Institutional characteristics of education systems and inequalities: Introduction II

2021 ◽  
pp. 002071522110615
Author(s):  
Christiane Gross ◽  
Andreas Hadjar ◽  
Laura Zapfe

The second special issue of International Journal of Comparative Sociology (IJCS) on the role of education systems as institutional settings on the reproduction of inequalities includes three papers that focus on stratification of the education system as key driver of educational inequalities, the role of digital inequalities in the school and beyond, as well as how students navigate through the institutional setting of the Taiwanese education system. While we already elaborated on the research program, conceptual framework, and methodological challenges in the first introduction (published in January 2021), we will deal with the current state-of-research in this second introduction.

2021 ◽  
pp. 002071522098804
Author(s):  
Christiane Gross ◽  
Andreas Hadjar

This is the introduction into the first of multiple themed issues of International Journal of Comparative Sociology (IJCS) that are dedicated to the role of education systems as institutional settings on the reproduction of inequalities. While Introduction I presents the research program, outlines a conceptual background and discusses methodological challenges in the study of how education systems shape inequalities, introductions to the successive themed issues will deal with the current state-of-research and finally with research desiderata in terms of an outlook. The contributions will be presented at the end of each introduction. The contributions of this themed issue focus on the role of country characteristics during early childhood and the role of shadow education on educational inequalities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Petersen ◽  
Omid Madadi-Sanjani

AbstractBiliary atresia (BA) is still an enigmatic disease of unknown etiology and cryptic pathomechanism. Despite the fact that BA is rated among rare diseases, it represents the most frequent indication for pediatric liver transplantation. Although every effort is made to elucidate the origin of the ongoing deterioration of liver function, no breakthrough has so far been achieved, which switches the surgical but symptomatic therapy to a cause-oriented approach. The nowadays leading hypothesis focuses on hepatotropic virus as a triggering agent for an autoimmunological self-limiting inflammatory process along the entire biliary tree. The present review highlights the current state of research on the factor “viruses in biliary atresia” in both patients undergoing the Kasai procedure and the virus-induced BA mouse model.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Rossignoli ◽  
Riccardo Stacchezzini ◽  
Alessandro Lai

PurposeEuropean countries are likely to increasingly adopt integrated reporting (IR) voluntarily, after the 2014/95/EU Directive is revised and other initiatives are implemented. Therefore, the present study provides insights on the relevance of IR in voluntary contexts by exploring analysts' reactions to the release of integrated reports in diverse institutional settings.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on voluntary disclosure theory, a quantitative empirical research method is used to explore the moderating role of country-level institutional characteristics on the associations between voluntary IR release and analyst forecast accuracy and dispersion.FindingsIR informativeness is not uniform in the voluntary context and institutional settings play a moderating role. IR release is associated with increased consensus among analyst forecasts. However, in countries with weak institutional enforcement, a reverse association is detected, indicating that analysts rely largely on IR where the institutional setting strongly protects investors. Although a strong institutional setting boosts the IR release usefulness in terms of accuracy, it creates noise in analyst consensus.Research limitations/implicationsAcademics can appreciate the usefulness of voluntary IR across the institutional enforcement contexts.Practical implicationsManagers can use these findings to understand opportunities offered by IR voluntary release. The study recommends that policymakers, standard setters and regulators strengthen the institutional enforcement of sustainability disclosure.Originality/valueThis study is a unique contribution to recent calls for research on the effects of nonfinancial disclosure regulation and on IR “impacts”. It shows on the international scale that IR usefulness for analysts is moderated by institutional patterns, not country-level institutional characteristics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 640-655
Author(s):  
Shu-Fen Lin ◽  
Wei-Ding Tsai ◽  
Denis Igorevich Chistyakov

The study of education systems as social phenomena has led scholars to question the role of education in modern society. The question of how to improve education naturally leads to concerns about what is wrong with the present education system. If education is meant to elevate the next generation, how can it meet the goal of ensuring a meaningful existence for those being educated? Scholars have demonstrated that education has been reduced to a process of the construction of objects, where curriculum as techne commodifies students into products with market value. We propose that the tendency of interpreting techne as technology is a perspective of the modern age, and the rules of modern education are based on the rules of modern technology, under the guidance of the paradigm of productivity. We will introduce a broader interpretation of techne which frames it as the cultivation of virtue, i.e., virtue-techne. On this basis, education could be viewed as techne in the sense of praxis (practice, exercise), rather than as fabrication in the sense of production. We highlight the rising rate of student suicides in Taiwan in recent years, where we determine the education system lacks a focus on praxis. This article investigates alternative praxis-oriented notions of education, from Aristotle's cultivation of virtue to Hadot's "spiritual exercises," to advocate for a shift away from the production paradigm. Indebted to Heidegger, we clarify his "techne as revealing" by emphasizing two frameworks for education: The first, modern education being valued by its adherence to metrics based in the paradigm of production. The second, education as a process wherein its value is derived from the life context of the participating individual. Finally, as a comparative study, we explore the current state of education in Russia and Taiwan, and present the case of one high school in Taiwan which has adopted the practice of spiritual exercises in its curriculum, including a required hike to the peak of Taiwan's tallest mountain, to cultivate a sense of (and value for) the liberated life before its students graduate.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvain Ozainne ◽  
Laurent Lespez ◽  
Yann Le Drezen ◽  
Barbara Eichhorn ◽  
Katharina Neumann ◽  
...  

At Ounjougou, a site complex situated in the Yamé River valley on the Bandiagara Plateau (Dogon country, Mali), multidisciplinary research has revealed a rich archaeological and paleoenvironmental sequence used to reconstruct the history of human-environment interactions, especially during the Late Holocene (3500–300 cal BC). Geomorphological, archaeological, and archaeobotanical data coming from different sites and contexts were combined in order to elaborate a chronocultural and environmental model for this period. Bayesian analysis of 54 14C dates included within the general Late Holocene stratigraphy of Ounjougou provides better accuracy for limits of the main chronological units, as well as for some particularly important events, like the onset of agriculture in the region. The scenario that can be proposed in the current state of research shows an increasing role of anthropogenic fires from the 3rd millennium cal BC onwards, and the appearance of food production during the 2nd millennium cal BC, coupled with a distinctive cultural break. The Late Holocene sequence ends around 300 cal BC with an important sedimentary hiatus that lasts until the end of the 4th century cal AD.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Chuchalin ◽  
Mikhail Minin ◽  
Natalia Vyuzhanina

The article considers the current state of engineering education in Europe in general and in Russia in particular in the light of the need to meet employers’ requirement to graduates, and the role of practice-oriented learning technologies in this process. The demand for graduates on the labour market and their competitiveness is seen as the main indicator of the education system ability to react and adapt to the market demands. Thus the employers’ requirements should be one of the most important drivers for the learning process. And the practice-oriented learning technologies are given as the most effective answer to these needs as they imply involvement of the employer and solution of real-world tasks and problems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (S1) ◽  
pp. 351-373
Author(s):  
Felix Stumpf ◽  
Andreas Damelang ◽  
Martin Abraham ◽  
Sabine Ebensperger

Abstract This study provides novel insights into the institutional conditions under which skilled immigrants get hired for skilled jobs in different countries. We argue that immigrants’ hiring chances depend on the interplay between institutions in sending countries, which determine the type of education that immigrants bring, and institutions in receiving countries, which shape employers’ preferences for certain types of education. We develop a research design that considers this interplay and allows us to directly compare how education from sending countries with different institutional arrangements is rated by employers in two countries with widely divergent institutional contexts of reception, Germany and England. Using harmonised factorial surveys, we simulate hiring processes and evaluate the chances of German and English employers inviting foreign-educated immigrants to interviews for jobs commensurate with their education. The survey design makes it possible to experimentally vary the institutional settings in which immigrants acquired their education in the sending country, and isolate their effect on employers’ ratings. Our key finding is that immigrants from sending countries with highly standardised occupation-orientated education systems prevail in the hiring competition, irrespective of the education system in the receiving country.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
T. Komendziński ◽  
E. Mikołajewska ◽  
D. Mikołajewski ◽  
J. Dreszer ◽  
B. Bałaj

Neurological early and long-term rehabilitation plays a crucial role in the therapy of patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) such as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome or minimally conscious state. Neuroscience tries to explain the effect of music therapy on all levels of the nervous system = activity in patients with DOC, but full understanding is still incomplete. This paper attempts to answer how current clinical outcomes may reflect the influence of various factors including music's capacity. Based on their interdisciplinary perspective and previous experiences, the authors try to investigate the extent to which current occupations have been explored. The authors analyzed the literature data concerning the results of the studies published until the first half of 2016, to sum up the current state of research. Research in the main databases: PubMed, PEDro, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition was made using specified keywords and inclusion and exclusion criteria. Next, the authors sorted them all out into a coherent view of the current state. Music listening may constitute a part of an enriched environment setting. However, due to weak evidence, the therapeutic value of music-based interventions in patients with DOC is uneven or limited. The role of music therapy is thus complementary. Standardized clinical settings, protocols, and behavioral measures should be developed to increase its clinical validity, reliability, sensitivity, and objectivity. There is a reasonable hypothesis that music may produce a high level of diagnostic and therapeutic outcomes as stimuli usually reflecting strong personal meaning in patients with DOC.


Author(s):  
Susan Alexa Pusch ◽  
Thomas Ross ◽  
María Isabel Fontao

The aim of this study was to identify family characteristics and dynamics relevant to the initiation and maintenance of intrafamilial child sexual abuse. An understanding of essential characteristics of the affected families could help to prevent such crimes. In order to provide an overview of the current state of research, a literature review based on the PRISMA criteria was conducted. For the research in the databases PsycInfo and PSYNDEX, predetermined criteria and search terms were used. Fifteen relevant articles from 1991 to 2020 were identified. The studies examined perpetrator-victim relationships, the role of the mother, the relationship between the parents and characteristics of the families in which child sexual abuse took place. Relevant core characteristics of incestuous families are dysfunctional, violent, and conflictual relationships between the parents, and between parents and children. However, these factors are often not specific to intrafamilial abuse. Only six articles published after 2000 were identified. Little evidence for each individual construct was found, so the effects should not be overestimated. Further research on intrafamilial child sexual abuse is necessary.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-228
Author(s):  
A.V. Khaikin ◽  

The current state of research on the placebo effect is considered. The task is set to develop the idea of the role of positive expectation in the mechanism of placebo implementation. A number of assumptions concerning the nature of placebo and approaches to its study are put forward. Consideration of the effect in its linear structure can contribute to the study of the nature of the placebo. It is useful to understand this phenomenon as consisting of a stage of psychological triggering and a stage of psychosomatic and physiological implementation. In turn, it is useful to consider the first of them as consisting of a preliminary stage of forming a positive (or negative – with nocebo) expectation, confidence in a certain effect of a placebo agent, and the stage of actually triggering a placebo. When implementing the placebo effect, the active expectation of a certain internal process and its result activates the mechanism of auto-suggestion, within which the expected is realized. The placebo is triggered by the implementation of one of the types of autosuggestion process, which does not presuppose any purposeful actions of the subject, for example, orders addressed to the unconscious. A significant part of the studies of the placebo effect nature can be carried out within the framework of the study of the mechanisms and patterns of this way of autosuggestion, which is triggered by the confident active expectation of the subject in the onset of certain internal changes. It is clear that such studies can be carried out in contexts other than those of placebo and nocebo implementation, for example, neutral in relation to the physical and emotional state and make their conduct not burdened with ethical problems. Which, of course, can significantly contribute to the intensification of the study of the placebo nature. It is concluded that the proposed concept develops the thesis about the necessary role of positive expectation in the implementation of the placebo effect, explaining the role of expectation in the mechanism of its launch. Understanding the mechanism of the placebo effect as a mechanism for self-suggestion will significantly simplify the conditions for experimental studies of placebo patterns and creates a context for further research.


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