Political discourse and policy reforms worldwide have highlighted the importance of promoting the knowledge economy by stimulating academics' societal engagement (ASE). Such narratives partly aim at influencing academics' attitudes and behaviors. Earlier work that has investigated such influence has tended to overlook the development in humanities…

To demonstrate whether individuals of the new generation have developed a unique and different learning model, research was conducted on children aged 10-11 in England, the United States, Australia and Germany. The qualities and the characteristics those children seek in the activities with which they spend more time were recognized. Using this…

Given their lower socioeconomic background and achievement, immigrants and their descendants have been shown to make more ambitious decisions regarding educational transitions. While previous research has extensively analysed transitions within and after compulsory education, research on late transitions is scarce. This study focuses on the…

Debate continues to feature prominently in many countries on such notions as skills, skill shortages and employability. Clearly such notions remain significant internationally in the rhetoric of both economic reform and training policy and practice. However, the problem remains of differing perceptions. The purpose of this comparative study was to…

Context: For young people with a migrant background in Germany transition from school to company-based vocational training is much more difficult than for non-migrants. This remains true, when data is controlled for the lower performance of young migrants in general education. In this paper we investigate if and how far the chances of transition…

This case study addresses the issue of climate change denial among students in their first year of vocational education. It was possible to shake the belief that man-made climate change was not happening, through letting students measure the potential of natural forest vegetation and compare their findings with those gathered by their peers nine…

This qualitative study follows the two questions, how the factor of the generation, an educator in training belongs to, influences his or her general concept of how sustainability-related lessons should be conducted and how the factor of living in groups influences this as well. For this interviews with 206 students were held and their own…

Previous Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) work has shown that even native-born children with immigrant parents face persistent disadvantage in the education system, the school-to-work transition and the labour market. To which degree are these linked with their immigration background, i.e. with…

The authors examined the development of self-esteem across the life span. Data came from a German longitudinal study with 3 assessments across 4 years of a sample of 2,509 individuals ages 14 to 89 years. The self-esteem measure used showed strong measurement invariance across assessments and birth cohorts. Latent growth curve analyses indicated…

Education has until recently promoted social mobility, broad economic growth, and democracy. However, modern universities direct policy and resources toward criteria that exacerbate income inequality and reduce social mobility. Online education can make education more socially, geographically, temporally, and financially accessible, impacting the…

The vulnerability model states that low self-esteem functions as a predictor for the development of depressive symptoms whereas the scar model assumes that these symptoms leave scars in individuals resulting in lower self-esteem. Both models have received empirical support, however, they have only been tested within individuals and not across…

A decline in biology interest has often been claimed but seldom with an empirically substantiation. This study was based on a sample of 3rd and 4th grade pupils within the same geographical area as Lowe's (1987, 1992) previous results from southwest Germany from the year 1983. We used a four-point Likert-type questionnaire to assess interest with…

Little is known about differences in the impact of economic stress on students as compared to persons holding secure job positions. Besides the macroeconomic effects, an economic downturn can also affect individual's physical health and psychological well-being (Aytaç & Rankin, 2009). Prior research showed that socio-demographic…