provides links to information management, information sources and other "useful stuff" with a strong bias towards the management of information in a careers guidance context.
As of 17 July 2017 I include mental health information and comment.
I tweet as @careersinfo and am on LinkedIn and Facebook as Hazel Edmunds
One of my clients said this the other day – about herself. Well, her little girl self. And my heart broke.
One of the very first things I do with clients is encourage them to practice self-compassion and kindness – just extending themselves the same basic human compassion and kindness that they would anyone else.
Very much the opposite of what most people who struggle with weight and food are used to. After all, when it comes to our weight and food, we’re programmed with messages like “You just have to want it more, be motivated, build your willpower muscle, try harder, work harder, be better…”
Perhaps to some, it may sound easy or silly, and it’s hard to understand what the hell kindness and compassion have to do with weight and food struggles when we’re so programmed to believe the opposite.
Just extending yourself some basic human kindness and compassion really does end up being one of the most important things to do when you’ve struggled with weight and food for a long time. It’s also the hardest, and some struggle more than others with this simple concept.
Personally, I struggled hard with it when I first started trying.
A rare encounter with the freaky Deepstaria jellyfish
via Boing Boing by Clive Thompson
Recently a team of marine scientists were piloting a submersible when they had a super-rare encounter with a Deepstaria jellyfish. It starts off looking like a ghost and then turns inside out and spreads out into a crazy translucent film. Continue reading
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14 of the Best Synonyms for ‘Stupid’
via Interesting Literature
Words, of course, are the tools of the writer’s trade. But what are some good words, perhaps even some unusual but wonderfully descriptive words, which mean ‘stupid’ or ‘foolish’ or ‘gullible’? Here are some of the best, most useful, as well as some of the most unusual synonyms for ‘stupid’ and ‘stupidity’ (and for foolish people). Continue reading Some wonderful words there that I have not seen before.
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Vessels Of Others
via 3 Quarks Daily by S Abbas Raza: Justin E. H. Smith at his own website:
Mainstream philosophy and science at least since Aristotle have held to the view that each living body, under normal circumstances, should be inhabited by no more than one soul. If you don’t care for talk of souls, exchange that word for “individual”, and the point still stands: sharing bodily space is abnormal, a sign of pathology, to be corrected by flushing the worms out of your entrails, or by mulesing your sheep against flystrike. Continue reading
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A Quarry Is Actually A 3D Map Of The Ancient Egyptian Underworld, Suggests Polish Scientist
via Ancient Origins by Ashley Cowie The Step Pyramid of King Djoser, does it include a path to the afterlife? Source: WitR / Adobe Stock.
Ancient Egyptians are well known for their creation of vast architectural structures which penetrate the skies and each one required a thorough understanding of the universal dynamics of breadth, width, and height. But now, a scientist suggests that a huge trench dug around the nation’s oldest step pyramid means the architects were also 3D modeling the afterlife.
Twentieth century archaeologists discovered tunnels and stone tombs of dignitaries of the 6th dynasty, several hundred years younger than the building of the Pyramid of Djoser which was erected between 2667 and 2648 BC during the rule of the third dynasty pharaoh ‘Djoser’. Continue reading
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Virtual Enigma machine illustrates how signals traveled through its wiring and rotors
via Boing Boing by Clive Thompson
Check out this lovely interactive version of an Enigma machine coded up by Tom MacWright! Leave yourself time, lots of it. This is mesmerising.
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An Interesting Character Study: Hamlet
via Interesting Literature
The role of Hamlet is one of the most intellectually and emotionally demanding for an actor: as Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor mention in their detailed introduction to Hamlet: Revised Edition (The Arden Shakespeare Third Series), the Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis even withdrew from the role in 1989, mid-run, after he allegedly began ‘seeing’ the ghost of his father, the former Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who had died in 1972. But despite – or, perhaps, because of – this emotional intensity and complexity, actors down the ages have been keen to put their own stamp on the role, including David Garrick (who had a special wig that made Hamlet’s hair stand on end when the ghost of his father appeared), Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Mel Gibson, Sarah Bernhardt (one of many women to portray the Prince of Denmark: see the image below), Ethan Hawke, Keanu Reeves, Kenneth Branagh, Maxine Peake, and even John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Continue reading NOTE: This is a fairly long read but I thinks it's worth it if “Hamlet” has always confused you (as it has me).
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Fairy Tales And Sound Change
via 3 Quarks Daily by Gabrielle C. Durham Jacob Grimm
If you grew up in the Western Hemisphere, chances are good that you heard or read several fairytales by the Brothers Grimm as a child. Examples include “Cinderella,” “Rapunzel,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Less well known, and for good reason, are stories of retribution, such as “St. Joseph in the Forest” or “King Thrushbeard,” or gratuitous violence, such as “The Louse and the Flea.”
These German purveyors of macabre moralism were not just busy horrifying children and their parents for countless generations; one of the brothers, Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), was also a linguist, or philologist, as the profession was known in the 19th century. Grimm’s concern was how the branches of the Indo-European languages tree led to the altered Germanic languages. (The original nine Indo-European language families are Indo-European, Armenian, Hellenic, Albanian, Italic/Romance, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, and Germanic, which includes English.) Continue readingNOTE: this piece is not primarily about fairy stories.
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Revelations From Çatalhöyük: A 9,000-year-old Community With Modern Urban Problems
via Ancient Origins A researcher excavating an adult skeleton at the Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk in Turkey. Source: Scott Haddow / Ohio State University
Some 9,000 years ago, residents of one of the world's first large farming communities were also among the first humans to experience some of the perils of modern urban living.
Scientists studying the ancient ruins of Çatalhöyük, in modern Turkey, found that its inhabitants - 3,500 to 8,000 people at its peak - experienced overcrowding, infectious diseases, violence and environmental problems. Birthplace of Urban Living
In a paper published June 17, 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of bioarchaeologists report new findings built on 25 years of study of human remains unearthed at Çatalhöyük.
The results paint a picture of what it was like for humans to move from a nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle to a more sedentary life built around agriculture , said Clark Spencer Larsen, lead author of the study, and professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University. The article, originally titled ‘9,000 years ago, a community with modern urban problems: Çatalhöyük had overcrowding, violence, environmental troubles’ was originally published on Science Daily. Continue reading
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This is not a box of chocolates (it's felt art by LeBrie Rich)
via Boing Boing by Rusty Blazenhoff
During a recent stopover in Portland, Oregon, it was delightful to once again hang out with the "Duchess of Felt," artist LeBrie Rich. Continue reading
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Michael Moorcock: Death Is No Obstacle
via Interesting Literature
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads a rare but revealing extended interview with one of fantasy fiction’s greatest writers
When John Steinbeck was once asked how he went about writing, he replied, ‘With a pencil.’ Some writers are reluctant to give away too much about their inspiration, their influences, their thinking and writing and editing processes, as if wanting to perpetuate the Romantic fallacy that genius and inspiration just strike and that the lucky, ‘gifted’ individual is driven to pick up a pen and write down what the Muse dictates.
Despite his prodigious gifts and his long-standing success as a novelist, Michael Moorcock is only too happy to share the secrets of his craft. In a 1992 book, Death Is No Obstacle, which is essentially a long transcript of interviews the writer Colin Greenland had with Moorcock in 1990, Moorcock happily reveals some of the ‘tricks of the trade’ of writing genre fiction, as well as thoughtfully exploring his own relationship with various genres of popular fiction. The book isn’t easy to get hold of – copies tend to go for around £50 online. I’m indebted to my university library, which owns a signed copy. Continue reading
Unfair and unstable: EU bankruptcy reform requires more scrutinyMaryam Malakotipour, Enrico Perotti, Rolef de Weijs 24 February 2020
In 2019 the EU published its directive on bankruptcy reform, which national parliaments must now consider. This column argues the Relative Priority Rule that the reforms propose is unfair, would reduce financial stability, and may lead to a regulatory race to the bottom. The rule would aggravate risk-taking because returns would be captured by shareholders while losses would be borne by unsecured creditors.
an article by Sarah Damaske (The Pennsylvania State University, USA) published in Gender and Society Volume 34 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
Drawing on data from 100 qualitative interviews with the recently unemployed, this study examines how participants made decisions about attempting to return to work and identifies how class and gender shape these decisions.
Middle-class men were most likely to take time to attempt to return to work, middle-class women were most likely to begin a deliberate job search, working-class men were most likely to report an urgent search, and working-class women were most likely to have diverted searches.
Financial resources, gendered labour force attachments, and family responsibilities shaped decision making.
Ultimately, those in the middle-class appear doubly advantaged – both in their financial capabilities and in their ability to respond to the crisis with greater gender flexibility.
an article by Matthew Donoghue (University of Oxford, UK) and Daniel Edmiston (University of Leeds, UK) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 40 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
In recent years, resilience has been invoked as both a pre-emptive and responsive strategy to tackling socio-material insecurity.
This article outlines a number of discursive and administrative features that distinguish the rise of resilience from longer-term shifts towards ‘active citizenship’ in British social policy.
We use data from two studies of financial hardship to examine how the fetishised ideal of resilience is reified and negotiated in the everyday experiences of low-income citizens. We argue that resilience is practised as ‘a way of being’, but in contorted ways that reflect restrictions to agency, resources and autonomy.
This article makes an original contribution by exposing a current paradox within resilience as a governing agenda: it is principally pursued in ways that compromise the material and ontological security necessary for its productive potential. The article concludes by reflecting on what conceptual and applied agendas this presents for policymakers, practitioners and academics in the UK and further afield.
an article by Jose Cuesta (Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank) and Marinella Leone (University of Pavia, Italy) published in Journal of Economic Surveys Volume 34 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
Adolescence constitutes the second and final window of human growth and a period of specific vulnerabilities, such as early pregnancy, early marriage, HIV infection, suicide, violence, alcohol, and drugs. Only a limited body of research investigates the effects of humanitarian crises on the human capital and well‐being of adolescents.
The evidence focuses on the short‐term effects of conflict and, to a lesser extent, natural disasters on education, physical health, and nutrition, but not on mental health.
Most analyses examine the situations of individuals exposed in utero and young childhood, but rarely during adolescence. Typically missing are robust empirical identification strategies and estimates on heterogeneous effects across age or gender. The lack of quality data and challenges in defining adolescence, establishing causality, or ensuring ethical research explain the knowledge gaps.
Possible ways to expand the evidence base include mixing georeferenced data on individual location with georeferenced data on crises, sharpening quasi‐experimental analytical techniques, and reconsidering the current timing of demographic data collection, now spanning 4‐ or 5‐year intervals.
The failure to make such adjustments will end by ignoring specific vulnerabilities among adolescents and render sustainable progress in well‐being globally, narrowing inequalities, and guaranteeing human rights to all more difficult to achieve.
an article by Liliana Bounegru (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK), Kari De Pryck (GSI, University of Geneva and CERI, Sciences Po Paris), Tommaso Venturini (CNRS Center for Internet and Society) and Michele Mauri (Density Design, Politecnico di Milano) published in First Monday Volume 25 Number 2 (February 2020)
Abstract
This article contributes to the study of climate debates online by examining how the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR15) played out on YouTube following its release in October 2018.
We examined features of 40 videos that ranked the highest in YouTube’s search engine over the course of four weeks after the publication of the report.
Additionally, this study examines the shifting visibility of the videos, the nature of the channels that published them and the way in which they articulated the issue of climate change.
We found that media activity around SR15 was animated by a mix of professional and user-led channels, with the former enjoying higher and more stable visibility in YouTube ranking.
We identified four main recurrent themes: disaster and impacts, policy options and solutions, political and ideological struggles around climate change and contested science. The discussion of policy options and solutions was particularly prominent.
Critiques of the SR15 report took different forms: as well as denialist videos which downplayed the severity of climate change, there were also several clips which criticised the report for underestimating the extent of warming or overestimating the feasibility of proposed policies.
an article by Jon Hyslop, Helen Aveyard, Guida de Abreu and Jane V. Appleton (Oxford Brookes University, UK) published in Disability and Society Volume 35 Issue 1 (2020)
Abstract
This literature review was conducted to describe the range of organisations and informal groups providing peer support to personal budget users in the United Kingdom between the launch of direct payments in 1997 and 2016.
Forty-five research reports included relevant evidence.
This has been aggregated to show how peer networks supported individual users, as well as to describe their wider role in policy development and implementation.
Despite their diversity, the support they provided often had common characteristics. Peer networks fostered collaboration, enhanced communication, built confidence amongst people who were entitled to a personal budget, and applied specialist knowledge that was often derived from the lived experience of network members.
None of these characteristics was exclusive to peer networks.
However, they may have been more deeply culturally embedded here than in other settings, which perhaps accounts for the positive experiences of support reported in the research literature.
Points of interest
It is now more than 20 years since direct payments first enabled UK residents to take the money used to pay for their social services as personal budgets.
Early research showed that support provided through peer networks including disabled people’s organisations had particular advantages. Despite this, the proportion of support commissioned from peer networks has subsequently reduced.
This review of the research literature details the helpful support provided by peer networks at each stage of obtaining and managing a personal budget.
The approaches taken by peer networks were often innovative and original, and this article summarises their characteristics.
“Time and good friends are two things that get more valuable the older you get.” ~Unknown
In recent years, we’ve collectively been talking a lot about creating boundaries and letting go of things that no longer serve us. Many of us have gotten better at permitting ourselves to say no and to escape old habits and routines. We’re also more open about our choices to reject people and places that exude bad vibrations or bad energy.
I love that we’re becoming more conscious of the universe that’s always changing all around us. Together, we’re acknowledging the power we have to make mindful decisions that resonate with our higher selves. That’s what it’s all been about, right?
Maybe not quite.
Continue readingand discover why Sonya thinks some people may have gone a bit too far down the "protection of self" route. Yes, thinking of yourself is important, setting boundaries is important BUT and that is a BIG BOLD BUT … we must have a balance.
a column by Laurence Kotlikoff for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
The US has spent the entire post-war period running a massive and ever-growing Ponzi scheme that takes from the young and gives to the old.
This column discusses how the scheme has been and is being run by expanding take-as-you-go-financed Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid systems, by running huge official deficits, and by imposing a larger share of taxes on the young and a smaller share on the old.
Take as you go, whether done on or off the books, has done precisely as theoretically predicted – reduced the US’s national saving rate from 13% in the 1950s and 1960s to 3% in the last two decades. This underlies, in large part, a commensurate drop in the domestic investment rate, which was also 13% between 1950 and 1969 and is now running at 4%. The textbook predicted consequence? Lower median labour productivity and median real wage growth.
As I have tried to explain to my husband many times, what you paid in over the years paid for welfare and health benefits for those needing it at the time. It was not, and was never intended to be, an insurance that you would be supported later in life. Support for the NHS and welfare benefits needs to be financed by today’s taxes whether in the USA or the UK. Labels:
social_security, Medicare, Medicaid, US_saving_rate
a post by Bonnie McClure for the World of Psychology blog
I was in college the first time I remember anyone mentioning patterns of domestic violent behaviour to me. We had a guest speaker give a presentation about her personal experience of becoming involved in an abusive relationship where control dynamics were the central player. She described in retrospective reflection the early days of her relationship. She mentioned her partner ordering for her at a restaurant.
“That’s sweet.” I thought. I did not recognise the early signs of control she was foreshadowing.
Later in a Health and Wellness class, I learned about the warning signs of an abusive relationship:
Extreme jealousy and distrust
Constant belittling and put-downs
Explosive temper
Isolation from friends and family
Possessiveness
Control
Emotional manipulation
In bewilderment, I realised my boyfriend at the time checked every item on the list. But I continued to deny the harm in his actions, explaining them away and re-framing them with justifications. I was not able to acknowledge our unhealthy relationship until conditions became severe enough that I was forced to.
a column by Thushyanthan Baskaran and Zohal Hessami for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
The fact that women are underrepresented in politics is often viewed as an important social problem. But why should it be a problem?
This column argues that when too few women hold political office, political decisions may not adequately reflect women’s needs and preferences.
Using the example of the public provision of childcare in Germany, it shows that municipalities with a higher share of female councillors expand public childcare more quickly. The fact that the presence of women has substantive effects on policies should be taken into account in current debates around the introduction of gender quotas in politics.
Note: Based on World Bank’s World Development Indicators. Darker shades indicate a larger proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments. Continue reading
an article by Viktória Kulcsár and Anca Dobrean (Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania) and Itamar Gati (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel) published in Journal of Vocational Behavior Volume 116 Part A (February 2020)
Highlights
We reviewed and evaluated assessments of the career decision-making process.
We distinguished among Antecedents, Effects on the Process, and Effects on the Decision.
We classified 27 assessments into 5 categories and 15 subcategories.
The assessments' psychometric properties and applicability were evaluated.
This classification can help researchers and counselors locate relevant assessments.
Abstract
Individuals are challenged by increasingly more career transitions in the 21st century. Each of these transitions entails making a career decision, typically by locating promising alternatives, collecting information about them, comparing the alternatives on the short list and choosing one.
Finding the areas where individuals are experiencing difficulties in this process is important for helping them and facilitating their career decision making.
The goal of the present review is to propose a taxonomy for analysing, comparing, and classifying assessments of the career decision-making process in terms of three facets:
Antecedents – assessments of the challenges that may emerge prior to or during this process and cause difficulties,
Effects of the challenges and difficulties on the process, namely, the individual's behavioural responses, and
Effects on the decision, as reflected in individuals' career decision status and their feelings about the process and the outcome.
Based on theoretical considerations and the constructs underlying the assessments, there are three categories of assessments in Antecedents:
Readiness includes assessments of dysfunctional beliefs about career decision making, career decision-making self-efficacy, willingness to engage in the process, and career indecisiveness;
Orientation includes assessments of career decision-making styles and profiles, ways of coping with career decision-making, and adaptability; and
Information includes assessments of difficulties that stem from feelings of Lack of information – about the self, the world of work, and how to make career decisions – or the Use of Information – unreliable information, internal conflicts, and external conflicts.
The associations between Antecedents and their Effects on the Process and on the Decision are discussed.
The psychometric properties of each assessment were evaluated, using the evidence-based assessment approach of Hunsley and Mash (2008). Inspecting and evaluating of the assessments show that most of them have a well-defined focus and evidence for acceptable reliability, but more evidence is needed for validity.
The advantages of unidimensional/multidimensional and homogeneous/heterogeneous assessments are discussed. Ways of incorporating the assessments of the antecedents of career decision-making difficulties effectively into career counselings are suggested, to help career counsellors better tailor their interventions to their clients' needs. The proposed categorisation can also help researchers locate the most relevant career decision-making process-based assessments and decide how to use them to measure specific constructs.
an article by Patrick Alexander, John Loewenthal and Graham Butt (Oxford Brookes University, UK) published in Journal of Youth Studies V23 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
This article uses a social generations approach to explore the lives of young people transitioning to life after schooling.
Drawing on ethnographic research in England during the geopolitical uncertainty of 2016–2017, we track the trajectories and narratives of six individuals. The research begins with final year pupils in schools talking about their futures, during and after their A-Level exams.
We then follow these individuals on routes to Higher Education and employment, exploring how they are socialised into imaginings of the future and/or struggle to inhabit these futures.
A deeply ingrained, modernist, neoliberal reckoning of future time is normalised through experiences of schooling.
However, this logic is troubled profoundly in the transition to life after school. Young people’s experiences in an unpredictable present run in stark contrast to the ordered trajectory of future action they have been socialised to expect.
Amidst this uncertainty, ambivalence towards shaping the future (‘Fuck It, Shit Happens’) can in some ways feel like the most agentic stance to take. Furlong et al.’s (2011) social generations approach to understanding youth transitions reveals how we must critique the very concept of ‘the future’ if we are to understand the reality of youth transitions in the present.
an article by Jonathan Haidt (New York University Stern School of Business, USA) and Nick Allen (University of Oregon, Eugene, USA) published in Nature Volume 578 (February 2020) [brought to us via the World of Psychology blog]
There is an ongoing debate around whether social media and the use of digital devices are harmful to mental health. In this article, two scientists share their differing opinions on this topic and give strong support to back their claims.
The topic in brief
There is an ongoing debate about whether social media and the use of digital devices are detrimental to mental health.
Adolescents tend to be heavy users of these devices, and especially of social media.
Rates of teenage depression began to rise around 2012, when adolescent use of social media became common (Fig. 1).
Some evidence indicates that frequent users of social media have higher rates of depression and anxiety than do light users.
But perhaps digital devices could provide a way of gathering data about mental health in a systematic way, and make interventions more timely.
an article by Franz Erhard (University of Leipzig, Germany) published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice Volume 28 Number 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
In this paper, I argue that we look through the lens of family care to show how economic scarcity translates into an actual experience of everyday life.
Referring to analyses from narrative interviews with people in deprived life circumstances who live across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, I introduce care work as one situational context in which precarious living conditions become tangible for my interviewees. In addition,
I demonstrate that gendered expectations concerning mother- and father-hood make a difference for how women and men experience poverty. Yet, as stereotypical as this may seem, there is more to tell.
Labels:
care_work, experience, gender, poverty,
This is one of the times when I really want to read the whole article but it’s only available to the likes of me through British Library Readership or purchase. The former it will have to be; I’m not that interested.
an article by Rebecca St Clair (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) and Michael Hardman, Richard P Armitage and Graeme Sherriff (University of Salford, UK) published in Urban Studies Volume 57 Issue 2 (February 2020)
Abstract
The expanding critical literature on Urban Agriculture (UA) makes links between the withdrawal of state services and the institutionalisation of volunteering, while observing that challenging funding landscapes can foster competitive environments between third-sector organisations. Where these organisations are forced to compete for survival at the expense of collaboration, their ability to collectively upscale and expand beneficial activities can be compromised.
This paper focuses on a lottery-funded UA project and draws predominantly on observations and interviews held with project staff and growing group volunteers.
Research conducted in Wythenshawe, Manchester (UK), highlights difficulties experienced by organisations attempting to function in an environment disfigured by depletion, illustrating conflicts that can arise between community groups and charitable organisations competing for space and resources.
Inter-organisational dynamics are considered at two scales: at the grassroots level between growing groups, and at a structural level between project partners.
In a landscape scarred by local authority cutbacks and restructures, a dearth of funding opportunities and increasingly precarious employment, external initiatives can be met with suspicion or hostility, particularly when viewed as superfluous interventions. The resulting ‘siege mentality’ reflects the need for organisational self-preservation but perhaps paradoxically results in groups with similar goals and complementary ideologies working against each other rather than in cooperation.
Tweak the way you're coping and you can lower your anxiety levels.
Do you have anxiety? Have you tried just about everything to get over it, but it just keeps coming back?
Perhaps you thought you had got over it, only for the symptoms to return with a vengeance? Whatever your circumstances, science can help you to beat anxiety for good.
Anxiety can present as fear, restlessness, an inability to focus at work or school, finding it hard to fall or stay asleep at night, or getting easily irritated. In social situations, it can make it hard to talk to others; you might feel like you're constantly being judged, or have symptoms such as stuttering, sweating, blushing or an upset stomach.
Continue readingThere is also an audio version of the article and an accompanying video.
a column by Alejandro Cuñat and Robert Zymek for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Most countries exhibit large variation in bilateral trade balances across their trade partners.
This column argues that it is possible to use gravity trade models to describe the sources of this variation with greater clarity, but that a large portion of the variation still remains poorly understood.
It also shows that tariffs imposed during the US-China trade war will reduce the US-China trade deficit in the long run, but only by worsening the US trade balance with other trade partners almost one-for-one.
an article by Sharon C Bolton (University of Stirling, UK) and Knut Laaser (Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus–Senftenberg, Germany; University of Stirling, UK) published in Work, Employment and Society Volume 34 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
Based on a longitudinal study of a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) in England for children excluded from mainstream schools and utilising a moral economy lens, this article explores how solidarity is created and maintained in a very particular community of teachers and learning support assistants (LSAs).
A moral economy approach highlights the centrality of people’s moral norms and values for understanding the multi-layered dimensions of solidarity in organisations and how it changes in the context of transformations in the labour process.
The article illustrates how teachers and LSAs rely on mutuality, underpinned by moral norms of justice, and values of care, dignity and recognition, to cope with physically and emotionally demanding work that is under-resourced and undervalued.
The analysis reveals that solidarity is not only against unjust workplace regimes, but also for connectivity and a humanised labour process.
an article by Svenja Schäfer (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany) published in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 103 (February 2020)
Highlights
Many news posts make people feel more knowledgeable than they are.
Only knowledge perception (not actual knowledge) is related to attitudes and behaviour.
Many news posts indirectly affect attitudes and behaviour through perceived knowledge.
News articles improve both actual knowledge and knowledge assessment.
Abstract
Research indicates that using social network sites as a source for news increases perceived knowledge even if, objectively, people fail to acquire knowledge.
This might result from the frequent repetition of topics in news posts caused by multiple news outlets posting about the same news topics and the algorithm that favours similar postings. These repeated encounters can have a positive effect on the perception of knowing more, even if actual learning hardly occurs.
An experiment (N = 810, representative of German Internet users) tested these assumptions.
Participants were assigned to one of four groups and received a news feed with no information, few news posts, many news posts, or a full-length news article.
Results indicate that many news posts increased perceived knowledge that is not paralleled by a gain in factual knowledge. Perceived knowledge mediates effects of reading many news posts on more extreme attitudes and the willingness for discussions. Even if participants who read the news article gained factual knowledge, they did not feel more knowledgeable than participants who were exposed to a news feed containing news posts.
The results emphasise the meaning of engaging with full news articles, both for learning facts and for more accurate knowledge assessments.
Colin Slasberg (Independent Consultant in Social Care, Essex, UK) and Peter Beresford (University of Essex, Colchester, UK; Brunel University, London, UK( published in Disability and Society Volume 35 Issue 2 (2020)
Abstract
Since 1996, people in the United Kingdom have been able to take cash to manage their own support to live life on terms equal to others – the concept at the core of independent living. This level of provision is now under attack.
Levels of payments are being cut.
Some disabled people are being forced into institutional care. Austerity is commonly blamed, but the facts do not support this. More likely is a change in attitudes. The positive sentiment of councils towards this form of provision may be evaporating.
Only a fundamental systemic change is likely to halt the slide. The identification and costing of all needs for independent living should be a legal right, exposing the gap in funding.
Feeding this information into the democratic decision-making process is the essential condition to making manifest the United Nations concept of ‘progressive realisation’ of the resources required for all to have independent living.
Photo: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock
I worked at various start-ups for eight years beginning in 2010, when I was in my early 20s. Then I quit and went freelance for a while. A year later, I returned to office life, this time at a different start-up. During my gap year, I had missed and yearned for a bunch of things, like health care and free knockoff Post-its and luxurious people-watching opportunities. (In 2016, I saw a co-worker pour herself a bowl of cornflakes, add milk, and microwave it for 90 seconds. I’ll think about this until the day I die.) One thing I did not miss about office life was the language. The language warped and mutated at a dizzying rate, so it was no surprise that a new term of art had emerged during the year I spent between jobs. The term was parallel path, and I first heard it in this sentence: “We’re waiting on specs for the San Francisco installation. Can you parallel-path two versions?”
Translated, this means: “We’re waiting on specs for the San Francisco installation. Can you make two versions?” In other words, to “parallel-path” is to do two things at once. That’s all. I thought there was something gorgeously and inadvertently candid about the phrase’s assumption that a person would ever not be doing more than one thing at a time in an office – its denial that the whole point of having an office job is to multitask ineffectively instead of single-tasking effectively. Why invent a term for what people were already forced to do? It was, in its fakery and puffery and lack of a reason to exist, the perfect corporate neologism.
A woman struggles to tell her boss that no, she won’t work overtime for the third day this week.
A man feels resentful in his relationship because he always gives, and his partner always takes.
A woman wants to stop faking pleasure in the bedroom but doesn’t know how.
Though their stories differ, these folks share a painful secret. They worry that if they are truly and authentically themselves, they will not be loved or accepted. They have spent their lives morphing into smaller, more “acceptable” versions of who they are, sacrificing their authenticity along the way.
I, too, am a recovering people-pleaser. In my teens and early twenties, I listened in envy as my friends splattered their unfiltered truths across our conversations like fistfuls of finger paint. Meanwhile, every time I needed to turn down an invitation to a party, World War III raged in my chest as I was racked with nerves and guilt. The thought of disappointing others terrified me.
I used to feel terribly alone in my predicament. Specifically, I was convinced that 1) I was the only one who struggled with this degree of people-pleasing, 2) there was something dreadfully wrong with me, and 3) I would be that way forever.
a column by Tim Besley, Thiemo Fetzer and Hannes Mueller for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Reporting on violence draws attention to countries not typically covered by international news outlets. This leads to a ‘bad news’ bias, which can affect not only how people view these countries, but whether they choose to visit.
Using aggregated spending data to proxy tourist activity, this column documents a robust relationship between the intensity of reporting on violence and subsequent drops in tourist spending, suggesting that a bad news bias can have serious economic consequences for the countries that suffer from it.
a column by Paolo Manasse, Graziano Moramarco and Giulio Trigilia for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
The pound depreciated overnight by about 7% against the euro and other main currencies following the Leave victory in the UK’s EU referendum, suggesting that the markets expected Brexit to harm the British economy.
Yet currency markets hailed the overwhelming victory of Brexiter Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in the 2019 general election with a 2% appreciation of the pound.
This column argues that this apparent contradiction can be explained by disentangling the effects that politics has on exchange rate expectations and a political risk premium.
an article by David Clelland (University of Glasgow, UK) published in Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit Volume 35 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
The sub-national governance of economic development in the UK has, since 2010, been reconfigured towards city-regions and ‘place-based’ approaches at least notionally embedded in specific local needs and resources. In the context of asymmetric decentralisation and fiscal austerity, this raises questions about places outside or peripheral to this framework, and the risk of further divergence in relative capacities to ‘do’ economic development.
While changes in England are subject to extensive critique, institutional arrangements in Scotland have received less attention, having avoided comparable dramatic restructuring.
The governance of economic development has however undergone significant evolution, with elements of both centralisation and regionalisation apparent.
This paper maps emerging sub-national geographies in Scotland through the lens of state rescaling and multi-scalar governance.
Analysing processes of change, it argues that the UK Government’s extension of ‘City Deals’ to Scotland made more explicit tensions within an existing city-regional approach and prompted greater attention to implications for peripheral and non-city regions.
The introduction of Deals for non-city regions, a system of regional economic partnerships, and a new enterprise agency for the rural South, can all be seen as attempts to reconcile this focus on city-regions as drivers of growth with a desire for ‘regional equity’, and as the latest developments in an ongoing search for the appropriate scales for policy.
an article by Wyndolyn M. A. Ludwikowski (University of South Alabama, Mobile, USA), Heath A. Schechinger (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and Patrick Ian Armstrong (Iowa State University, Ames, USA) published in Journal of Career Assessment Volume 28 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
The current study focused on the effect of assessment methods on estimates of gender differences in interests across Holland’s themes. College students (121 women, 76 men) rated their interests in Holland-based activities and occupations using Likert-type scales, and they also completed a card sorting assessment of Holland interests using occupation-based items.
Gender differences were consistently observed for realistic and social interests with the magnitude of the observed gender differences varying by measure type.
A Gender × Measure interaction accounted for 33% of the variance observed in interest scores: Occupation-based scales produced larger differences than activity-based scales, and the card sorting assessment produced larger gender differences than the Likert-type rating scales.
Therefore, the choice of interest measure used in career counseling may influence the extent to which gender affects the career decision-making process, which may be particularly important when exploring nontraditional career choices for women and men.
“An enemy is a person whose story you do not know.” ~Irene Butter We all know the status of our currently hostile nation – it feels as though you can’t make it through a single speech or read an article or engage in a conversation with friends that doesn’t somehow touch on polarizing topics or divisive politics. The focus is on our differences instead of our shared humanity.
It’s all too easy to blame other people, other groups, and other political parties for the endless strife in our world – civil wars, famines, natural disasters, school shootings, homelessness, environmental destruction – just as it’s easy to blame others who play some role in our personal narratives of failed relationships, unsatisfying work, and family strain.
Suffice it to say, compassion is all but gone and the golden rule that we were taught so innocently as children feels as though it died along with our childhoods.
I could readily spin this into some narrative about that person, that group, or that organisation causing the “problem”. But I’m going to let you in on the secret to this post ahead of time… spoiler alert, they aren’t the problem, I am. Whoever or whatever I find myself blaming aren’t the real sources of the problem, I AM… and so are you.
I hope by the end of this, a small part of what I am saying resonates with you as a means for a cure rather than another recipe for guilt and shame.
The Communist Plot to Assassinate George Orwell
Goodbye, Catalonia
via Arts and Letters Daily: Duncan White at Literary Hub via Custom House
When George Orwell returned to Barcelona for the third time, on June 20th, 1937, he discovered that the Spanish secret police were after him. He had been forced to return to the front in order to have his discharge papers countersigned and, in his absence, the Communists had initiated a purge of their perceived enemies. Orwell was on the list. As he arrived in the lobby of the Hotel Continental, Eileen [Orwell’s wife] approached him calmly, placed her arm around his neck, and smiled for the benefit of anyone watching. Continue reading I am, perhaps, a little less confused about the Spanish Civil War and the work of the International Brigade after reading this. ==============================
How Walt Whitman Disguised His Poems About Male Love
posted by S. Abbas Raza in 3 Quarks Daily: Sarah Poole in University of Virginia Magazine: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Fredson Bowers didn’t know what he would find when he began digging into the disordered stack of 230 loose pages – all from 19th-century Walt Whitman manuscripts – that landed on his desk in 1951.
But for Bowers, a revered UVA English professor, the papers formed a massive puzzle waiting to be fit together. They were an “opportunity for literary detective work … that was of the highest interest to attempt,” he wrote in 1959. Continue reading
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This animated video shows how a combination padlock works
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Animator Jared Owen made an excellent animated video that clearly shows how a combination lock works.
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DNA Shows Biblical Philistines Came From Europe
via Ancient Origins
A skull from a 10th-9th century BC burial in the excavation of the Philistine cemetery in Ashkelon. New research on Philistine DNA reveals their southern European origins. Source: Tsafrir Abayov/Leon Levy Expedition
New research on Philistine DNA reveals that the Biblical enemies of the Israelites were newcomers to the region in the 12th century BC. Where did they come from? Their genes suggest Southern Europe.
An international team, led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Leon Levy Expedition, retrieved and analyzed, for the first time, genome-wide data from people who lived during the Bronze and Iron Age (~3,600-2,800 years ago) in the ancient port city of Ashkelon, one of the core Philistine cities during the Iron Age.
10 of the Best Poems about Memory and Remembering
via Interesting Literature Percy Shelley
Memory, as a wise writer once put it, is the thing we forget with. But poetry, of course, is bound up with the idea of remembering, recollecting, reflecting, memorialising … so here are ten of the very best poems about remembering, memories, remembrance, nostalgia, and related themes. Continue reading
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Mathematicians And Neuroscientists Have Created The First Anatomically Accurate Model That Explains How Vision Is Possible
posted by S. Abbas Raza in 3 Quarks Daily: Kevin Hartnett in Quanta:
Information from the eye passes through a bottleneck before it gets to the brain’s visual cortex, which heavily processes the sparse signal. DVDPfor Quanta Magazine
This is the great mystery of human vision: Vivid pictures of the world appear before our mind’s eye, yet the brain’s visual system receives very little information from the world itself. Much of what we “see” we conjure in our heads.
“A lot of the things you think you see you’re actually making up,” said Lai-Sang Young, a mathematician at New York University. “You don’t actually see them.” Continue reading
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From ball pits to water slides: the designer who changed children’s playgrounds for ever
via the Guardian by Nicholas Hune-Brown
Eric McMillan revolutionised playground design in the 1970s. Why has the spirit of experimental play that he championed been lost? Photograph: Barry Lewis/Alamy
Before he built the world’s greatest playground and transformed the world of children’s design, Eric McMillan had spent little time thinking about how kids played. In 1971, the 29-year-old English immigrant was a design consultant living in Toronto, Canada – a sleepy city whose nickname “Toronto the Good” both referenced the place’s lingering Victorian moral rectitude and seemed to set a hard ceiling on its expectations for greatness. It would never be Toronto the exceptional, and the locals seemed content with that. Continue reading
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The snail cosmology of medieval manuscripts
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
We're no strangers to the delights of the rude drawings that monks doodled in the margins of medieval manuscripts around here (1, 2, 3), but University of Bonn medievalist Erik Wade's epic Twitter thread on the astonishing variety of snail-doodles is genuinely next-level.
Please, please continue readingas you will find several amazing images of snails and links to yet more!
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The Epic of Gilgamesh Unveiled: Enlightenment and Source of Religions
via Ancient Origins by Gordon Board Work using the Statue of Gilgamesh and Lamassu. Source: CC BY 4.0
This retelling of key parts of the Epic explores the unconventional idea that Gilgamesh was not searching for life eternal on Earth, as has been suggested as the theme of the Epic, but was instead searching for the means of transport to return to his goddess mother Ninsun’s home planet in the heavens. With some degree of poetic license, the author merges some ideas from modern science and technology with the story from the ancient text. Part 1 of this interpretation of the epic told of the birth of Gilgamesh, his tyrannical rule and the creation of a being to rival his power and also become his companion. Together he and his new friend have defeated Humbaba, who Gigamesh had wrongly suspected was guarding some portal or spaceship that could go to other lands. He has just rebuffed a request of marriage from Ishtar, which angered the goddess. Continue reading
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A Short Analysis of the Shakespeare Song ‘It Was a Lover and His Lass’
via Interesting Literature
If one phrase above all others sums up Elizabethan song-making, it’s ‘hey nonny nonny’. There’s plenty of hey-nonny-nonnying going on in the song ‘It Was a Lover and His Lass’ from As You Like It; excitingly, copies of the original sheet music (by Thomas Morley) have survived from the early seventeenth century. Here’s the text of the song ‘It Was a Lover and His Lass’, followed by some words of comment and analysis. Continue reading(and listen to an audio rendition of the song, link at the end)
an article by Anne-Kathrin Kronberg (University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA) published in Work and Occupations Volume 47 issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
Research indicates men often receive greater merit rewards than women for the same performance. It is unclear, however, whether gender differences in merit rewards narrow with increasing firm tenure or whether gender differences in merit-rewards stay constant across employees' firm-internal career.
Using longitudinal personnel records of a private U.S. employer (2005–2014), the author finds no evidence for declining gender effects on pay when employees stay longer, not even among nonprofessionals where performance is easier to assess.
Results contradict information-based theories and speak to status characteristics theory. Moreover, gender disparities are significant only when supervisors have discretion over merit increases.
an article by Teodor Mladenov (European Network on Independent Living, Brussels, Belgium) published in Disability and Society Volume 13 Issue 1 (2020)
Abstract
This article presents the results of a survey on personal assistance (PA) for disabled people, conducted among PA users and members of the independent living movement in Europe. The survey was developed and implemented in the spirit of emancipatory disability research, and was informed by the social model of disability and the independent living philosophy.
Participants were asked to assess a series of characteristics of PA in terms of their impact on users’ choice and control. Their responses help identify which characteristics of PA are considered to be enablers of choice and control, which characteristics are perceived as barriers and which characteristics elicit disagreement or lack of consensus among PA users and members of the independent living movement in Europe.
Plans for using the results of the survey to develop a tool for evaluating PA schemes are also discussed.
Points of interest
This article looks at the results of a survey on personal assistance for disabled people in Europe.
The survey was completed by disabled people who use personal assistance and by people who support the ideas of independent living.
Participants were asked which characteristics of personal assistance help people to have choice and control in their lives, and which characteristics make choice and control difficult.
The results from the survey are useful because they can help to make personal assistance better.
an article by Tess Penne, Tine Hufkens, Tim Goedemé and Bérénice Storms (University of Antwerp, Belgium) published in Journal of European Social Policy Volume 30 Issue 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
In order to alleviate child poverty, contemporary European welfare states have shifted their focus increasingly towards child-centred investment strategies. However, studies examining the generosity of welfare states to families with children focus mainly on cash benefit packages, or on government expenditure, while not taking into account the actual out-of-pocket costs families have to make to fulfil their needs.
This article aims at contributing to existing studies by:
empirically assessing the needs and costs of children across welfare states by making use of cross-nationally comparable reference budgets, while taking into account publicly provided or subsidised services;
simulating the cash benefits and taxes that affect households with children through the tax–benefit system, by making use of the new Hypothetical Household Tool (HHoT) in EUROMOD; and
combining both types of information in order to compare the essential out-of-pocket costs for children between 6 and 18 years old with the simulated cash benefit packages.
We propose a new indicator that can be used to assess welfare state generosity to families with children: the child cost compensation indicator. The use of the indicator is empirically illustrated by comparing six European welfare states: Belgium, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Spain.
The article shows that, even though with important cross-national variation, cash transfers generally amount to less than 60 percent of the cost of children. Although in five out of six countries support for families is higher at the lower end of the income distribution, for households living on a low gross wage, the income of a family with children is less adequate compared to a similar childless family and is in many cases insufficient to participate adequately in society.
a column by Panle Jia Barwick, Shanjun Li, Liguo Lin and Eric Zou for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
During 2013–2014, China launched a nationwide, real-time air quality monitoring and disclosure programme which substantially expanded public access to pollution information.
This column analyses the impact of the programme and finds that it triggered a cascade of changes in household behaviour, prompting people to find out more online about pollution-related topics, adjust their day-to-day consumption to avoid exposure to pollution, and exhibit a higher willingness to pay for housing in less-polluted areas.
The programme’s estimated annual health benefits far outweigh the combined costs of the programme and associated pollution-avoidance behaviours.
Continue reading If, like me, you like visual information there is plenty here!
a post by John M. Grohol for the World of Psychology blog
People seem to stubbornly cling to their preexisting beliefs, even when provided evidence to the contrary. In psychology, researchers have a name for this stubbornness — confirmation bias. It’s one of the most common of biases humans hold in their mind, called cognitive biases.
Confirmation bias is the tendency for a person to interpret or remember information in a manner that simply confirms their existing beliefs. It is one of the strongest and most insidious human biases in psychology, because most people are unaware they are doing it. It is the invisible voice inside our heads that always agrees with what we say, no matter the facts.
Confirmation bias, also referred to as myside bias, exists in our everyday decisions. We primarily rely on evidence that supports our opinions and beliefs, and disregard anything contrary to those beliefs. This bias can emerge in a number of different ways:
an article by Daniel G. Lannin and Isaac M. Wicker (Illinois State University, Normal, USA), Wyndolyn M. A. Ludwikowski2 (Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans, USA), Patrick J. Heath and David L. Vogel (Iowa State University, Ames, USA) and Lukas J. Wolf (University of Bath, UK) published in The Counseling Psychologist Volume 48 Issue 2 (2020)
Abstract
The extent to which individuals prioritise different personal values may be conceptually linked to the perceptions of societal stigma associated with seeking psychological help (public stigma), as well as the extent to which they apply that stigma to themselves (self-stigma).
We examined how personal values predicted public stigma and self-stigma of seeking psychological help. Undergraduates (N = 342) from two universities, one historically Black college/university and one predominantly White institution, completed questionnaires assessing personal values and public stigma and self-stigma of seeking psychological help.
Self-transcendence values predicted lower self-stigma directly and indirectly via public stigma. Though there were no structural differences between the modelled relationships of values, public stigma, and self-stigma between Black/African American and White/European American undergraduates, the groups differed in their prioritisation of self-transcendence, openness to change, and conservation values.
Results suggest that understanding how individuals prioritise certain values over others may help explain group-differences in help-seeking stigmas.
Hazel’s comment:
I have interacted with a number of people through the online groups I belong to and have come across stigma within religious and ethnic groups many times.
Everyone is likely to have mental health problems at some point in their life. Maybe not bad enough to seek help from a psychologist but definitely enough to need support which they will not seek because of what family or other people will think.
an article by Jean Philippe Pierre Décieux (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) published in Evidence and Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice Volume 16 Number 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
Knowledge co-production is a solution-oriented approach to analysing real-life problems such as making the right decision in a given scenario.
The most popular examples come from evidence-based policy-making contexts. Political decisions made in this way rely on specialist expertise co-produced in organisations that can be characterised as Hybrid Fora. However, despite the rise in popularity of Hybrid Fora and evidence-based policy-making processes, there are only a few studies that analyse the influencing factors of knowledge co-production in these contexts.
The case study presented here addresses this new area of research through a documentary analysis and 11 expert interviews, both analysed via qualitative content analysis. First, the study reconstructs how knowledge is produced within an Expert Group of the European Commission.
Second, it reflects how the produced knowledge is de facto included as “evidence” into the decision-making processes of the relevant policy area.
The results of this study show that in this expert group, pragmatic and extra-scientific criteria such as specific stakes and interests as well as the group hierarchy controlled the process of knowledge co-production.
Moreover, it also seems that knowledge produced by the interaction of experts within the examined Expert Group has a more symbolic, policy-orientated function, rather than being specifically used as decision-making evidence.
an article by Rita Griffiths (University of Bath, UK) published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice Volume 28 Number 1 (February 2020)
Abstract
Unemployed and low-income couples entitled to means-tested benefits are known to have higher rates of separation and divorce than couples in which one or both partners are in regular, paid work. However, how and why unemployment and benefit receipt increases the risk of partnership dissolution remains the subject of much debate.
In recent policy discourse, financial differentials in benefit entitlement between lone and couple parents are said to encourage intact couples to separate.
Based on in-depth, face-to-face interviews with a group of low-income mothers who had been partnered prior to claiming lone parent benefits, this paper explores whether benefit entitlement or receipt influenced the decision to separate or divorce.
The research found that more salient to partnership dissolution than the amount of benefits a couple may have been entitled to, was who had access to the money, how it was managed and how it was spent.
To the extent that welfare systems influence which member of a couple has access to household income, the design and administration of benefits was having an important contributory effect.
Policy implications of paying Universal Credit to couples in the form of a single monthly household award into one bank account are discussed.
Hazel’s comment:
Sometimes we really do need research to show the “powers that be” the obvious.
an article by
Emmanuel Itodo Daniel, Louis Gyoh and Ezekiel Chinyio (University of Wolverhampton, UK) and Olalekan Shamsideen Oshodi (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK) published in Education + Training Volume 62 Issue 2 (2020)
Abstract
Purpose
Apprenticeship programmes are designed to provide young trainees with essential broad-based skills. Through apprenticeships, different sectors that are underpopulated can fill up their skills gaps. Apprenticeships are particularly useful to the construction sector which has a high ageing workforce and associated lower labour productivity. However, the completion rates of apprenticeship training programmes in the construction sector remain low in several countries across the globe. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to review the published research on apprenticeship training that is specifically focused on the construction sector, to determine the current status quo and suggest a direction for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic review approach was adopted. Based on a comprehensive search using SCOPUS databases, 33 relevant journal articles were identified and analysed.
Findings
It was found that monitoring and control is the most mentioned factor responsible for improvements in the completion rates of apprenticeship training. In contrast, the length of time required for going through the full training is the most common factor responsible for low completion rates. Three research gaps were identified, among which is the dearth of studies that has focused on apprentices training in developing countries.
Research limitations/implications
The gaps identified in the current knowledge on apprenticeship training would serve as a justification for future investigations. However, the scope of the review is limited to papers published in academic journals and citable through SCOPUS.
Practical implications
The outcomes of the study provide researchers and other relevant stakeholders with a concise report on the findings of previous studies. It also provides insight into strategies for improving the completion rates of apprenticeship training in the construction sector.
Originality/value
A systematic evaluation of the extant literature draws on theoretical evidence and highlights the factors that are more likely to influence the outcomes of apprentice training for craftspeople in the construction sector.
The School of Athens. (Fresco in Stanza della Segnatura), ca 1510-1511. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images
Cognitive behavioral therapy, a 20th century invention, points to Greek Stoicism for inspiration.
Stoicism and CBT share an emphasis on using logic and reasoning to overcome emotional difficulties.
Knowing how to respond to challenges lies at the foundation of modern psychotherapeutic practices.
Where do thoughts come from?
Though we’ve advanced our understanding of the physiological actions that lead to thinking, where they arise from remains uncertain. Freud believed thoughts operate at the level of the unconscious; modern psychology and neuroscience abandoned that idea decades ago. Experiences leave imprints – memories – that serve as blueprints for thought.
Continue reading[and there's an audio version of the article if you prefer to listen]
an article by Aniela Wenham (University of York, UK) published in Journal of Youth Studies Volume 23 Issue 1 (2020)
Abstract
Within youth studies there is a growing body of research that pays attention to the importance of place in shaping young people’s identities, life opportunities and inter-generational relationships [Cuervo, H., and J. Wyn. 2014. “Reflections on the Use of Spatial and Relational Metaphors in Youth Studies.” Journal of Youth Studies 17 (7): 901–915; Farrugia, D. 2014. “Towards a Spatialised Youth Sociology: the Rural and the Urban in Times of Change.” Journal of Youth Studies 17 (3): 293–307; Woodman, D., and J. Wyn. 2015. Youth and Generation: Rethinking Change and Inequality in the Lives of Young People. Sage Publications].
Of critical importance to these discussions is the need to explore notions of ‘belonging’ and social citizenship, interrogating the extent to which differing perceptions and experiences contribute towards variations in the outcomes and life chances of disadvantaged young people.
This article draws upon ethnography, participatory arts-based research, and semi-structured interviews (n31) with young people (15–25) who live in a deprived coastal town in the North of England. The research investigated processes of marginalisation and disconnection from the perspectives of young people who were deemed as disengaged, or ‘at risk’ of disengagement, from education, employment or training.
The research took place during a time of rapid change and uncertainty as Britain voted to leave the EU. The findings of this study will ‘throw light’ on the how contemporary classed subjectivities are formed, how experiences of inequality and austerity are made sense of, and how, within a turbulent political context, young people negotiate complex transitions to adulthood.
My career in information management started back in 1987 working on the Training Access Points project. Nearly thirty years later I am still concerned to ensure that end users, and their mediators, have access to appropriate, relevant information in a form that they can understand, at a time and in a place that is right for them. The Internet seems to be for everyone and everywhere but the digital divide gets bigger. By pointing advisers in the direction of resources I hope to increase what can be done to help clients/customers.
I ran my own company for 16 years but am now a semi-retired freelancer.
