The Neoliberal Republi c traces the corrosive effects of the revolving door between public service and private enrichment on the French state and its ability to govern and regulate the private ...sector. Casting a piercing light on this circulation of influence among corporate lawyers and others in the French power elite, Antoine Vauchez and Pierre France analyze how this dynamic, a feature of all Western democracies, has developed in concert with the rise of neoliberalism over the past three decades. Based on interviews with dozens of public officials in France and a unique biographical database of more than 200 civil-servants-turned-corporate- lawyers, The Neoliberal Republic explores how the always-blurred boundary between public service and private interests has been critically compromised, enabling the transformation of the regulatory state into either an ineffectual bystander or an active collaborator in the privatization of public welfare. The cumulative effect of these developments, the authors reveal, undermines democratic citizenship and the capacity to imagine the public good.
Although interest has been repeatedly identified as a powerful basis for learning and academic achievement, limited empirical work has looked at the structural composition, persistence, stability, ...and development of interests over time. Such work is necessary to support developmental models of interest empirically. Using 6 dimensions identified in literature as underlying the development of interests (time, value, agency, frequency, intensity, and mastery), the 7,226 interests of 204 Dutch high school students were explored by examining the structure of these dimensions over time. To measure students' multiple interests and their development across contexts and over time, we used experience-sampling methodology through a smartphone application at 2 time points, 3 months apart. Using cross-sectional latent profile analyses, we found that the data best supported 2 nearly identical sets of 6 profiles at both time points. These profiles, consisting of both homogeneous (i.e., similar scores on all dimensions) and heterogeneous (i.e., characterized by interactions across dimensions) patterns of scores across the dimensions, were then investigated longitudinally to evaluate them within developmental theory. The structures of the profiles and the transitions between profiles over time largely align with common descriptions of interest development. However, discrepancies hinting at a novel and separate developmental trajectory were found, requiring further investigation.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Common strategies for identifying and developing students' interest and using these interests in practice may be based on erroneous assumptions. For example, relating instruction to students' specific interests simply because they are older or match students' existing proficiencies, may result in neglecting other, more developed and potentially more suitable, interests. In this study, we demonstrate that the state of development of an interest can be distinguished using patterns across 6 dimensions: time, value, agency, frequency, intensity, and mastery. Contrasting expectations based on interest development theory, our results show at least 2 groups of interests in which these dimensions have not developed in unison, which is why insight into a combination of the dimensions is required to distinguish different levels of interest development. The state of these 6 dimensions together can help inform us about how interests may develop over time, including whether an interest will continue growing, stop or may even stop being considered an interest.
As most Americans know, conflicts of interest riddle the US health care system. They result from physicians practicing medicine as entrepreneurs, from physicians' ties to pharma, and from ...investor-owned firms and insurers' influence over physicians' medial choices. These conflicts raise questions about physicians' loyalty to their patients and their professional and economic independence. The consequences of such conflicts of interest are often devastating for the patients--and society--stuck in the middle. In Conflicts of Interest and the Future of Medicine, Marc Rodwin examines the development of these conflicts in the US, France, and Japan. He shows that national differences in the organization of medical practice and the interplay of organized medicine, the market, and the state give rise to variations in the type and prevalence of such conflicts. He then analyzes the strategies that each nation employs to cope with them. Unfortunately, many proposals to address physicians' conflicts of interest do not offer solutions that stick. But drawing on the experiences of these three nations, Rodwin demonstrates that we can mitigate these problems with carefully planned reform and regulation. He examines a range of measures that can be taken in the private and public sector to preserve medical professionalism--and concludes that there just might be more than one prescription to this seemingly incurable malady. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience/9780199755486/toc.html
Interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has lately received attention in research due to a gap between the number of STEM students and the needs of the labour market. As ...interest seems to be one of the most important factors in deciding what to study, we focus in the present study on how STEM-interested students weigh multiple interests in making educational choices. A questionnaire with both open-ended and closed-ended items was administered to 91 STEM-interested students enrolled in a STEM programme of a Dutch University for secondary school students. Results indicate that students find it important that a study programme allows them to pursue multiple interests. Some students pursued multiple interests by choosing to enrol in two programmes at the same time. Most students chose one programme that enabled them to combine multiple interests. Combinations of pursued interests were dependent on the disciplinary range of interests of students. Students who were interested in diverse domains combined interests in an educational programme across academic and non-academic domains, whilst students who were mainly interested in STEM combined only STEM-focused interests. Together these findings stress the importance of taking a multiple interest perspective on interest development and educational choice.
This volume features a distinguished, international group of scholars and practitioners who provide a comparative account of ethics regulations across four Western democracies: the United States, the ...United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy. They situate conflict-of-interest regulations within a broader discourse involving democratic theory; identify the structural, political, economic, and cultural factors that have contributed to the development of these regulations over time; and assess the extent to which these efforts have succeeded or failed across and within different branches and systems of government. Collectively, they provide an invaluable survey of the development, function, and impact of conflict-of-interest regimes in public life.
This article presents an overview of interest research and describes the theoretical and methodological background for the assessment of interest in science in large-scale assessments like the ...'Programme for International Student Assessment' (PISA). The paper starts with a short retrospective on the history of interest, bringing out theoretical roots that help to understand recent discussions on interest in science education. As interest is a widely used concept with manifold facets, it is essential to discuss different ways of modelling the relationship between a person and a comprehensive object like science with all of its different aspects, including wide ranges of content as well as contexts. Models that can be used for describing the content structure of science interest and the process of interest development are presented. Based on an overview of typical methods for assessing interests, exemplary findings on students' interest in science are presented, which play an important role in the current scientific debate. Finally, challenges for future research on interest in science education are discussed.
Men and Things, Women and People Su, Rong; Rounds, James; Armstrong, Patrick Ian
Psychological bulletin,
11/2009, Volume:
135, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The magnitude and variability of sex differences in vocational interests were examined in the present meta-analysis for
Holland's (1959
,
1997
) categories (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, ...Social, Enterprising, and Conventional),
Prediger's (1982)
Things-People and Data-Ideas dimensions, and the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) interest areas. Technical manuals for 47 interest inventories were used, yielding 503,188 respondents. Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (
d
= 0.93) on the Things-People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (
d
= 0.84) and Investigative (
d
= 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (
d
= −0.35), Social (
d
= −0.68), and Conventional (
d
= −0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (
d
= 1.11), science (
d
= 0.36), and mathematics (
d
= 0.34) interests. Average effect sizes varied across interest inventories, ranging from 0.08 to 0.79. The quality of interest inventories, based on professional reputation, was not differentially related to the magnitude of sex differences. Moderators of the effect sizes included interest inventory item development strategy, scoring method, theoretical framework, and sample variables of age and cohort. Application of some item development strategies can substantially reduce sex differences. The present study suggests that interests may play a critical role in gendered occupational choices and gender disparity in the STEM fields.
The German ONET Interest Profiler Short Form Roemer, Lena; Lewis, Phil; Rounds, James
Psychological Test Adaptation and Development,
12/2023, Volume:
4, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Holland's RIASEC model is the dominant framework to
conceptualize vocational interests. It describes vocational interests with six
broad domains: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, ...enterprising, and
conventional. The O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form is a freely accessible
inventory measuring vocational interests according to Holland's model
with 60 items. With this manuscript, we provide a translation of the inventory
into German and evaluate the scores' psychometric qualities,
construct-related and criterion-related validity. We used data from an
age-diverse (N = 276) and high-school sample
(N = 672). Internal consistency estimates of the scale
scores were adequate. Randomization tests and multidimensional scaling showed
that the scores' structural properties mirrored the RIASEC theoretical
model. Scale scores were sensitive to gender differences and could predict
participants' actual and ideal occupations with reasonable hit rates.
Overall, the German O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form seems apt for usage
in career counseling and research settings.
Growing evidence on the predictive validity of vocational interests for job performance calls for greater consideration of interest assessment in organizations. However, a consensus on the ...fundamental dimensions of interests that are aligned with the contemporary world of work is still lacking. In the current research, we developed an organizing framework of vocational interests and empirically validated an 8-dimension model (SETPOINT: Health Science, Creative Expression, Technology, People, Organization, Influence, Nature, and Things). We propose that interests are structured hierarchically, with preferences for specific work activities at the lowest level (assessed using interest items), basic interests for homogeneous classes of activities at the intermediate level (assessed using basic interest scales), and broad-band interest dimensions describing general tendencies of individuals to be drawn to or motivated by broad types of work environments at the top. To derive broad-band interest dimensions, it is necessary to base it on a comprehensive range of content-specific basic interest constructs. In Study 1, we conducted an extensive review of existing basic interest scales and developed a new assessment of basic interests with 41 homogeneous scales across two samples. In Study 2, we demonstrated the structural validity of the proposed dimensional model using second-order confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling with a large, diverse sample of working adults and supported its predictive validity for occupational membership in new and traditional sectors of work. We discuss implications from the current findings for building interest theory, using interest assessment for organizational research, and evaluating interest structure with appropriate methods.
Theoretically framed within Social Cognitive Career Theory emphasising on the construct of situational interest, this study explores the impact of career-based scenarios, as an instructional ...approach, on students' interest in science and understandings of STEM careers. This case study involved 16 students aged 13-15 years old, who participated in a classroom intervention consisting of five sessions in a period of two years. Data were collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews administered repeatedly after each session. The questionnaire data were analysed with the use of descriptive statistics and the interview data were analysed through content analysis. The findings illustrate that opportunities for active engagement in scientific practices and interactions with experts were important conditions for career-based scenarios to succeed in enhancing students' situational interest and understandings of STEM careers. These findings hold important implications for educational practice as they offer insights into career-oriented curriculum design for the purpose of enhancing student interest in science as well as understandings of STEM careers.
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