One especially relevant key theme in Sociology of Education is to what extent parents' cultural level has significant implications in students' educational achievement and, as a consequence, in the social mobility inherently linked to level of education and professional training. In order to investigate this aspect on current Spanish society, our…

The Great Recession from December 2007 to June 2009 is associated with a dramatic weakening of the labor market from which the labor market is now only slowly recovering. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high and durations of unemployment are unprecedentedly long. I use data from the Displaced Workers Survey (DWS) from 1984-2010 to…

European countries have set themselves 22 specific goals by 2014 to support their long-term vision for vocational education and training (VET). This report is a first step in understanding progress by mid-2012 towards these goals, endorsed in 2010 in the Bruges communique to help achieve the Europe 2020 agenda. Attention has clearly focused on…

The economic downturn that began in the United States in 2008 has influenced higher education in similar ways to retrenchment in the early 1970s. Institutional budget constraints have expedited long-term declines in the number of full-time, tenure track faculty positions available in many academic disciplines, especially the humanities. This…

Charter schools have been the subject of much education policy research, particularly related to student achievement, governance, funding, and student composition. Although high-quality teachers are essential for the educational success of any school, much less research exists on charter schools' ability to recruit talented teachers. This study…

On February 18, 2010, the Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy (CAAL) convened a Roundtable meeting of 19 leaders of local institutions identified by their peers as providing exemplary "adult education for work" service within a particular community or local labor market. The institutions are located in 16 states representing all…

Through discourse analysis the research will unearth the tension between the Theories of Human Capital (HCT) and the Work First Policy (WFP), Policies Informing Education (PIE), and Human Capital Development (HCD) as they relate to the labor market. The application of discourse analysis demonstrates how the tenants of HCT are missing components…

Contemporary scientific cognizance on the development of children and the possibilities of their education has altered the image of the child to such an extent that the majority of scholars speak of a New Paradigm. This paradigm defines the child as a unique, singular, complete and complex being who realizes his personality through…

This paper was presented at the 2009 Economic and Social Outlook Conference, November 5-6 at the University of Melbourne. It takes a sceptical view of the push for "green skills", arguing that skills required in the labour market evolve relatively slowly, and that the way business operates is driven by changing costs, new technologies…

In November 2005, the province of Ontario and the federal government signed two historic agreements--the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Development Agreement and the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Partnership Agreement. One year later, on Nov. 24, 2006, key labour market stakeholders, including users, delivery agents and government came together to…

While the pension plan landscape has changed remarkably over the last two decades, with most private-sector workers seeing a shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) plans, DB pension plans remain the overwhelming norm for K-12 teachers employed by state and local governments. With DB plans, teachers typically receive minimal…

This paper considers three aspects of vocational education and training's (VET) contribution to the labour market: the relationship between their training and the occupations VET graduates work in; the extent to which the qualified proportion of the workforce has increased; and the link between VET and skills acquisition. Finally, some thoughts…

This paper was presented to a meeting of the Wellington Exchange, an international group of higher education officials, in December 2008. One of the topics of the meeting was around the issue of possible skills shortages emerging as a result of demographic trends, with the ageing of the population of developed countries. The paper argues that this…

The Workforce Investment Act uses measures of labor market outcomes to drive program performance. This paper examines the relationship of participant characteristics with key program outcome measures and evaluates the impact of different training interventions of program outcomes while controlling for participant characteristics. The paper…

The GED (General Educational Development) Tests are widely used to certify a high school level of academic knowledge and skills. The popularity and profound influence of the GED Tests have solicited numerous studies on the outcomes of obtaining a GED credential. Most studies on labor market outcomes for GED credential recipients have targeted…