An Aging Nursing Workforce: Thematic Analysis from the Nurstory Project

Background Nursing in the United States of America is an aging workforce. This study sought to better understand the lived experience of aging nurses. Because nurses work in systems where other forms of interpersonal power dynamics may influence internalized and external stereotype an approach based on intersectional theory was applied. Methods A qualitative thematic narrative analysis of an existing data set of first-person digital stories in the Nurstory project, authored by a group of nurses, was the data source. An emergent coding method was applied. The collection of five digital stories were analyzed. Results All stories were first person accounts of experiences that represented their internalized reflections and elements of ageism in how their age interacted with their work environment. Dominant themes included: 1) Role constriction 2) Strength 3) Tired and (re)Tired 4) Age perceived and 5)Loneliness. Conclusions These aging nursing stories add to the contextual layers of the aging healthcare workplace and aging nursing workforce. These individual experiences offer a nuanced understanding of the internalized responses to aging and ageism. These stories highlight socially constructed and socially reinforced attitudes that are complicated by the personal and occupational expectations of nurse’s work, their role and embedded hierarchies in healthcare. Stories such as these are important individual and collective indicators of lived experiences that offer a deeper understanding into the intersections of social identity and aging, that when listened to, can offer insight and a way forward in addressing the stereotype, discrimination and social inequities of ageism.

Gender gaps in science: systematic review of the main explanations and research agenda

Despite improvements in the incorporation of women in tertiary education and science, today persist several gender gaps in some scientific and technological areas worldwide. Understanding the factors that determine these gaps is essential to the incorporation of women into knowledge societies in terms of equity. The present research sought to explore and systematize the explanations given to this phenomenon by the international literature in the last four decades. The objectives were: (1). Analyze the evolution of the main research agendas and categorize these into groups (or clusters) of explanations, and (2) discuss the challenges that research agendas face in addressing the phenomenon in a multi-causal way. The data were obtained from the articles contained in the Web of Science (WoS) and were subjected to a systematic review using bibliometric and qualitative techniques. The analysis reveals an important growth of the research in this area within the social sciences, which is grouped into five main types of explanation: (1) student performance in STEM areas, (2) influence of gender stereotypes and models, (3) interests and educational-learning experiences, (4) educational-occupational expectations and choices, and (5) uneven advancement and performance in scientific careers. Evolution shows that explanations about performance and individual choice have lost weight in the present, giving rise to explanations about the influence of gender stereotypes and models within educational systems and socialization stages. This study thus contributes to the understanding of the causal factors that have determined gender gaps in science while identifying some gaps in research agendas.

THE GENERATIVE MECHANISM OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ OCCUPATIONAL EXPECTATIONS IN THE BALTIC COUNTRIES: INFLUENCE OF FAMILY, SCHOOL, AND INDIVIDUAL SCIENCE LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT

Gender, learning achievements, parents’ occupational status, social-economic backgrounds, and a few traits of schools affect students’ occupational expectations. However, no research had integrated the above factors to investigate the generative mechanism of students’ occupational expectations. After combining student-level and school-level PISA 2018 datasets, two-level latent covariate modeling was used to find the generative mechanism of students’ occupational expectations in the Baltic countries. The mechanism had its primary concern to understand roles parents’ occupational status and individual science learning achievement played on students’ occupational expectations. The results indicate that the generative mechanism of students’ occupational expectations of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia are the power model, the maternal model, and the science learning achievement pattern, respectively. It suggests one parent having high occupational status is to mold children’s high-skilled occupational expectations, and it would be better the mother is the higher occupational status parent. It highlights the importance of strengthening adult education, especially that aimed at families with both parents of low occupational status. It disapproves of a mother being a full-time housewife. It may impede her children from having ambitions for high-skilled jobs. Keywords: occupational expectation, PISA 2018 datasets, science learning achievement, two-level latent covariate model

Planning for College and Careers: How Families and Schools Shape the Alignment of Postsecondary Expectations

Students with aligned educational and occupational expectations have improved college and labor market outcomes. Despite extensive knowledge about the ways social background and school context contribute to educational expectations, less is known about the role of social intuitions in shaping expectational alignment. Drawing on data from the 2009 High School Longitudinal Study, I estimate the magnitude of socioeconomic inequality in alignment. I examine how differences in observed student characteristics contribute to, and whether school-based postsecondary planning initiatives mitigate, that inequality. Results from multinomial regression models show large socioeconomic differences in ninth-grade alignment, and I identify achievement, attitudes about college and careers, and relationships with significant others as contributors to those differences. Participation in postsecondary planning is associated with reduced uncertainty and increased alignment, but this relationship does not differ by social background, indicating that the examined college and career planning policies do little to address inequality in alignment.

Immigrant optimism or immigrant pragmatism? Linguistic capital, orientation towards science and occupational expectations of adolescent immigrants

Background Studies demonstrate that occupational optimism can boost adolescents’ academic attainment and perseverance in education. To contribute to this literature, we consider two hypotheses. The first posits that bilingual immigrants are remarkably resourceful and determined. Thus, they are more occupationally ambitious than their peers. The second proposes that immigrant students engage in “strategic adaptation” by specializing in science, viewed as a level playing field. Methods To assess these hypotheses at two points of time, we analyze data from 19 societies that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2006 and 2015. Our primary method is path analysis with balanced replicate weights (BRR) undertaken separately for each country’s data. Results We find that, in many countries, bilingual immigrants expect to enter higher status occupations than non-immigrants. However, immigrants who do not speak another language are also optimistic, so linguistic resources cannot explain occupational ambition. Furthermore, immigrants accord science more instrumental value and enjoy it more at school, which accounts, across societies, for up to 12% of the variation in vocational optimism indicated by the expected occupational status, and up to 41% in plans to pursue a career in science professions. Conclusion Our results align with the “strategic adaptation” argument that many young immigrants might seek to specialize in science as a pragmatic tactic to ensure high occupational attainment.

Without a Profession: The Politics of Being and Becoming an American Imam

Current and recent history has seen an intense struggle over Islam’s essence and sources of authority, as well as increasing national tensions over national religion and the idea of an “American Islam.” Her work integrates scholarship on authority, theology, and religious freedom to illuminate the imam’s contested image in U.S., as well as how the struggle among various stakeholders (e.g., Muslims, politicians, and law enforcement) is shaping the profession. Central to her work with imams is an inquiry into how religion is built, who contributes to a national religious construction, and what are the local and international implications on principles like religious freedom.Khalil’s study is based on over three years of qualitative research in nearly a dozen American cities. Analyzing the results of participant observation, hundreds of interviews, and site visits to aspiring Islamic seminaries, she examines how efforts to shape the profession and mold the figure of these imams are inherently intertwined with various government arms, among them federal law enforcement, state authorizing boards, and foreign policies. She argues that ministry is a necessary path to nationalizing a faith, and that its regulation complicates our understanding of religious freedom. The increasing emergence of Islamic seminaries helps define the borders of other authoritative professions, such as those of a scholar or a jurist, narrowing, by professional elimination, the occupational expectations and the public’s understanding of the American imam.Her dissertation examines the lives of American imams to show how this profession is being formed at the junction of three influences: government regulations impacting ministers, pastoral norms, and the Muslim scholarly tradition to affirm a(n often mutually welcome) latent mosque–state partnership. Beyond the state, normative figurations of religious leadership as clergy also inform and shape the imam’s figure to one that is a professional parallel in terms of authority and performance. Examining these contexts highlights the role of the state and bureaucratic procedures in the localized emergence of religious and professional categories like that of American Islam and the American imam. Ultimately, Khalil’s work shows that religions are neither shaped in vacuums nor are their leaders immune to the normative processes, forms, and influences present where they try to take root.