John C. Weidman

The school-to-work transition for high school dropouts

This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding the problems encountered by high school dropouts in their school-to-work transition. The underlying assumption is that dropouts are likely to face strains in their homes, jobs, and other community settings that are similar to those which led them to leave school. Exemplary school and work programs for dropouts are discussed and implications drawn for their design. A youth advocacy system is recommended that could stimulate adaptation by the educational and employment sectors to the needs and personal styles of dropouts as well as help dropouts to make informed choices about their educational and career potentials. Such a system would also help the dropout to identify the most appropriate settings for realizing those potentials.

Early Careers of Undergraduate Humanities Majors.

This is a study of the early career patterns of undergraduate humanities majors who had been out of college long enough to have accumulated some labor force experience. There is currently very little solid information about the occupational fate of the thousands of men and women who continued to major in one of the humanities fields in recent years, despite the presumably gloomy job outlook for such graduates. Some information is available from a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics, which conducted a follow-up study of 1983-84 baccalaureate degree recipients one year after graduation and obtained data about labor force status and salaries of graduates by major field of study [26]. Except for the compilation of broad-gauged, aggregated statistics, the extent to which the college major plays a decisive role in the early careers and subsequent occupational attainments of those who enter the labor force with the baccalaureate as their highest degree has not been studied systematically for several years. The bulk of recent analytical research about the employment situation of college graduates focuses on broad measures for the total population of college graduates and does not examine separately the situation of graduates in var-

Impacts of School Pressure, Conflict With Parents, and Career Uncertainty on Adolescent Stress in the Federal Republic of Germany

ABSTRACT This is a study of the association between the success with which adolescents in the Federal Republic of Germany pass through a highly differentiated and stratified secondary school system (i.e., their educational careers) and status insecurity as manifested in both doubts about employment prospects following school completion and various types of socio-emotional distress. It draws upon data from a questionnaire survey of 1,717 adolescents aged 13–16. In addition to school performance, attention is paid to gender and social class background of the adolescents as well as the moderating influences of relationships with parents. The results suggest that status uncertainty correlates with an above-average incidence of dissatisfaction with school performances as well as health complaints and psychosomatic disorders. Social conflict with parents about previous scholastic achievement and future educational plans is an important intervening variable which serves to magnify the effects of poor school perf...

Community Engagement in Higher Education

In this chapter we examine several community engagement strategies with higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide. We begin by defining community engagement in higher education. Next, we look at several different levels of community engagement in higher education, recognizing it occurs at many levels, including international, regional, national, provincial/state, and local.

Corruption in higher education

Fig. 1 shows a conceptual framework describing several core elements of corruption in higher education, taking into consideration the complex inter-relationships among educational institutions, national and local government agencies, external agencies, and stakeholder communities. It is not meant to be an exhaustive representation but rather to show key general elements in the complex process of corruption in education, more generally, and higher education, in general. It represents a conceptual synthesis based on my own work on sector-wide approaches (SWAPs) to education planning (Weidman, 2001) and educational reform in the formerly Soviet style economic and education system of Mongolia (Weidman & Bat-Erdene, 2002) as well as the typologies of education corruption by Chapman (2002) and Rumyantseva (2005). This framework also reflects themes appearing in many reports and articles that, taken collectively, provide a detailed description of corruption at all levels of the educational systems in the EE Anderson & Photos, 2003; Asian Development Bank, 2004; Broers, 2005; Levin & Satarov, 2000; Rostiashvili, 2004; World Bank, 2006a) as well as other parts of the world (Bray, 2003; Heyneman, 2004; Tanaka, 2001; Hallak & Poisson, 2007; Meier, 2004; Meier & Griffin, 2005).

Chinese Graduate Students’ Adjustment to Academic Demands in American Universities

The number of international students on American college and university campuses has grown dramatically over the past decade, from 547,587 in 2000/01 to 723,277 in 2000/11 (HE, 2011). In the 20 American universities with the most international students, enrolments ranged from 4,934 (Arizona State University) to 8,615 (University of Southern California). In terms of nationality, the largest number of international students in American higher education institutions in 2010/11 was Chinese, with 157,558 from Mainland China and an additional 24,818 from Taiwan. A distant second was India (103,895), followed by South Korea (73,351). The number of Mainland Chinese students also grew the fastest over the decade, increasing by 263%. Corresponding increases of Indian and South Korean students were 190% and 161%, respectively. By degree level, Mainland China was also the leading country of origin for international graduate students (76,830), followed by India (63,624) and South Korea (22,486). Graduate students from Taiwan numbered 13,269 (HE, 2011).

Mapping Comparative, International,and Development Education

This volume celebrates and extends the scholarship of Rolland G. Paulston through a collection of essays and research studies reflecting the thoughtful approaches to the study of comparative education that he modeled, both literally and figuratively. Esther Gottlieb (2009), one of Paulston’s former doctoral students, has written about the various dimensions of his career so we will not duplicate that here. Rather, we concentrate on his work focused on mapping concepts and scholars in the field of comparative, international, and development education (CIDE).

Conceptualizing Teacher Education in Comparative and International Context

Abstract There has been a resurgence of interest in comparative and international research on teacher education that has been driven, in large part, by the emergence over the past two decades of comprehensive international studies of student achievement supported by (1) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and (2) the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Widely published country rankings that set benchmarks for student achievement suggest the importance of understanding more fully what specific characteristics set highly ranked countries apart, especially quality of teaching and teacher education. Recent literature on comparative and international teacher education is reviewed, focusing on special issues of Prospects (Vol. 42, March 2012, “Internationalization of Teacher Education”), sponsored by the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) in Geneva, Switzerland, and the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education (Vol. 11, August 2013, “International Perspectives on Mathematics and Science Teacher Education for the Future”), sponsored by the National Science Council of Taiwan. A conceptual framework for describing the complexity of teacher education in comparative and international context is presented, adapting an approach used for understanding educational change and reform in emerging democracies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of theoretical perspectives that have been applied to teacher education in comparative and international education with recommendations for new directions that might inform scholarly understanding as well as practice.

Books Perceived to be Basic Reading for Students of Higher Education

Results are reported from the replication of a 1971 survey of higher education faculty members’ perception of the most important books in their areas of specialization as well as for higher education students, more generally. The authors conclude that a) while there is consensus on a few books, choices are diverse and specialization-specific: b) Jossey-Bass is the major publisher: and c) the books tend to have a restricted national (U.S.A.) and temporal (published within the past two decades) focus.

EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT IN KENYA

In this chapter we examine formal education development in post-independence Kenya. We place particular emphasis on key challenges to providing education of sufficient quality to assure that all Kenyan students acquire the capacities they need to participate as productive citizens in their local, national, and global communities. Our focus is on national policy initiatives for education reform that were developed under successive government leaders.