A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

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Education at a Glance

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

The present report is submitted in response to General Assembly resolution 61/106, by which the Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto. As requested by the Assembly, a brief overview of the status of the Convention as at 3 August 2007 is presented. The report also contains a brief description of technical arrangements on staff and facilities made necessary for the effective performance of the functions of the Conference of States Parties and the Committee under the Convention and the Optional Protocol, and a description on the progressive implementation of standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services of the United Nations system. Recent efforts of the United Nations and agencies to disseminate information on the Convention and the Optional Protocol are also described.

わかりやすい障害者の権利条約 : 知的障害のある人の権利のために = Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities

Equality of Educational Opportunity.

Culture in Action

Based on a study on academic career paths of PhD graduates in Switzerland, this paper is concerned with the individual and institutional factors that affect transnational academic mobility in the postdoctoral period. It will be argued that the institutionalisation of geographic mobility in academic career paths through research funding institutions and universities have gendering and stratifying effects. Complex formations related to gender, partnership, children, and dual-career constellations, as well as to social class and academic integration, are resulting in inequalities in the accumulation of international cultural and social capital.

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Gender inequalities in transnational academic mobility and the ideal type of academic entrepreneur

This study investigates whether occupational training networks enable the selection of apprentices to be less discriminatory. Training networks are a new organisational form of VET that is becoming increasingly widespread in Switzerland, as well as in Germany and Austria. In the Swiss model, an intermediary lead organisation recruits the candidates. It also attends to the apprenticeship itself and effects a placement of the young adults with the training network companies every year anew. The study is based on the sociology of conventions, which allows organisational mechanisms of selection in training institutions to be understood and the dangers of discrimination harboured therein to be appreciated. Based on a case study of a medium-sized training network, the study shows how this form of organisation permits a fairer selection, i.e. one that is gauged more by performance and less by social attributes of the applicants, as compared to selection processes in single SMB.

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New models of apprenticeship and equal employment opportunity. Do training networks enhance fair hiring practices

This programmatic text proposes a concept for a sociological approach to change in schools and to educational reforms. It makes the distinction between self-description of schools and school-descriptions by others and analyzes the terms “change” and “reform” as they have to be reconstructed according to their rhetorical use. Methodologically we suggest applying existing approaches within discourse analysis. The examination of four lines of research yields a fragmented and ambivalent image of schools. The reconstruction of the educational sector in line with the discourse analysis will help to recognize existing positions in their fundamental social belonging and to identify their supports, controversies and contradictions more precisely.

Einführung zum Schwerpunktheft (Change and reforms in educational systems and organizations)

Des etudes recentes indiquent que la difference entre femmes et hommes en formation universitaire (diplome de Master) a disparu. L'article s'attache a savoir si des differences de genre apparaissent par la suite, au debut ou durant la carriere academique. L'examen du systeme d'information universitaire suisse montre qu'au cours des 30 dernieres annees, le taux de femmes ayant obtenu un doctorat ou une habilitation etait presque toujours plus bas que celui des hommes. L'analyse d'une etude de panel realisee aupres des personnes ayant obtenu un doctorat en 2002 (enquete aupres des diplomes des hautes ecoles 2003 et 2007) montre une integration moindre des jeunes chercheuses dans les reseaux internationaux de contacts scientifiques cinq ans apres le doctorat. Cette moindre implication dans les contacts internationaux amoindrit le capital social, un facteur que nous considerons comme determinant pour expliquer le taux d'abandons des femmes.

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/41767/4/leaky_pipeline.pdf

The Leaky Pipeline in the Swiss University System: Identifying Gender Barriers in Postgraduate Education and Networks Using Longitudinal Data

Der Beitrag gibt einen Uberblick uber die konventionentheoretische Forschung in den franzosisch- und deutschsprachigen Bildungswissenschaften, um das Potenzial der Soziologie der Konventionen fur bildungswissenschaftliche Untersuchungen darzulegen. Im Anschluss an die Systematisierung verschiedener Konventionen in der Bildung werden drei sich erganzende konventionentheoretische Zugange dargestellt und die Beitrage des Sammelbands darin verortet: Konventionen als Rechtfertigungsordnungen zur Analyse von Ungleichheit, Gerechtigkeit und Inklusion in der Bildung; Konventionen als Handlungslogiken zur Analyse von Governance, Transformationen und Reformen von Bildungsinstitutionen und Bildungsorganisationen; sowie Konventionen als Wertigkeitsordnungen zur Analyse von Qualitat, Bewertungen und Klassifikationen in der Bildung.

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Regula Julia Leemann

Papers

Gender inequalities in transnational academic mobility and the ideal type of academic entrepreneur

New models of apprenticeship and equal employment opportunity. Do training networks enhance fair hiring practices

Einführung zum Schwerpunktheft (Change and reforms in educational systems and organizations)

The Leaky Pipeline in the Swiss University System: Identifying Gender Barriers in Postgraduate Education and Networks Using Longitudinal Data

Das Potenzial der Soziologie der Konventionen für die Bildungsforschung