scholarly journals The Ph.D. Dilemma in Canada Revisited

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-92
Author(s):  
Max Von Zur-Muehlen

Growth of doctoral studies at Canadian universities in the last two decades has resulted in the more than 1,000 programs that are now offered. Not surprisingly, the output of Ph.D. graduates has increased 6 fold since the early sixties. But during the seventies, an imbalance between the rising supply of Ph.D. 's and the declining demand for them, particularly in higher education, became apparent. This paper traces historical trends in the employment of Canada's Ph.D. holders, and looks at their prospects for the future. Traditionally, about 65% of doctoral graduates have entered educational occupations. Today, because of the youthful age structure, there are few retirements or deaths, and hence, the annual replacement demand is for only about 500 Ph.D. 's. But Canadian universities now confer around 2,000 doctorates each year (including returning Canadians from abroad). Moreover, this imbalance is apt to persist. On the basis of the current enrolment of 13,000, the Ph.D. supply has been projected from 1977-78 to 1981-82 for 45 disciplines. Relating these supply estimates to the likely demand for university teachers reveals a potential surplus in almost every discipline. A cycle of shortage and surplus appears to have developed in some fields. These simulations have been derived from assumptions, which are outlined in two appendices and 26 supporting tables. In addition, this paper also examines other features of the Ph.D. situation in Canada: a history of the growth of graduate education; variations in the ratio of Ph.D. enrolment to graduates in different disciplines; support programs for doctoral students, and the immigration of university teachers. The information provides an overview of the many dimensions of the Ph.D. issue.

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Mălina Ciocea

Development “is a way of getting acquainted with ourselves” (Dobrescu, 2020, p. 9). Starting with The Century of the Emerging World (2013) and continuing with No Project Country (2019), Paul Dobrescu explores Romania’s recent history of development, in an attempt to understand what future is envisaged by current economic policies. As usual, the conclusions of the analysis are an elegy. Development was not a real priority during transition in Romania, but a rhetoric. “We had lived a time of development without freedom and we inaugurated a time of freedom without development” (p. 167). That is not to say that Paul Dobrescu’s newest book is a disheartening read. On the contrary, it invites meditation on the fate of countries and puts their development into a global perspective which, in rationalizing historical trends, provides a well-grounded explanation for contemporary developments, while giving hope for a more equitable future. If anything, Paul Dobrescu’s books are deeply humanistic (in a way globalization itself, his arch-theme spanning more than 20 years, is supposed to be) and serve as a reminder of the fate of the many.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 9-28
Author(s):  
E. A. Terentev ◽  
B. I. Bednyi

The concentration of state resources in the leading universities poses the problem of reproduction of the scientific and pedagogical personnel in regional universities that do not participate in state-funded academic excellence programs. Based on the data from three focus group interviews with heads of doctoral studies offices at regional universities, the article analyzes problems arising in the implementation of the current model of training and certification of doctoral students. Four following groups of problems are identified: 1) the rigidity of requirements for the structure and content of the educational programs, 2) the imperfection of the system of attestation, gaps between attestation activities, 3) the problem of “retention” of doctoral students after the completion of the educational program, 4) the problems of conjugation of the processes of preparing a dissertation and its defense. The authors discuss possible ways to overcome the identified problems through providing universities with greater autonomy in designing the structure and content of the educational programs; synchronization of the procedures of the final state attestation and dissertation defense; creation of mechanisms for supporting successful doctoral graduates at the final stage of their preparation for the defense of a dissertation; development of network forms for implementation of doctoral programs with leading universities and research institutes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 391-400
Author(s):  
Jan Bröchner ◽  
Ahmet Anıl Sezer

One of the many varieties of university–industry collaboration is industry engagement in doctoral programmes. A scheme operated by the Development Fund of the Swedish Construction Industry since the early 1990s has supported thesis projects for about 150 PhD candidates. While they were doctoral students they were employed by contractors as industrial doctoral candidates or by universities. The purpose of this investigation was to analyse how, as PhD graduates, they perceived the benefits of doctoral studies for themselves as individuals and also how they have contributed to the organization that employs them. Results from a survey with 125 respondents show that the greatest individual benefit is that of being able to access relevant information more rapidly, and that the greatest perceived organizational benefit arises from their ability to cooperate with knowledgeable clients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence B. Leonard

Purpose The current “specific language impairment” and “developmental language disorder” discussion might lead to important changes in how we refer to children with language disorders of unknown origin. The field has seen other changes in terminology. This article reviews many of these changes. Method A literature review of previous clinical labels was conducted, and possible reasons for the changes in labels were identified. Results References to children with significant yet unexplained deficits in language ability have been part of the scientific literature since, at least, the early 1800s. Terms have changed from those with a neurological emphasis to those that do not imply a cause for the language disorder. Diagnostic criteria have become more explicit but have become, at certain points, too narrow to represent the wider range of children with language disorders of unknown origin. Conclusions The field was not well served by the many changes in terminology that have transpired in the past. A new label at this point must be accompanied by strong efforts to recruit its adoption by clinical speech-language pathologists and the general public.


2020 ◽  
Vol 384 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-232
Author(s):  
P. V. Menshikov ◽  
G. K. Kassymova ◽  
R. R. Gasanova ◽  
Y. V. Zaichikov ◽  
V. A. Berezovskaya ◽  
...  

A special role in the development of a pianist as a musician, composer and performer, as shown by the examples of the well-known, included in the history of art, and the most ordinary pianists, their listeners and admirers, lovers of piano music and music in general, are played by moments associated with psychotherapeutic abilities and music features. The purpose of the study is to comprehend the psychotherapeutic aspects of performing activities (using pianists as an example). The research method is a theoretical analysis of the psychotherapeutic aspects of performing activities: the study of the possibilities and functions of musical psychotherapy in the life of a musician as a “(self) psychotherapist” and “patient”. For almost any person, music acts as a way of self-understanding and understanding of the world, a way of self-realization, rethinking and overcoming life's difficulties - internal and external "blockages" of development, a way of saturating life with universal meanings, including a person in the richness of his native culture and universal culture as a whole. Art and, above all, its metaphorical nature help to bring out and realize internal experiences, provide an opportunity to look at one’s own experiences, problems and injuries from another perspective, to see a different meaning in them. In essence, we are talking about art therapy, including the art of writing and performing music - musical psychotherapy. However, for a musician, music has a special meaning, special significance. Musician - produces music, and, therefore, is not only an “object”, but also the subject of musical psychotherapy. The musician’s training includes preparing him as an individual and as a professional to perform functions that can be called psychotherapeutic: in the works of the most famous performers, as well as in the work of ordinary teachers, psychotherapeutic moments sometimes become key. Piano music and performance practice sets a certain “viewing angle” of life, and, in the case of traumatic experiences, a new way of understanding a difficult, traumatic and continuing to excite a person event, changing his attitude towards him. It helps to see something that was hidden in the hustle and bustle of everyday life or in the patterns of relationships familiar to a given culture. At the same time, while playing music or learning to play music, a person teaches to see the hidden and understand the many secrets of the human soul, the relationships of people.


1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 281-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C Gordon

Large-scale tidal power development in the Bay of Fundy has been given serious consideration for over 60 years. There has been a long history of productive interaction between environmental scientists and engineers durinn the many feasibility studies undertaken. Up until recently, tidal power proposals were dropped on economic grounds. However, large-scale development in the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy now appears to be economically viable and a pre-commitment design program is highly likely in the near future. A large number of basic scientific research studies have been and are being conducted by government and university scientists. Likely environmental impacts have been examined by scientists and engineers together in a preliminary fashion on several occasions. A full environmental assessment will be conducted before a final decision is made and the results will definately influence the outcome.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devrimi Kaya ◽  
Robert J. Kirsch ◽  
Klaus Henselmann

This paper analyzes the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as intermediaries in encouraging the European Union (EU) to adopt International Accounting Standards (IAS). Our analysis begins with the 1973 founding of the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), and ends with 2002 when the binding EU regulation was approved. We document the many pathways of interaction between European supranational, governmental bodies and the IASC/IASB, as well as important regional NGOs, such as the Union Européenne des Experts Comptables, Économiques et Financiers (UEC), the Groupe d'Etudes des Experts Comptables de la Communauté Économique Européenne (Groupe d'Etudes), and their successor, the Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens (FEE). This study investigates, through personal interviews of key individuals involved in making the history of the organizations studied, and an extensive set of primary sources, how NGOs filled key roles in the process of harmonization of international accounting standards.


Author(s):  
Shuang Chen

The book explores the social economic processes of inequality produced by differential state entitlements. Drawing on uniquely rich source materials from central and local archives, the book provides an unprecedented, comprehensive view of the creation of a socio-economic and political hierarchy under the Eight Banners in the Qing dynasty in what is now Shuangcheng County, Heilongjiang province. Shuangcheng was settled by bannermen from urban Beijing and elsewhere in rural Manchuria in the nineteenth century. The state classified the immigrants into distinct categories, each associated with differentiated land entitlements. By reconstructing the history of settlement and land distribution in this county, the book shows that patterns of wealth stratification and the underlying social hierarchy were not merely imposed by the state from the top-down but created and reinforced by local people through practices on the ground. In the course of pursuing their own interests, settlers internalized the distinctions created by the state through its system of unequal land entitlements. The tensions built into the unequal land entitlements therefore shaped the identities of immigrant groups, and this social hierarchy persisted after the fall of the Qing in 1911. The book offers an in-depth understanding of the key factors that contributed to social stratification in agrarian societies in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. Moreover, it also sheds light on the many parallels between the stratification system in Qing-dynasty Shuangcheng and the structural inequality in contemporary China.


This book addresses the sounds of the Crimean War, along with the many ways nineteenth-century wartime is aurally constructed. It examines wide-ranging experiences of listeners in Britain, France, Turkey, Russia, Italy, Poland, Latvia, Daghestan, Chechnya, and Crimea, illustrating the close interplay between nineteenth-century geographies of empire and the modes by which wartime sound was archived and heard. This book covers topics including music in and around war zones, the mediation of wartime sound, the relationship between sound and violence, and the historiography of listening. Individual chapters concern sound in Leo Tolstoy’s wartime writings, and his place within cosmopolitan sensibilities; the role of the telegraph in constructing sonic imaginations in London and the Black Sea region; the absence of archives for the sounds of particular ethnic groups, and how songs preserve memories for both Crimean Tatars and Polish nationalists; the ways in which perceptions of voice rearranged the mental geographies of Baltic Russia, and undermined aspirations to national unity in Italy; Italian opera as a means of conditioning elite perceptions of Crimean battlefields; and historical frames through which to understand the diffusion of violent sounds amid everyday life. The volume engages the academic fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, history, literary studies, sound studies, and the history of the senses.


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