data of beverage sales from university retailers in Berkeley, California, we estimate that soda purchases relative to control beverages significantly dropped immediately after the election, months before the tax was implemented in the city of Berkeley or on campus. Supplemental scanner data from off‐campus retailers reveal this result is not unique to the university setting. Our findings suggest soda tax media coverage and election outcomes can have larger effects on purchasing behavior than the tax itself. (JEL D12, H20, C23, I38, Q18)     

A Study of Clinical Change in Individual Career Counseling

This study examined the clinical significance of career counseling effects. Participants were 111 university students (83% women) who participated in individual career counseling sessions at their university. All participants completed the French version of the Outcome Questionnaire–30.2 (OQ‐30.2; Lambert, Finch, Okiishi, & Burlingame, 2005) immediately before the 1st session (pretest) and at the beginning of the last session (posttest). The OQ‐30.2 assesses 3 client life domains: subjective discomfort, problems in interpersonal relationships, and problems in social role satisfaction. Using Jacobson and Truax’s (1991) statistical approach to assessing clinical change, the authors compared clients’ pretest OQ‐30.2 scores with their posttest scores. Among clients with a “dysfunctional” score (n = 59) at the study’s inception, 34% recovered and 14% improved, whereas 41% of clients with functional scores (n = 52) at the study’s inception improved. The results suggest that individual career counseling can make a difference in the lives of many clients; they also highlight the importance of further outcome research that accounts for possible variability in clients’ responses to career counseling.     

Resistance as Sacrifice: Toward an Ascetic Antiracism

Often described as an outcome, inequality is better understood as a social process—a function of how institutions are structured and reproduced, and the ways people act and interact within them across time. Racialized inequality persists because it is enacted moment to moment, context to context—and it can be ended should those who currently perpetuate it commit themselves to playing a different role instead. This essay makes three core contributions. First, it highlights a disturbing parity between the people who are most rhetorically committed to ending racialized inequality and those who are most responsible for its persistence. Next, it explores the origin of this paradox—how it is that ostensibly antiracist intentions are transmuted into “benevolently racist” actions. Finally, it presents an alternative approach to mitigating racialized inequality, one that more effectively challenges the self‐oriented and extractive logics undergirding systemic racism, rather than expropriating blame to others, or else adopting introspective and psychologized approaches to fundamentally social problems, those sincerely committed to antiracism can take concrete steps in the real world—actions that require no legislation or coercion of naysayers, just a willingness to personally make sacrifices for the sake of racial justice.     

Expediting youth's entry into employment whilst overlooking precariousness: Flexi‐employability and disciplinary activation in Hong Kong

With an emphasis placed on supply‐side interventions such as skills training and incentives enhancement, active labor market polices (ALMPs) are strongly promoted by international organizations and widely adopted across different welfare regimes to boost employment rates. This article first presents the under‐examined relationship between ALMPs and employment precariousness, which has posed a challenge to the neoliberal notion of employability and activation. Youth‐focused employment policies tend to speed up employment entry whilst downplaying the risk of precariousness and the importance of job quality, and thus further reinforcing the belief that engaging in precarious employment is tolerable if not inevitable. The article then examines the case of Hong Kong, which illustrates that its relatively low rate of youth unemployment may conceal the unfavorable employment conditions confronted by youth. It is argued that the service‐led employment policies and short‐term vocational training define the employability of young workers in terms of labor flexibilities. The coined phase of “flexi‐employability” is characterized by promoting youth's readiness for, and adaptability to, the volatilities and changing demands of the labor market. Arguably, the disciplinary approach to youth activation would only strengthen the work‐first principle by enforcing young people to take up jobs available and leave welfare as soon as possible, but without thoroughly addressing the risks and insecurities generated by the labor market in undermining their well‐being.     

Shyness,Preference for Solitude,and Adolescent Internalizing: The Roles of Maternal,Paternal, and Best‐Friend Support

The researchers examined differential outcomes related to two distinct motivations for withdrawal (preference for solitude and shyness) as well as the possibility that support from important others (mothers, fathers, and best friends) attenuate any such links. Adolescents (159 males, 171 females) reported on their motivations to withdraw, internalizing symptoms, and relationship quality in eighth grade, as well as their anxiety and depression in ninth grade. Using structural equation modeling, the authors found that maternal support weakened the association between shyness and internalizing problems; friend support weakened the association between preference for solitude and depression; and friend support strengthened the association between shyness and depression. Results suggest that shy adolescents may not derive the same benefits from supportive friendships as their typical peers.