Despite the current recession, temporary employment will likely represent an increasing share of the labor market in the future, particularly for entry-level and low-wage occupations. In recent economic downturns, the temporary help sector has been among the first to rebound, coming back strongly after times of high unemployment. In this climate,…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday, February 17, 2009. It is the broadest and largest funding package in American history. The intent of the statute is to stimulate the economy both through direct spending on a range of programs and to create tax relief. Key to the stimulus is the…

This occasional paper describes the development of the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education and the current statewide challenges that make the plan ineffective today in preventing the erosion of college opportunity. (Contains 29 endnotes and 8 tables.)

K-8 science education in California (as in many other parts of the country) is in a state of crisis. K-8 students in California spend too little time studying science, many of their teachers are not well prepared in the subject, and the support system for science instruction has deteriorated. A proliferation of overly detailed standards and poorly…

In an earlier paper (Skamp, Boyes, & Stanisstreet, 2009b), students' beliefs and willingness to act in relation to 16 specific actions related to global warming were compared across the primary secondary interface. More primary students believed in the effectiveness of most actions to reduce global warming and were willing to take those…

Welcome to the Generational Wars--a workplace skirmish over everything from ties and pantyhose to flex time and Facebook. For the first time in American history, three generations are now working desk-to-desk. And each brings wildly varying views on work and life into the office. The battle lines have been drawn. On one side are the Baby Boomers,…

Professors in management and business are encouraged to incorporate critical thinking as an objective in their courses. "The Lobster Tale" provides an opportunity to engage students in various levels of critical thinking, ranging from a relatively superficial reading to an examination of the deeper, often hidden issues. Using the foundations of…

Global and local climate change has become an important topic in the last few years. Concerns regarding the impact of climate changes on ecosystems in general, resources used by humans (e.g., water, energy, crops), and the intensity and frequency of natural disasters are driving the interest. Phenology is one way researchers are studying historic…

Geographic information systems (GIS) offer many possibilities for supporting student research projects. This paper deals with the results of the first phase of a design study on student research projects that combine (quantitative) data collection in the field with data visualisation, manipulation and analysis in GIS. In this study, we try to…

Using a sample of 282 Norwegian upper secondary students, we examined whether two dimensions of topic-specific epistemic beliefs, concerning the certainty of knowledge and the justification for knowing, predicted students' understanding of seven texts representing partly conflicting views on climate change. Text comprehension was measured at three…

In common with the United States, Europe is currently experiencing a serious economic recession. The crisis, which started in the financial sector, is now rippling out and affecting heavily other economic sectors: construction, property, retailing, manufacturing, etc. The arguable cause of the crisis was a failure of management in financial…

As editors of the recently published "Vocational psychological and organisational perspectives on career: Towards a multidisciplinary dialogue" (Collin & Patton, 2009a), the authors have considerable interest in this particular issue of the "Australian Journal of Career Development." This short piece will first present the…

In this paper, youth workers's pay is compared with general wage growth and the wages of those undertaking similar work, and a case is made for pay parity to attract and keep competent workers in the youth sector. (Contains 3 notes.)

In an exploratory study of 12 teacher education programs representing various geographic regions and institutional types according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, this author and a colleague (Goodwin & Oyler, 2008) learned from teacher educators across the country about the many constraints they work within, the lack…

The purposes of this study were to: (1) determine the extent of wash-out in two beginning physical education teachers; and (2) determine the workplace conditions these novice teachers experienced that may have influenced the extent of wash-out for them. The interactive factors influencing workplace conditions for physical education teachers…