Emotional school engagement among minority youth: the relevance of cultural identity,perceived discrimination,and perceived support

ABSTRACT

Minority student school dropout represents a challenging issue for educational systems in many countries. Notwithstanding minority families' overall high academic aspirations, there is a stable achievement gap between majority and minority students. Minority students who are emotionally engaged with their school tend to be psychologically and socioculturally better adapted to their country of residence and, as a result, report higher academic success. Therefore, emotional school engagement represents a relevant factor for integration into the host society. The goal of this paper is to investigate the interrelation between ethnic and national identity, perceived discrimination, and perceived support from parents, peers, and teachers with emotional school engagement. Results indicate that cultural capital within the family, cultural self-identification, and perceived support from peers and teachers play an important role for students’ emotional school engagement.     

Towards contract based coordination of distributed product development processes with complete substitution

In distributed product development processes system integrators collaborate with suppliers to provide marketable products. We analyze contract structures in their ability to coordinate such processes. A converging supply chain with two suppliers and one system integrator is considered. Each supplier develops one component and faces uncertainty with regard to development results. For the system integrator the specifications of both components are substitutive in terms of the specification of the final product (e.g., recycling quotas). Depending on the resulting specification of the final product, the system integrator generates revenues under a maximum price clause. We apply a game-theoretic framework: the system integrator is the Stackelberg leader and the suppliers are Stackelberg followers. Assuming uniformly distributed development results, we analyze two typical development contracts: a wholesale price contract and a penalty contract. We present numerical illustrations of centralized and decentralized solutions to gain qualitative insights about the optimal decisions and the coordination ability of the two contracts. Accordingly, both contracts coordinate the supply chain only under forced compliance.     

Measuring empowerment in working life: a review

This study identifies and describes questionnaires that measure empowerment in working life. Theoretical bases and empirical examination of the questionnaires are also reported. Nine questionnaires emerged from a database search including AMED, CINAHL, ERIC, MEDLINE and PSYCINFO. The main target groups were employees in general. Most authors share the same theoretical basis. Most of the questionnaires focus on intra-individual issues, while a smaller number deal with the interaction between individual and organization. Control and competence are frequently used dimensions. Cronbach's alpha for complete questionnaires ranged between 0.62 and 0.96. No comparisons with outcome of health were reported. Spreitzer's questionnaire has undergone the most comprehensive investigation. Research is required to achieve better understanding of the interplay between conditions at work and empowerment and health.     

The Creation of an Unsolicited Organization: Victim Support Sweden

The aim of this study is to understand how a new nationwide nonprofit organization, Victim Support Sweden (VSS), emerged in just a few years without public or political demand. In this qualitative study, we reconstruct and follow the first years of the organization. The study is based on a content analysis of VSS’s archival documents from 1988 to 1992 and retrospective interviews with key persons. The results acknowledge the power of entrepreneurs in establishing the organization. The entrepreneurs used their skills, engagement, and backgrounds to “make sense” of the organization, even though there were no crime victims calling for support. They combined logics from adjacent fields and created a specific new “victim support logic.” Thereafter, the logic spread quickly through the entrepreneurs’ lobbying of politicians and education of local victim support volunteers.     

Work-Life Balance – Lebensgestaltung von Frauen in un- und angelernten Tätigkeiten

In this article the work-life balance of women in low-skilled jobs is explored in a qualitative study (N?=?16). Theoretical backgrounds are the concept of forms of life organization on the basis of goals and the work psychological stress and resource management model. The interviewed women pursued a traditional gender role attitude and saw their biographical important goals in the family life sphere, but they differed in their behavior and their realized organization of life. Five different forms of life organization could be identified depending on experienced stressors, resources and coping strategies. There were forms of integration and balance, segmentation and mixed forms of life organization.     

Skewed zero-bound distributions and process capability indices for upper specifications

A common practical situation in process capability analysis, which is not well developed theoretically, is when the quality characteristic of interest has a skewed distribution with a long tail towards relatively large values and an upper specification limit only exists. In such situations, it is not uncommon that the smallest possible value of the characteristic is 0 and this is also the best value to obtain. Hence a target value 0 is assumed to exist. We investigate a new class of process capability indices for this situation. Two estimators of the proposed index are studied and the asymptotic distributions of these estimators are derived. Furthermore, we suggest a decision procedure useful when drawing conclusions about the capability at a given significance level, based on the estimated indices and their asymptotic distributions. A simulation study is also performed, assuming that the quality characteristic is Weibull-distributed, to investigate the true significance level when the sample size is finite.     

Central exit examinations increase performance... but take the fun out of mathematics

We study the causal effect of state-mandated (central) exit examinations (CEEs) on student performance in Germany and find a small positive effect. We also investigate what actually drives this effect. We find that the teachers’ main reaction to CEEs is to increase the amount of homework and to check and discuss homework more often. Students report increased learning pressure, which has sizeable negative effects on student attitudes toward learning. Students who take central exit exams in mathematics like mathematics less, think it is less easy, and are more likely to find it boring.     

Field study of age-differentiated strain for assembly line workers in the automotive industry

A field study in an automotive supply industry company was conducted to explore age-differentiated strain of assembly line workers. Subjective and objective data from 23 female workers aged between 27 and 57 years were collected at the workplace belt buckle assembly during morning shifts. Subjects with medication or chronic diseases affecting heart rate and breath rate were excluded. For subjective data generation different questionnaires were used. Before the Work Ability Index and the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire were completed by the subjects. Short questionnaires (strain-ratings, NASA-TLX) directly at begin and end of the work were used for obtaining shift-related data. During the whole shift (6 a.m. - 2.45 p.m.) bodily functions were logged with a wireless chest strap. In addition, the motion of the hand-arm-system was recorded for 30 times, 3 minutes each after a fixed time-schedule. First results show that younger subjects need significant less time for assembly (mean = 14.940 s) compared to older subjects (mean = 17.040 s; t(472.026) = -9.278 , p < 0.01).