Identifying the roots of inequality of opportunity in South Korea by application of algorithmic approaches

This study identifies the roots of inequality of opportunity in South Korea by applying algorithmic approaches to survey data. In contrast to extant studies, we identify the roots of inequality of opportunity by estimating the importance of variables, interpreting the estimated results, and analyzing the importance of individual variables, instead of measuring inequality of opportunity. We apply a decision tree classification algorithm, light gradient boosting machine, and SHapley Additive exPlanations to estimate the importance of the studied variables and interpret the estimated results. According to the estimated results, the region where the individuals grew up, their gender, and their father’s job during their childhood were the main factors contributing to inequality of opportunity. This study proves that the considerable regional disparity and social environment perpetuate gender inequality in South Korean society. It argues that an individual’s socio-economic achievements are strongly influenced by their father’s background, thus, outweighing other family background-related factors. Individuals receive unequal opportunities owing to a combination of region, father’s background, and their own gender, thereby, affecting their socioeconomic achievements. If these factors remain influential from birth to adulthood, removing the conditions that structure them would be one way to achieve equality of opportunity.

Unequal Opportunities and Individual Achievements: Effect of Family Background

Equal opportunity theory is based on the idea that inequality of individual achievements is a complex phenomenon. It is formed by two groups of factors: (1) one's own decisions and efforts (inequality of efforts) and (2) circumstances beyond one's control (inequality of opportunities). Therefore, wealth inequality caused by effort factors (1) is fair and is not to be compensated for, whereas differences in welfare caused by objective circumstances (2) are unfair and should be compensable (the compensation principle). This paper introduces an assessment of circumstances associated with family background: composition, psychological atmosphere, well-being, occupation, education, etc. Parents' education and two-parent status appeared to be the most important circumstances. Respondents who grew up in a two-parent family with both biological parents had a higher income than those who grew up in one-parent families or with one biological and one stepparent. The low economic status of the parental family also proved to affect the well-being of grown-up children. Thus, efforts to provide equal opportunities can have a long-term effect on social inequality and build a more just society.

The Employability and Career Development of Finance and Trade College Graduates

Employability is a vital aspect for human development in career fields. In order to explore the factors affecting the employability of finance and trade graduates in higher vocational colleges, the researchers focused on human development in educational settings and conducted a piece of quantitative research within nine higher vocational colleges. The study uses descriptive statistical analysis to demonstrate the sample structure, using t-test, rank sum test, and chi-square test to assess the variables. It also adopts exploratory factor analysis to identify the classification of both educational practice and employability. Then, a multivariable linear regression model was adopted to examine the relationships between three main factors as well as the employability and career development of finance and trade graduates. The findings imply that the soft skills and basic skills of finance and trade college graduates have immensely improved through educational practice; graduates with high motivation for learning could enhance their soft skills and more internships or club engagement brings stronger professional skills. Based on these results, higher vocational colleges, enterprises, policymakers, teachers, and finance and trade graduates will benefit from the findings related to the reform of educational practice for strengthening graduate employability and human development. The originality of this paper is the conceptual evolution of finance and trade college graduate employability, as well as the empirical analysis on educational practice, student engagement, and family background affecting their human development.

Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions of College Students: The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and the Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Competition Experience

This study aims to explore effective ways to improve college students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intentions through entrepreneurship education. The survey used a random sample of 804 college students in Zhejiang Province, China. The results show that: (1) In terms of the characteristics of entrepreneurial intention, there are significant differences in gender, entrepreneurial experience, entrepreneurial competition experience, and family background of self-employment. (2) There are significant differences in the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in gender, entrepreneurial competition experience, and the family background of self-employment. (3) In the relationship among entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurship education is significantly and positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy is significantly and positively associated with entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy plays a complete mediating role between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy also has a suppressing effect on the relationship between the two. (4) Entrepreneurial competition experience moderates the second half of the mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Finally, the study offers several proposals for the teaching practice of entrepreneurship education.

Character, meaning in life, and well-being of students from teachers' perspective

Previous studies have revealed the benefits of character and meaning in life for individual well-being. However, little research has been conducted on elementary and junior high school teachers who teach students between the ages of 10-15 years (late childhood and early adolescence) in Indonesia. This study aims to explore teachers’ perceptions about character, meaning in life, and well-being. Interviews were conducted among 20 teachers. Our findings revealed that according to the teachers, the lessons and assessments in character education are well designed. However, coordination within the school community and with parents as well as specific roles between teachers and parents in building students’ character, meaning, and well-being needs to be improved. What teachers understood about meaning in life corresponds with the results of previous studies. Teachers’ understanding of well-being concept is still limited. They acknowledged family background, socioeconomic status, popularity, and academic achievement as important factors in students’ well-being. Keywords: character; meaning in life; well-being; teachers; children; adolescents

Inequality of Opportunity in School Education: the Role of Territorial Factors

This study measures the impact of spatial factors on the educational achievements of Russian students. According to the theory of equal opportunities, individual achievements depend on two groups of determinants: uncontrollable circumstances and one’s own efforts. Inequality of achievements produced by inequality of effort is treated as ethically acceptable, while inequality arising from circumstances is unfair and therefore must be compensated. The research is based on the data of the International Program for the Assessment of Educational Achievements of Students (PISA), wave 2018. Multilevel regression modeling was applied. A two-level model was used, in which the first level is that of the student, while the second level is regional. The calculations showed that anywhere from 14 to 16% of the variance in Russian students’ academic achievements is attributed to interregional irregularities. We learned that controlling for socio-economic status, lack of staff and material support in the school, type of area in which the school is located, and gender of the student make it possible to slightly reduce the role of regional differences, though it still remained significant. To a certain extent the impact of regional factor can be explained by variations in the influence of family background, school characteristics and gender across regions. The estimation of regional random effects allowed for identifying both the leaders and the outsiders in terms of the availability and quality of school education. Calculations have shown that the leaders and outsiders are practically the same in regards to all three areas of literacy.

Understanding and motivation for reading in eighteenth-century Finland

Reading skills were part of Christian education in early modern Finland. According to the church law (1686), it was a task of parents to teach their children to read. If they were unable to do it, for example because they were illiterate themselves, they could receive help from their parish. It was important for a Christian to acquaint him/herself with the basics of Christianity by reading the Catechism. The ability to read was not sufficient. People were also supposed to understand the text they read. If they did not understand it, they were not motivated to read. Among the understanding strategies memorising was used most frequently. It was based on repetitive reading, which was a common reading strategy in early modern Finland – not least because the amount of books in vernacular was still small. The same texts were read again and again. The strategy is also called intensive reading. Better readers even used observation strategies. They estimated their knowledge and understanding during the reading process. According to Deci and Ryan (Motivation, Personality and Development within Embedded Social Contexts: An Overview of Self-Determination Theory, 2012), there are three fundamental psychological needs, which bring not only well-being but also motivation to people. They are competence, autonomy and relationship. In early modern Finland these needs were satisfied in various ways. In general, those who were more familiar with religious speech and reading, as a result of their family background or because of their friends, learnt quickly, made better progress and proved their competence and autonomy in reading. Others, who had less support from their family or community, had poorer religious vocabulary, more difficulties to understand what they read and less motivation to read. They were afraid of the examinations in the Catechism and of the social pressure in such circumstances. They also felt inadequacy in reading.

The Role of Witness as Evidence in Divorce Cases at the Banda Aceh Syar’iyah Court

This study examines the role of witnesses as evidence in a divorce case at the Banda Aceh Syari’iyah Court. This study aims to determine the legal basis of witnesses as evidence, the background of the witnesses who were submitted due to disputes or syiqaqand the position of female witnesses in divorce cases. This study uses empirical legal research or sociological law, which is a study whose object is legal phenomena using sociological theories. The legal phenomenon in question is the application of law at the Banda Aceh Syar’iyah Court, particularly regarding witness evidence in divorce cases. Data collection techniques were carried out by means of in-depth interviews with judges and literature studies related to the existence of witnesses and judges’ decisions as primary data related to witnesses as evidence. This study concludes that witnesses as evidence are based on the Qur’an and hadithand the applicable laws and regulations. Witnesses have existence as evidence used by judges as a consideration in deciding cases. In the case of a divorce caused by a dispute, the witness evidence comes from the close family background of the husband or wife. Close family who really know, see and hear the events that occur in their household. In civil procedural law for divorce cases at the Syar'iyah Court, women have the same and equal position as men in giving testimony. The testimony of close families and the sociological equality of women and men is a legal fact that must be appreciated to achieve justice for all parties.

Intertextuality in Selected Narrative Poems of Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí

The creative works of Adébáyọ Fálétí, a renowned literary writer in Yorùbá, ̀ have been the focus of literary critics. Notable among such are Olatunji (1982a; 1982b; 1982c), Ogunsina (1991), Ìṣọ̀lá (1998) and Adebowale (1999). These scholars have examined the issues of form, style and theme in Fálétí’s poetry. It has been established that Fálétí is a philosophical poet influenced by the historical, political, social and cultural contexts of the society that produced his poems. According to Olatunji (1982), “the oral poetic tradition of the Yorùbá constitutes the weft and woof of Fálétí’s poetic genius.” This attests to the claim that “no artist creates in a vacuum” (Agyekum, 2007:31). It could be deduced from the above position that there is an interplay between the text of Fálétí’s poetry and the context that produced it. Using intertextuality approach, this paper, therefore, examines the interplay of the text, context and the writer in selected poems of Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí with a view to determining the correlation between the Yorùbá oral poetic genres and the written form in Fálétí’s poetry and determining the continuity of the oral poetic genre in the written form. Fálétí’s biography has been discussed by Olatunji (1982). He was born at Agbóóyè in Ọyọ̀ ́ and had his elementary life on the farm, where he was exposed to the Yorùbá culture undiluted. He was a novelist, playwright, poet, scriptwriter and actor when alive. His works include Ọmọ Olókùn Ẹṣin, Thunderbolt, Baṣọrun Gáà, Fẹrẹ bí Ẹkùn, ̀ and Ogún Àwítẹ́lẹ. Fálétí’s works ̀ are greatly influenced by his family background because his father was a 120 Arinpe Adejumo and Adefemi Akinseloyin prominent member of the sàkàrá calabash beating oral poets and entertainers under Olatunji Kúdẹẹ̀ ̀fù in the court of Ọba Ṣiyanbọ́lá Oníkẹẹ̀ pé Ládìg ́ - bòlù I, the Aláàfin of Ọyọ̀ (1911-1944). Fálétí learnt a lot about narratives and ́ other techniques of rendition from his father’s poetic influence. There are also cases of intertextuality in his narrative poems and other literary works. Fálétí’s narrations and literary works are inspired by the tales he heard from his father, aunt and members of the larger family (Olatunji 1982). These influenced his narrative poems, as they reflect chronicles, heroism and expositions, which he borrowed from the Yorùbá oral poetic genre. Since oral poets are imbued with repertoires of praise poetry, legends, myths, proverbs, songs and history, Fálétí’s narrative poems are filled with the intertextuality of Yorùbá oral materials.

Katarina Elizabeta baronica Raumschüssl, rojena Sauer, in njena loretska kapela pri celjskih minoritih

On 30 June 1692, the widowed Baroness Katharina Elisabeth Raumschüssl from the family of Counts Sauer of Borl established the sung Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Celje Minorite monastery. This previously overlooked deed of gift is important not only as a testimony to the Baroness's pious intentions and the connections between the Sauers and the Celje Minorites but also because of its reference to the Loreto chapel in the monastery church, whose extension and furnishing the Baroness financed as well, according to the deed. The chapel is another in a series of copies of the Holy House of Loreto, Mary's house from Nazareth, many of which were also constructed in Styria by the end of the 17th century, especially by noble patrons. The article presents the Baroness's family background, related to the veneration of Our Lady of Loreto, and discusses the most probable location and reconstruction of the chapel. Based on the interpretation of Ignacij Orožen's record and the 1813 plan of the monastery, the present article presents a well-argued thesis that the Loreto chapel was once located on the site nowadays occupied by the chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes in the succursal (formerly Minorite) Church of the Assumption of Mary in Celje.