The Qualifications Gap

Women need to be significantly more qualified than men to win political office. This book explains how voter biases and informational asymmetries combine to disadvantage female candidates. It is for scholars and lay readers who are interested in gender and politics, campaigns and elections, political psychology, and political communication.

··Awarded the Descartes Prize 2004 of the European Commission·· How do gender inequalities translate at the top of politics and business? Is the gender gap eliminated for the most influential players in industrial democratic society? This informed and compelling analysis examines the demographic characteristics, family circumstances and career paths of a group of elite women. The book is noteworthy for being one of the first empirically based studies of women elites. Drawing on a sample from no less than 27 countries, a convincing and highly original picture is constructed that informs readers of career paths, values, social networks and gender battles for women elites. Co-ordinated by Mino Vianello and Gwen Moore, the research fills in a huge gap about how power actually operates in industrial-democratic societies. It enables us to test the view that substantial equality between the sexes has been achieved in the twenty first century. It constitutes a landmark work, both in the study of gender difference and the analysis of power. The findings will be of interest to academics and advanced students in a wide range of disciplines including stratification, globalization, political science, international relations, gender, sociology, organizational studies and much more.

Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Teacher Qualification and Certification -- 2. Inequitable Distribution of Public School Teachers -- 3. Alternative Certification -- 4. Teacher Attrition -- 5. Teacher Preparation.

Offering perspectives focused on the meaningful goal of measuring and assessing teacher quality, Measurement Issues and Assessment for Teaching Quality brings together leading researchers and practitioners from the fields of education, economics and policy who contribute provocative, illuminating, and coherent articles that explore key issues surrounding this vital topic. Features: Provides an in-depth examination of three thematic sections: Measuring Teaching Quality for Professional Entry, Measuring Teaching Quality in Practice, Measuring Teaching Quality in Context Includes section summaries by Drew Gitomer that highlight key issues and common themes that tie the articles together Closes with a summary and call to action by Lee Shulman, President of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Measurement Issues and Assessment for Teaching Quality is must reading for principals, educational administrators, and policymakers concerned with the dynamics of improving teacher quality.

This book brings together the work of leading international thinkers working in the overlapping areas of economics, organization studies, business history, corporate strategy, and innovation. There is a growing awareness that the perspectives of a single discipline are unable to capture and explain the complexities and dynamics of firm behaviour, organizational structure, and corporate strategy. All the chapters in this book are drawn from the pioneering journal Industrial and Corporate Change opening up the inter-disciplinary coverage of the journal to a wider readership. Here readers will find extensive and original contributions from economists Oliver Williamson, Richard Nelson, and Martin Fransman; sociology and organization theorists Mark Granovetter and Gary Hamilton; business historians William Lazonick and Jonathan West; innovation scholars Parimal Patel, Keith Pavitt, and Giovanni Dosi; and business strategists David Teece and Gary Pisano. This book will be vital reading for all those who want to get to grips with the best of current international thinking on the dynamic interplay of technology, organization, and competition.

Research clearly indicates that ethnic groups differ significantly on levels of mental and physical health, antisocial behavior, and educational attainment. This book explains these variations among ethnic groups with respect to their psychological and social functioning and tests competing hypotheses about the mechanisms that might cause the functioning to be better, worse, or different in pattern from other groups. Attention is paid to educational attainments, antisocial behavior, schizophrenia and suicide, and to the complex and changing patterns of ethnic identity. The book also focuses on evidence on risk and protective factors that is used systematically to ask whether such factors might account for the differences in both migration histories and ethnic mixture. It concludes with a discussion of the multiple meanings of ethnicity, the major variations among ethnic groups, and the policy implications of the findings discussed in the book.

States that in September 2007, the government announced that it was withdrawing state funding paid to higher education institutions to subsidize the fees of Equivalent or Lower Level Qualifications (ELQ) students, that is those studying for a qualification at the same or lower level than they already hold.