Higher education outcomes, graduate employment and university performance indicators

Summary.  Official employment-related performance indicators in UK higher education are based on the population of students responding to the 'First destination supplement' (FDS). This generates potentially biased performance indicators as this population of students is not necessarily representative of the full population of leavers from each institution. University leavers who do not obtain qualifications and those who do not respond to the FDS are not included within the official analysis. We compare an employment-related performance indicator based on those students who responded to the FDS with alternative approaches which address the potential non-random nature of this subgroup of university leavers.     

Sweatshops and third world living standards: Are the jobs worth the sweat?

Many studies have shown that multinational firms pay more than domestic firms in Third World countries. Economists who criticize sweatshops have responded that multinational firms’ wage data do not address whether sweatshop jobs are above average because many of these jobs are with domestic subcontractors. We compare apparel industry wages and the wages of individual firms accused of being sweatshops to measures of the standard of living in Third World economies. We find that most sweatshop jobs provide their workers an above average standard of living. The authors thank Jeffery Hummel, Charles Murray, Larry Pratt, and Edward Stringham for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Financial support from the American Institute for Economic Research is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Work,parenting and gender: the care–work negotiations of three couple relationships in the UK

Changes globally mean that there are now record numbers of mothers in paid employment and a reported prevalence of involved fathering. This poses challenges to mothers and fathers as they negotiate care–work practices within their relationships. Focusing on interviews with three heterosexual couples (taken from a wider UK qualitative project on working parents), the paper considers care–work negotiations of three couples, against a backdrop of debates about intensive mothering and involved fathering. It aims to consider different configurations of work and care within three different couple relationships. We found that power within the relationships was negotiated along differential axis of gender and working status (full- or part-time paid work). We present qualitatively rich insights into these negotiations. Framed by a critical discursive psychological approach, we call on other researchers to think critically about dominant discourses and practices of working, caring and parenting, pointedly how couples situated around the world operationalise these discourses in talking about themselves as worker and carers.     

Young Children as Wayfarers: Learning about Place by Moving Through It

This article describes the walking and moving of young children around places. It is based on an ethnographic study of children aged between 24 and 36 months visiting a museum. Drawing on Ingold's (2007) concept of wayfaring, the author argues movement through place creates embodied, tacit ways of knowing and experiencing the world. This embodied and tacit knowledge is not well‐accounted for in dominant models of how young children learn. In this study, wayfaring both enabled the children to learn about places and routes, and led to the development of traditions, in which collective meanings and actions were attached to particular locations.     

Eliciting children’s recall regarding home life and relationships

Abstract

Child interviews form an important component of custody evaluations. Yet, research on children’s responses to questions about home life and relationships is lacking. In the present study, children (N?=?47) aged 6 to 10?years were interviewed about their daily routines and family relationships. Responses to four categories of questions were compared: open and specific questions about routines, and negative and positive aspects of family relationships. Responses were coded for amount of information, informativeness, topic pertinence, and refusals to answer. Results suggested that questions about everyday routines and relationships elicit relevant and informative responses from children. It is suggested that interviewers begin with open-ended questions regarding daily routines to structure family law interviews with children.     

Amassing rural power in the fight against fracking in Maryland: A report from the field

ABSTRACT

Social workers can mobilize vulnerable populations to shape policy decisions about industrial practices that could have adverse impacts on their wellbeing. One such practice is hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to extract oil and natural gas from shale rock deposits. There is scant social work literature on mobilizing opposition to fracking despite a proliferation of literature from other disciplines. This article documents the campaign in Maryland that led to the adoption of the first legislative ban on fracking in a U.S. state with shale gas reserves, using social movement theory to identify factors that led to this successful outcome.     

Graphical representation of survival curves in the presence of time-dependent categorical covariates with application to liver transplantation

Graphical representation of survival curves is often used to illustrate associations between exposures and time-to-event outcomes. However, when exposures are time-dependent, calculation of survival probabilities is not straightforward. Our aim was to develop a method to estimate time-dependent survival probabilities and represent them graphically. Cox models with time-dependent indicators to represent state changes were fitted, and survival probabilities were plotted using pre-specified times of state changes. Time-varying hazard ratios for the state change were also explored. The method was applied to data from the Adult-to-Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation Cohort Study (A2ALL). Survival curves showing a ‘split’ at a pre-specified time t allow for the qualitative comparison of survival probabilities between patients with similar baseline covariates who do and do not experience a state change at time t. Time since state change interactions can be visually represented to reflect changing hazard ratios over time. A2ALL study results showed differences in survival probabilities among those who did not receive a transplant, received a living donor transplant, and received a deceased donor transplant. These graphical representations of survival curves with time-dependent indicators improve upon previous methods and allow for clinically meaningful interpretation.     

Level of choice in older women’s decisions to retire or continue working and associated well-being

Retirement is a complex life transition. Women’s retirement, like their work lives, may be further complicated, for example, by family or financial obligations; they may feel forced to retire or to continue working or feel they have the choice to do so. This study examines the role of voluntary versus involuntary retirement or continued work participation among retirement-age women; specifically, the relationships between choice, work status, and well-being. Compared to women forced to retire, women who chose retirement or continuing to work had higher levels of life satisfaction. Findings highlight the importance of examining retirement within the life course context.