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The purpose of this article is to examine how accurate pessimistic accounts of the school-to-work transition are, given the substantial decline in unemployment since the 1991/93 recession. This examination is limited to young people who did not go to university, a group which is more likely to be experiencing problematic school-to-work transitions. The analyses use data from the first eight waves of data from the 1995 Year 9 cohort in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project. In the years after leaving school, an increasing majority are in full-time work and there is considerable movement into full-time work from part-time work and unemployment. Furthermore, each year full-time workers show increases in job status and earnings. Only a small minority of non-university bound youth have problematic school-to-work transitions. These analyses also suggest that the policy emphasis on increasing participation in vocational education is misplaced. Except for apprenticeships and then only among males, vocational education does not appear to promote full-time employment. © 2005 The Australian Sociological Association.

This article uses a case study of vocational training in Norway to explore the conditions under which employers will cooperate to increase the skill level of their workforce. It generates two sets of insights into the political economy of training in coordinated market economies. First, by demonstrating that cooperation among employers was a recent achievement that required the creation of specific, targeted mechanisms, it suggests that a cooperative outcome is difficult to attain, even amid the generally hospitable institutional environment characteristic of these economies. Second, it demonstrates that the employer collective action problem with respect to the initial training of apprentices differs from that posed by the additional raining of experienced workers. This means that even within a single economy, there are several varieties of training politics, each characterized by different patterns of cooperation and conflict; this further complicates the task of creating a coordinated training regime. © 2005 Sage Publications.

The article addresses clarity and coherence of lesson goals as a scaffold for student learning. In 13 physics classes video recordings of the introductory lesson of two topics were rated with respect to clarity and coherence of the lesson structure. HLM analyses showed a positive effect of classes with high goal clarity and coherence on the students' reports on supportive learning conditions, self-determined learning motivation and organising learning activities. Over the course of a school year high goal clarity and coherence resulted in a positive competence development. No effect was found for individual interest development. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The development of optometric education and the establishment of formal tertiary educational programs in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are described. The various types of degree and diploma programs from medical and technological universities are differentiated. The definition of optometry, as it is understood by the regulatory bodies and the populace, is discussed. There is more diversity in optometric programs within and across Greater China than among some nations. However, due to cultural and linguistic similarities, interactions and interchanges among institutions/associations at regular intervals are of immense value in harmonising the differences in educational programs and professional practices. Exchange programs, conferences and seminars further enhance the educational standards by exchanging technical knowledge and good clinical practices.

In this national sample of female carpenters (N = 411) who began their apprenticeship with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters during the 1990s in the United States, the author provides a profile of female carpenters' vocational interests (The Self-Directed Search). The vocational interests of 137 male carpenters also were gathered for comparison. The results indicate that the vocational interests of female and male carpenters are dominated by Realistic interests. These outcomes are supported by earlier work with the Strong Interest Inventory. The author suggests that test construction and sampling play a role in the controversy about gender bias in interest inventories. Copyright 2005 by the American Psychological Association.

This article addresses the mental health of young people taking part in an active labour market programme (ALMP). The subject of the paper follows the demand for research on the 'permanent impermanence' identified as a situation characterized by shifting in between different labour market training programmes, unemployment and odd jobs. The research on which the article draws was an evaluation study of an active labour market programme in Germany, known as JUMP. The article uses data derived from a participants' survey and addresses the following questions: How can the mechanism of ALMP and mental health be described? What affects young people within an ALMP? Are there any differences according to the density of the surrounding labour market? Previous research has explored the impact of unemployment on mental health. This article investigates the possible impact of ALMP, referring to the complex relationship between the density of the labour market and young people's mental health. It then applies data derived from the JUMP participants' survey to explore the influence on young people. The impact of the density of the surrounding labour market is addressed by separating the available data into East and West German participants. The article finally compares the research findings from young participants in an ALMP with previous research on unemployed young people and concludes with differences between East and West German young people. © Institute of Psychiatry.

This article draws on case study research in two further education (FE) colleges to explore the ways in which women administrators, lecturers and managers negotiate and construct their (gendered, racialized and classed) identities in the workplace. The context is that of the restructuring of education, the 'feminization' of educational management, and debates about the de- or re-professionalization of lecturers. The article illustrates how discourses of femininity are drawn upon in the construction of professional identities, and are used to both perform and resist new worker identities and gendered power relations. Despite optimistic discourses about a 'female future', the restructuring of further education does not, as yet, appear to have resulted in any notable challenge to the gendered, racialized and classed FE labour market. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Background: Traditionally, specialty vocational/residency training is totally done in tertiary care university-hospital settings, making it very difficult for specialty residents to learn about the joys and challenges of rural and regional patient care. Description: The University of Western Ontario's Multi-Specialty Community Training Network (MSCTN) was developed to provide specialty residents with the opportunity to do part of their postgraduate vocational training in rural and regional practice settings. The network involves 10 medical school departments/divisions and 7 rural/regional communities. From 1997 to 2004, 174 residents have completed 287 months of rural/regional training. Evaluation: Residents rated their overall learning experience at 6.41 on a 7-point scale. Nineteen of the 39 graduating residents have chosen to practice in rural and regional underserviced communities. Conclusion: Rural/regional specialty postgraduate vocational training rotations can provide excellent learning experiences. Preliminary results indicate that this exposure encourages many specialty residents to establish rural and regional practices. Copyright © 2005 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

This article explores the previously quite marked absence from English policy debates on 14-19 education of issues that, in other developed countries, would be seen as key elements in the policy landscape. These are: the role of employers as providers of learning; the structure of employers'demand for skills, their recruitment and selection practices and the incentives this creates; the impact of labour market regulation on patterns of post-compulsory participation in vocatipnal education and training. This article argues that these issues help explain our comparatively modest participation rates at 16-18 and that failure to confront such underlying structural factors makes progress on the kind of agenda raised by Tomlinson and the subsequent White Paper extremely problematic. It is suggested that recent developments may mark the start of a change in policy, with labour market issues gaining a new prominence. The article concentrates on the English institutional context, but many of the general points about the labour market and its interaction with young peoples'decisions about education and training hold good across the whole of the UK. © 2005 Taylor & Francis.

Although most needlestick/sharps injuries (NSIs/SIs) research focuses on health care workers (HCWs), students in hospital internships are also at risk. Investigations that examined NSIsS/SIs in student populations generally studied medical rather than nursing students (NSs). In 1999, approximately 17,000 Taiwanese nursing graduates were exposed to the hazard of NSIs/SIs. We examined the frequency and mechanism of NSIs/SIs among vocational school NSs in southern Taiwan. Between July and December of 1999, within 1 week after the NSs completed their internship training, one of the researchers, who was a teacher in this vocational school, asked them to fill out questionnaires. Five hundred twenty-seven of 550 (92.6%) questionnaires were considered valid. Two hundred sixty-four of 527 (50.1%) responders sustained one or more NSIs/SIs. Ninety-six of 527 (18.2%) responders suffered contaminated NSIs/SIs. The average number of NSIs/SIs per student was 8.0 times/year (4.9 times/student/year for NSIs and 3.1 times/student/year for SIs). NSIs/SIs rates for NSs in 10-week and 4-week internships were significantly different (P =. 039): 53.3% versus 43.7%, respectively. The NSIs/SIs frequencies were influenced by length of internship: 7.3 times/student/year in 10-week internship and 11.7 times/student/year in 4-week internship. Logistic regression analysis indicated that length of internship rotation was statistically significant with respect to contaminated NSIs/SIs (OR = 1.682; 95% CI: 1.005-2.81; P =. 048). The NSIs/SIs frequencies of NSs were higher than those for HCWs. We found that frequency of NSIs/SIs for vocational school NSs is above average. Whether the young age of these NSs put them at greater risk for NSIs/SIs warrants further inquiry.