Career Paths (career + paths)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Career Paths and Choices in a Highly Differentiated Profession: The Position of Newly Qualified Solicitors

THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 4 2001
Andrew Boon
Differences in the working lives of solicitors have become increasingly marked in recent years. Growing numbers of lawyers are employed in the public and corporate sectors and, with the increasing size and wealth of City of London commercial firms, there are significant differences between these firms and those ,high-street' firms that serve local communities. These differences impact on lawyers throughout training and beyond, both in terms of rites of passage into the profession and in conditions of employment. This research, the final stage in a longitudinal survey spanning the 1990s, combines quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the reactions of newly qualified solicitors to their work. Building on the project's previous surveys, which charted the nature of disadvantage suffered by many prospective entrants to the legal profession, the research finds a large measure of satisfaction regarding careers. It also identifies causes for concern, including increasing specialisation in legal education and the potential separation of the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of professional practice. [source]


Productivity and Career Paths of Previous Recipients of Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Research Grant Awards

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 6 2008
Kelly D. Young MD
Abstract Objectives:, The objective was to assess productivity of previous recipients of Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) grant awards. Methods:, All previous recipients of SAEM Research Training Grants, Neuroscience Research Awards, Scholarly Sabbatical Awards, and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Research Fellowship awards funded through 2004 were identified through SAEM's records and surveyed. Award categories assessed were those still offered by SAEM at the time of the survey and therefore excluded the Geriatric Research Award. The 2005,2006 SAEM Grants Committee developed a survey using previous publications assessing productivity of training grants and fellowship awards and refined it through consensus review and limited pilot testing. We assessed measures of academic productivity (numbers of publications and additional grants awarded), commitment to an academic career, satisfaction with the SAEM award, and basic demographic information. Results:, Overall response rate was 70%; usable data were returned by all seven Research Training Grant awardees, both Neuroscience awardees, four of five Scholarly Sabbatical awardees, and six of 14 EMS Research Fellowship awardees. Of those who gave demographic information, 78% (14/18) were male and 94% (16/17) were non-Hispanic white. All the respondents remained in academics, and 14 of 19 felt that they will definitely be in academics 5 years from the time of the survey. They have a median of 1.8 original research publications per year since the end of their grant period, and 74% (14/19) have received subsequent federal funding. All found the SAEM award to be helpful or very helpful to their careers. Conclusions:, Previous recipients of the SAEM grant awards show evidence of academic productivity in the form of subsequent grant funding and research publications, and the majority remain committed to and satisfied with their academic research careers. [source]


Women's Careers Beyond the Classroom: Changing Roles in a Changing World

CURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2001
Nina Bascia
Drawing from our own and others' research over the past decade and a half, we present four "readings," each illuminating a different dimension of women educators' career development, particularly their movement into work beyond the classroom. The majority of the participants in our studies are women who work for change in their classrooms, schools, and district organizations, using the opportunities, vehicles, and channels available,or apparent,to them. They do this work in professional and personal contexts that are continually changing, sometimes as a result of their own choices and actions and sometimes not. While there is a growing body of literature on women's movement into, and their lives in, educational administration, we are concerned here with the broader and more varied manifestations of leadership beyond the classroom. In the four readings, we bring together several strands in the literature on women educators' lives and careers. We first lay out the taken-for-granted oppositional contrasts in the educational discourses that have tended to obscure more complex understandings of work lives and careers. Next, we explore how the particular kinds of work available to women actually encourage some to move beyond narrow conceptions of the distinctions between classroom and nonclassroom work. Third, we discuss the developmental nature of individual career paths. Fourth, we note the spatial and temporal nature of leadership work by showing how it is influenced and changed by greater economic, social, and political forces. We believe that these multiple interpretations are required to understand the range and combination of influences that propel and compel women educators to take up various forms of leadership work beyond the classroom. [source]


Europe and the Crisis in Scientific Vocations

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, Issue 4 2005
BERNARD CONVERT
During the 1990s, the number of students enrolling in science subjects at universities was declining each year in Germany, France, Italy, amongst other countries. These decreases are too readily attributed to a general disaffection caused by the image that younger generations have of scientific studies: they are seen as being the most ,difficult'. This explanation is true but not sufficient. Over and above the similarities that can be seen between European countries , which stem from the fact that they are simultaneously experiencing strong growth in and democratisation of their student populations ,, profound differences continue to exist, resulting in apparently similar effects, but with very different causes. Not only do higher education structures taken as a whole remain very different despite the Bologna process, but more fundamentally, the very meaning of the higher education system within each national society, its relationship with employment, and its position in individuals' personal career paths all vary. A comparison between Germany, Italy and France shows three ideal types of relationship between training and employment and three ways of explaining symptoms that appear similar. [source]


African-American Students' Opinions About Foreign Language Study: An Exploratory Study of Low Enrollments at the College Level

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 2 2005
Zena Moore
Abstract: Persistent low numbers of African Americans in the foreign language teacher certification program at the University of Texas at Austin motivated the study reported here. Two groups of students responded to a questionnaire that sought information on foreign language experience at elementary and high school, as well as family experiences in foreign languages. Findings revealed that whereas very few students had the opportunity to study a foreign language at the elementary level, all were exposed to at least a two-year compulsory program at high school. These experiences were not motivating enough to encourage college-level continuation, nor were family experiences. Students' language preferences did not support previous findings that low enrollment figures resulted from language offerings that lacked ethnic and cultural appeal. Rather, the study found that there appeared to be little effort made to encourage African-American high school and college students to consider teaching career paths. Students recommended more aggressive dissemination of information to African-American students at the college level about the advantages on pursuing foreign language study. They overwhelmingly suggested including a foreign language requirement in all discipline areas. [source]


Beyond ,Gender Differences': A Canadian Study of Women's and Men's Careers in Engineering

GENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 1 2003
Gillian Ranson
This article explores the relationship between gender and career paths for a group of women and men who graduated as engineers during a period of labour market turbulence in western Canada during the 1980s. Using a model adapted from Brown (1982), the article uses ,career path' as a device to organize data drawn primarily from telephone and face-to-face interviews with 317 graduates. Three career paths provide the focus for the study: the ,organizational', characterized by stable employment with one employer; the ,occupational', characterized by mobility between employers; and the entrepreneurial, characterized by self-employment. The use of the career path framework moves the study beyond global comparisons (of the dichotomized ,gender differences' kind) between ,the women' and ,the men'. As well as allowing for comparison between the paths, it allows more refined and contextualized comparisons within each path. Such comparisons produce patterns of similarity and difference that sometimes transcend gender. [source]


Female Academics in a Knowledge Production Society

HIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2002
Erica Halvorsen
In the latter half of the twentieth century, the ,Professional Society' was, and continues to be, replaced by a ,Knowledge Society'. One of the characteristics of the ,Professional Society' was its masculine culture and hierarchies. This paper examines the effect that the shift from a ,Professional Society' to a ,Knowledge Society' has had on the careers of female academics. It considers the career paths of vice,chancellors and goes on to examine the effects of geographical mobility on promotions. In addition, the significance of high proportions of professors in highly,rated research departments, and the gender implications of that, is examined. In the concluding section it is argued that, while universities continue to support the hierarchies of the ,Professional Society', it is to the detriment both of women and of knowledge production. [source]


Lawyers at Mid-Career: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study of Job and Life Satisfaction

JOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2009
John Monahan
This study is the first to our knowledge to simultaneously measure the predictors of lawyers' satisfaction with their careers and the predictors of lawyers' satisfaction with their lives more broadly. One class of the University of Virginia School of Law was studied between their matriculation in 1987 and their graduation in 1990. All 360 living graduates of this class were contacted in 2007, with a response rate of 72.2 percent. Descriptive information was obtained and empirically validated measures of both career satisfaction and life satisfaction were administered. Respondents were found to have taken many diverse career paths, with most (85 percent) having changed jobs at least once, and half having changed jobs at least twice. Gender differences in the personal and professional lives of respondents were pervasive. Women graduates were far more likely than men to interrupt or forego full-time employment (39 percent vs. 1 percent), mainly in order to care for children, and were also more likely to have a spouse or partner employed full time outside the home (77 percent vs. 24 percent). Working conditions at large private law firms emerged as a significant problem for many respondents; half of those who started their careers in large firms left to go to a different type of employer. Finally, both career satisfaction and life satisfaction were found to be high, with 81 percent of the respondents satisfied with their decision to become a lawyer, and 86 percent satisfied with their lives more broadly. [source]


A longitudinal study of the educational and career trajectories of female participants of an urban informal science education program

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 8 2004
Kathleen A. Fadigan
The purpose of this longitudinal case study is to describe the educational trajectories of a sample of 152 young women from urban, low-income, single-parent families who participated in the Women in Natural Sciences (WINS) program during high school. Utilizing data drawn from program records, surveys, and interviews, this study also attempts to determine how the program affected the participants' educational and career choices to provide insight into the role informal science education programs play in increasing the participation of women and minorities in science, math, engineering, and technology (SMET)-related fields. Findings revealed 109 participants (93.16%) enrolled in a college program following high school completion. Careers in medical or health-related fields followed by careers in SMET emerged as the highest ranking career paths with 24 students (23.76%) and 21 students (20.79%), respectively, employed in or pursuing careers in these areas. The majority of participants perceived having staff to talk to, the job skills learned, and having the museum as a safe place to go as having influenced their educational and career decisions. These findings reflect the need for continued support of informal science education programs for urban girls and at-risk youth. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 835,860, 2004 [source]


Principals in Practice: The Importance of Mentorship in the Early Stages of Career Development

LAW & POLICY, Issue 1 2009
FIONA M. KAY
In this article we empirically assess the benefits of mentorship across a diverse range of extrinsic and intrinsic career rewards. Using an integrated model, we investigate the ways in which characteristics of the organization, as well as characteristics of both protégés and mentors affect the outcomes of mentoring relationships. Our study includes two samples: new law school graduates and a more seasoned cohort of established lawyers. Our results reveal the unique contributions of career and psychosocial mentor functions to early and established careers, as well as the substantial rewards of informal and multiple mentors to the career paths of professionals. [source]


Professional development of statisticians in the pharmaceutical sector: evolution over the past decade and into the future

PHARMACEUTICAL STATISTICS: THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED STATISTICS IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY, Issue 3 2008
Trevor Lewis CStat
Abstract The adoption of The International Conference on Harmonization Tripartite Guideline: Statistical Principles for Clinical Trials (ICH-E9) has provided a foundation for the application of statistical principles in clinical research and raised awareness of the value of a statistical contribution to the wider pharmaceutical R&D process. In addition, over the past decade globalization of the pharmaceutical R&D process and the measures taken to address reduced productivity and spiralling costs have impacted on the roles and career opportunities for statisticians working in the pharmaceutical sector. This has enhanced the need for continuing professional development to equip statisticians with the skills to fully contribute to creating innovative solutions. In the future, key areas of focus are the establishment of professional standards for statistical work and increasing the collaboration between statisticians working in industry, regulatory agencies and academia. In addition, the diversity of roles and potential career paths for statisticians embarking on a career in the pharmaceutical sector emphasizes the importance of mentoring and coaching. For the more experienced statisticians, there are unprecedented opportunities to lead and innovate. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Making History at the Frontier

ANNALS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2006
Christina Wasson
This volume presents the stories of 11 women anthropologists whose career paths have successfully navigated the terrain of practice. Its overall goal is to help future generations of anthropologists who are initiating careers in practice, both women and men. Students in applied anthropology programs, and others considering careers in practice, are hungry for such information. A second goal is to highlight the contributions and concerns of women practitioners from the perspective of feminist anthropology. Three common threads run across the life histories of these authors: an integrated scholar-practitioner identity; improvisation; and a shared set of building blocks for constructing their lives. Brief histories of four forerunners are provided to provide historical depth. They illustrate the continuing importance of persistence and determination, as well as the possibility of having meaningful and satisfying careers by approaching life and work creatively in the face of various obstacles. [source]


Longitudinal study of veterinary students and veterinarians: effects of growing up on a farm with animals

AUSTRALIAN VETERINARY JOURNAL, Issue 7 2007
TJ Heath
Objective To compare the career paths of veterinarians who had grown up on farms with animals with those of veterinarians from other backgrounds, during the first 15 years after they graduated. Procedure Questionnaires were completed by veterinary students in their first and fifth year, and after 1, 5, 10 and 15 years after they graduated. The most recent questionnaires were returned by 134 of 137 graduates, 20% of whom had grown up, or lived for at least two years, on farms where animals were a primary source of income. This paper includes findings from that questionnaire but also contains comparisons with previous ones. Results Fifteen years after they graduated, veterinarians who had grown up on farms with animals were more likely than those of other backgrounds to be living in centres with < 10,000 people (58% farm, 20% other), irrespective of the type of work they were doing. Although they were more likely to be doing no veterinary work (42% farm, 21% other), they were also more likely to be working in mixed practice (15% farm, 9% other) and with cattle and sheep generally (11% full time equivalent farm, 5% full time equivalent other). However, > 80% of those who had started their careers in mixed practice were no longer in mixed practice after 15 years. Veterinarians of farm origin who were in private practice were more likely to be sole or part owners (93% farm, 46% other) and less likely to be employees (7% farm, 54% other). Conclusions In this study, veterinarians who had grown up on farms with animals seemed slightly more likely than those from other backgrounds to continue working in mixed practice and to work with cattle or sheep, although the numbers were small and the differences not significant. Whatever their background, the majority who started their careers in mixed practice left over the next few years, and by 15 years only 15% remained. [source]


Making a home, finding a job: investigating early housing and employment outcomes for young people leaving care

CHILD & FAMILY SOCIAL WORK, Issue 3 2006
Jim Wade
ABSTRACT This paper presents findings from a new study of outcomes for young people leaving care funded by the Department for Education and Skills. It reports findings for a sample of 106 young people in relation to progress made in housing and employment some 12,15 months after leaving care. The generally poor employment outcomes of care leavers are acknowledged, but ingredients that make for success are also highlighted, including the value of settled care and post-care careers, sound career planning and, significantly, the value of delaying young people's transitions from care. Early career paths also interconnect with how young people fare in housing, in developing life skills and with other problems in their lives after leaving care. Housing outcomes were more encouraging and predominantly shaped by events after leaving care, and faring well in housing was the factor most closely associated with positive mental well-being in young people. Some groups that are at risk of faring badly are identified, including young people with mental-health problems, young people with persistent offending or substance misuse problems and, in some respects, young disabled people. The implications of these findings for leaving care services are considered. [source]