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Neurodevelopmental disorders consist of a wide range of conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These conditions affect a significant proportion of the population and their correct diagnosis is crucial for the patients' quality of life and their targeted education. Neuropsychological testing and cognitive assessment play a very important role in the diagnosis and management of neurodevelopmental disorders. Cognitive assessments had been performed in the past primarily through pencil and paper but great advancements have been made in this field. New technological means have vastly enhanced the capabilities and potential in the area of neurocognition with the use of computers, gamified cognitive tests, biomarkers, such as electroencephalographic waves, and neurofeedback. This can bring an expanded understanding of how the brain works, increased accuracy and objectivity. The aim of our proposed study is to assess whether young people and children with neurodevelopmental disorders perform differently in a battery neuropsychological test. The proposed test will incorporate the idea of providing 'real time' brain activity by simultaneously recording electroencephalographic waves during the completion of the test through a portable device. The integration of electroencephalogram data into this test has the potential to contribute to the creation of a universal assessment tool. This tool could find utility in diagnosing neurodevelopmental disorders in children across different scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational technology programs often introduce students to the field through a "foundations" course. Overviewing foundational educational technology courses at a sample of North American post-secondary educational technology programs, this exploratory paper builds an argument for change, identifying themes, approaches, as well as media and technology uses, out of touch with the conditions that are impacting--and with some urgency--education and technology. From global climate crisis, through a pandemic, to culture wars and imperialist invasions, with 'surgical' AI-enabled drone strikes on human targets on one side of the planet while on the other, fragile human bodies are pitted against one another in combat on the ground, urgent problems and challenges are profoundly shaking the foundations of education and for the technologies used in its advancement. An example is shared in closing to illustrate how a 'new foundations' approach can illuminate possible pathways and forge new directions for the field under changed and changing conditions, that can provide students and researchers understanding of where and upon what educational technology stands--and its next steps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns how credentials mark boundaries between different kinds of higher educational actors. In particular, this research inquires into how organizations respond to rapid shifts in their institutional environments in terms of the maintenance of symbolic boundaries that granting specific kinds of credentials provides. As a field of higher education expands rapidly to encompass new kinds of persons, and new areas of credentialing, what happens to the ways in which organizations manage their identities as distinct from others in the field? Are boundaries blurred or sharpened in such a process? This paper addresses these concerns within the field of higher education in business, and the rapid changes that occurred after 1972 (and the passage of Title IX legislation) as the field expanded from a relatively exclusive white male domain to include a wide swath of institutional space with women a majority of the degree recipients. Using government surveys of higher education, and formal analytic techniques (WMDS, Cluster Analysis), I model the shifting logics of distinction that structured the field over this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with a discussion of how transitions can be periods of growth or points of failure, depending on the person's response. Looking more specifically at the transition to college, Tinto (1993) identifies this transition period as crucial to a student's eventual success or failure in college. Tintos theory states that students stay in school when they become integrated into the social and academic realms of college life, which comes about as a result of adjusting to the formal and informal domains of these realms of the college environment. Because adjustment is actually about the social connections students form, I examine this adjustment process in terms of the ties that students form on campus. The final part of this paper examines the implications of the social and academic ties on academic (GPA) and social integration (satisfaction with social life). I find that the ties that students form in the process of adjusting to college do have implications for their later college outcomes. In particular, formal on-campus ties in both the social (school activities) and academic realms (engagement in coursework, talking to professors) are positively and significantly related to higher grades in college. I also find that those who form early ties with other students both informally and in the course of being involved in extracurricular activities express higher levels of satisfaction with their social life on campus at the end of their sophomore year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores selectively the thought of Pierre Bourdieu with attention to images of capital acquisition and conversion in order to conceptualize the career and scholarly work conditions of American academics employed as professors in major research universities. Much has been written about the terrains of higher education, viewed sociologically, psychologically, anthropologically, and politically. Yet, few scholarly contributions have examined the contexts of professors' work relative to their support for or constraint upon knowledge production as a desirable social aim. Although concerns have been raised about the applicability of Bourdieu's work to settings beyond the specific context of French higher education, it is possible to use his writings as opportunities to explore academic contextual issues (with attention to contextual constraint) in generic ways and relative to their resonance with American higher education. The paper capitalizes on these opportunities to frame the content of professors' scholarly careers and the "social sites" that shape their knowledge production efforts. The paper employs Bourdieu's ideas to address this aim, due to his concern with the social and cultural contexts -- and power dynamics -- that frame lives, individually and collectively, in institutions and in society more broadly. The paper closes with a set of ideas drawn from the works of social, sociocultural, and cognitive psychologists to consider possibilities for supporting scholarly learning, even within contexts of constraint as outlined by Bourdieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, entrepreneurial alertness has established its place as one of the central concepts in entrepreneurship research. It implies one's ability to identify opportunities that are overlooked by others and as such plays an important role in the process of opportunity discovery and creation. Entrepreneurial alertness is theoretically set as a multidimensional construct that comprises of scanning and searching for new information, associating and connecting seemingly unrelated pieces of information and making evaluations and judgments about potential opportunities. The purpose of this study is to explore the notion of entrepreneurial alertness among the youth in order to identify its relationship with metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, perception of self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. The aim is to provide suggestions and guidelines to scholars and educators about the ways entrepreneurial alertness can be developed and enhanced through teaching methods as well as specific activities offered to students during their university study. The sample includes 206 business students on the undergraduate and graduate level majoring in seven different areas (financial management, marketing, general management, trade and logistics, business informatics, entrepreneurship and economic policy and regional development). Statistical methods applied in the data analysis included correlation analysis, factor analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and all four preselected variables: metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, perceived self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intent. Various student activities outside the classroom contribute to higher levels of students' entrepreneurial alertness. However, not all activities equally contributed to the development of students' metacognitive knowledge. Students who volunteered in local non-profit organizations, did an internship in a company that operates in Croatia, participated in providing consulting services to small and medium businesses and took part in national case study competitions demonstrated higher levels of metacognitive knowledge. Finally, the paper provides suggestions to scholars, educators and policy makers in the field of entrepreneurship and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expertise development mentoring provides new students with useful information about "what to do in order to succeed at the university," insights into the culture of higher education, and tips on how to become "more expert" students. This form of mentoring goes beyond just informing students about the range of support services are available on campus to providing scripts for how to use specific campus resources appropriately as well as strategies for key campus interactions. In this paper we examine the effectiveness of this approach through a case study of an intervention designed to improve first-generation student academic success and retention at Portland State University, the Students First Mentoring Project (SFMP). After describing the lkey elements of this intervention, along with the underlying conceptual model, we present two years (2005-2007) of program results to establish that the program positively impacts first-generation student's academic performance and persistence. We conclude this paper by discussing the implications of this successful expertise-development mentoring program for first generation students and the colleges and universities seeking to support these students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As public funding for higher education has declined, the costs of higher education have risen dramatically, including sharp increases in technology costs. At the same time, college education has become more universally available—and more critical to individuals' economic success—and public institutions must accommodate a broader and more diverse array of students. This paper outlines the economic, demographic, and public policy environment for public higher education, arguing that campus governance structures are ill-prepared to respond to this changing context. The paper examines the impact of this changed environment for faculty work and morale, including implications for the field of sociology, and makes the case that universities must adapt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic training can be regarded as the key qualification in contemporary knowledge societies. Against this background, public debate has repeatedly highlighted two problems of the German system: first, a comparatively small proportion of the population attaining higher education and second, a relatively high degree of social selectivity in education, not least among university graduates where children from lower classes are highly underrepresented. Graduating from university is, however, just the final step of an extended educational career. Sociological transition research has revealed that final educational attainment must be understood as the result of a sequence of successive decisions. So where on the long way to the university degree does Germany 'lose' its potential academics and in particular its lower-class children?This paper presents a detailed picture of the life-course development of educational careers by reconstructing the various steps of the collective educational history of a particular birth cohort. The paper takes account of both the country-specific institutional structures of the educational system and inter-individual variation in educational trajectories and combines both aspects in an analysis of the most relevant types of educational transitions associated with the 'academic track'. Altogether, the transitions aggregate to the final number of graduates as well as to the observed amount of inequality in educational attainment. In our empirical analyses, we are interested in both the overall selection at particular transitions and social differences in these transition patterns. We use survey data from various sources on participation and social selectivity in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on a sample of 523 institutions of higher education in the United States to test neoinstitutional and diffusion explanations for curricular change. It explores the adoption of programs and majors in women's studies, Asian American studies, and queer/LGBT studies through logistic regression analysis and network visualization. The paper finds less support than expected for conventional neoinstitutional and diffusion explanations while determining that the institutionalization of a discipline in the higher education field increases the role for neoinstitutional pressures. In addition, the paper finds that peer networks based on structural position with the higher education field play less of a role in curricular change than do those peers claimed by institutions as comparison institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few decades, Americans have seen an increased investment in social capital by the United States government, particularly as it pertains to higher education. The Federal Government has attempted to ameliorate many of its discriminatory and racist practices that have continually subjugated minorities to the lowest rungs of society as evidenced by the 1965 Higher Education Act and subsequent amendments. It is my contention that social capital is strongly correlated to educational attainment. Thus, because Latinos and African Americans have historically been discriminated against in their pursuit of higher education; their access to social capital has been severely limited. Furthermore, we argue that the current disproportionate federal funding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) compared to Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) is due directly to the de facto segregation historically encountered by Latinos. The practice of de facto segregation is much more subversive than the de jure segregation encountered by African Americans. As a result, the federal government continues to discriminate against Latinos by disproportionately investing more in HBCUs than HSIs, thus, reducing the educational attainment and social capital for Latinos. This paper illustrates how the differences in federal appropriations disproportionately affect Latinos and how this disproportion relates to social capital. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Immigration Act of 1965, the flow of immigrants to the United States has shifted away from European countries and is now primarily from Asian and Latin American countries. During this time, economic restructuring has made it more difficult for low-skilled and less-educated workers to find employment in stable, high-quality jobs. Some immigrants have responded to the economic context in the United States through participation in ethnic economies, which provide job opportunities that are not available to them in the mainstream economy. Beyond the advantages or disadvantages of ethnic economy participation for immigrants themselves, little research has investigated the intergenerational impact of ethnic economies. Some research suggests that ethnic economies can act as a springboard for the second generation-encouraging youth to go on to higher education by increasing social capital and reinforcing high educational aspirations. Other research has suggested that the ethnic economy can act as a safety net, giving youth possibilities of employment without obtaining a college degree.I n this paper, I assess the impact of parents' ethnic economy participation on children's educational aspirations and post-secondary school enrollment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the GSS complete file (1972-2004), the paper examines the role of education, age, and cohort in explaining attitudes toward economic and social inequality. First, in general, Americans become more economically conservative as they age, though they also grow more tolerant and liberal on issues of free speech and racial discrimination. Second, educational attainment is associated, albeit somewhat weakly, with increasingly conservative economic dispositions. Third, the effect of age on attitudes toward economic redistribution varies across educational groups: while all Americans become increasingly more conservative, the slope for those with more education rises more sharply than it does for Americans with at most a high school diploma. This effect is mitigated somewhat by income, though not entirely. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of peace and conflict studies is still coalescing, despite the fact that the first undergraduate degree program in the United States was established in 1948. Almost sixty years later, the field still goes by so many names that core identity issues have not been resolved. The names of degree programs reveal various foci: peace studies; justice studies; conflict studies; conflict analysis; conflict resolution; conflict management; conflict transformation; and dispute resolution. This paper recounts the history of the field's development, and then charts and analyzes the curricular content of undergraduate degree programs in the United States and Canada. This is accomplished through analysis of the curricular requirements for those degree programs, as well as through comparative analysis of the syllabi for the required courses in those programs. This data allows us to identify whether and if core constructs have been established in this emerging discipline, and the degree of coherence that may be present in the field. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I apply a rational action perspective to the study of affirmative action in higher education. I argue that the evolution of affirmative action policies in college recruitment and admissions is best understood as a response by postsecondary institutions to a variety of both external and internal forces. Currently popular theories in social stratification, such as maximally maintained inequality, are ill-equipped to account for organizational activities like affirmative action that appear to undermine racial and ethnic stratification. I suggest that affirmative action is a variant of what Ralph Turner call sponsored mobility. Building on Skrentny, I suggest that this form of sponsorship may have originated as an organizational response to a perceived crisis in legitimacy brought on by the Civil Rights struggle. Over time, however, affirmative action became part of the normative behaviors in which even moderately competitive colleges engage. Using data from representative samples of high school graduates in the classes of 1972, 1982 and 1992, I find persistent patterns of affirmative action for African American students and emergent patterns for white students. Unlike race/ethnicity, however, I find that colleges do little to reduce stratification among students based on socioeconomic status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As educational pathways become more complex, with expanded opportunities for schooling being provided through alternate routes and entry points, researchers have remained interested in the question of increased opportunities for whom? This paper investigates how individuals from different social origin and racial/ethnic backgrounds utilize the GED route to postsecondary attainment. I analyze data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), which contains information on a nationally representative sample of 8th graders originally sampled in 1988 and followed over time in four subsequent waves of data collection. To address my research question, I use logistic regression analysis to investigate the relationship between postsecondary participation and route of high school exit (Diploma, GED, Dropout) for individuals from different social strata. I then use the existing distributions of dropouts, GED recipients and diploma holders to present expected rates of postsecondary participation for each respective route of high school exit across socioeconomic status. To address selection bias, I conduct a set of sensitivity analyses using a propensity score blocking technique to hypothesize and specify the mechanism that generates the selection of students into the three possible high school exit routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the challenges of measuring school racial composition in a multiracial society, and proposes a novel methodological approach using school support of higher educational aspirations as an example outcome. We use 2 distinct specifications of school racial composition, percent white enrollment and categorical clusters of schools, to illustrate the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of examining the impact of race in multiracial settings. In addition, we argue that in a time when our schools are becoming increasingly diverse, and school districts are increasingly reluctant to use race as a consideration in school assignment, the necessity of showing that race still matters is paramount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates athletic programs within institutions of higher education in the US on the world stage, where frankly, it rightly belongs at this point in time. The United States remains the only country wherein a university education and athletic participation is combined. The theoretical perspective serves as a heuristic and pedagogic conceptual tool for setting competitive athletic contests within the context of a larger world-systen, as they are no longer held on the consecrated grounds of campus, but still fought in the name of State U. Intercollegiate athletics is today a part of the World-System not so much because it encompasses the whole world, but moreso because it is now larger than the academic enterprise itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key theme in the literature on migration is transnationalism, the concept of having a foot in both worlds ? the homeland that immigrants have left behind and the country that they have entered. This paper contributes to the emergent research on how transnationalism and ethnicity play out in the lives of the second generation, e.g., the American-born children of immigrants, and foreign-born children who arrived in the United States by the age of 12, with a particular focus on the Chinese and Dominicans and their views on and experience with higher education and mobility. Surveys and interviews with respondents of both groups show that they come from families embedded in strong transnational fields. The second generation Chinese, however, were only weakly transnational themselves, unlike the Dominicans, for whom the homeland figured strongly. Contrary to what we might expect, given that the Chinese have higher levels of educational attainment on average than many other immigrant groups, including Dominicans, the Chinese express more pessimism about the opportunity structure in the United States and their prospects for mobility. This is because the Chinese tended to use only ethnic/panethnic lenses to understand their educational and mobility trajectories in the United States and thus believed they should be doing better. By using both ethnic and transnational lenses, Dominicans compared themselves positively with their peers in the Dominican Republic and their co-ethnics in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using ethnographic and social science survey methods, the formation of social networks among the socio-economically disadvantaged students of the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) at Barnard College were examined in an effort to determine the effects of the types of networks formed by these students on post-graduate job attainment and their opportunity to achieve upward mobility through their network usage. It was found that the social networks of these students tend to be HEOP focused, but that the class ?disadvantage? of these networks do not negatively affect their employment prospects as these students tend to use their more ?advantaged? weak ties in the job search. It was further found that the type of social tie used by the HEOP student was dependent on the monetary nature of the objective that was to be achieved through network usage. Among the sample, strong ties were used to obtain non-monetarily beneficial objectives, like housing, while weak ties were used to obtain monetarily beneficial objectives, such as employment. It is argued that there is a strong correlation between this differential network usage, the SES of the user, and the objective of network usage. It is therefore suggested that ?weak ties? theory be ?commodified? so as to reflect the influence of class on network usage. This paper concludes by arguing that due to degree inflation and the utility of network usage on job attainment, programs such as HEOP are integral to providing opportunities for the upward mobility of ?high risk? students in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, the policies for transforming higher education in South Africa will serve as the primary background to explore the complex relationship between the country?s national-liberation struggle to overcome its racially divided history, and its post-apartheid future. In an effort to highlight how progressive reforms that contributed to both the end of apartheid and the emergence of an equity agenda spearheaded by the African National Congress (ANC) government have nonetheless been limited by the divisive racial policies of the past, a case study is presented involving the University of the Western Cape (UWC). More specifically, it examines UWC?s radical transformation from a so-called ?bush? college created by the apartheid state for the education of Coloured or mixed-race peoples to South Africa?s first non-racial, ANC-aligned, open admission institution. The historical lessons we can learn from UWC?s transformation should inform the debate over the ANC government?s recent decision to reduce the number of South African public higher education institutions over the next two years. Influenced by the World Bank?s neo-liberal prescriptions for post-secondary institutions in developing countries, the need to restructure the South African higher education system has centered around the promotion of core market values characterizing the so-called ?global economy? that emphasize the importance of fiscal restraint, standardization, efficiency, research productivity, to an emphasis on competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships between multiple individuals and multiple objects have always been mediated by the social process of abstraction, but the reliance on institutionalized abstraction is particularly prominent in a modern, capitalist society. Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, and Guy Debord have expressed different views regarding the process of abstraction; while in Marx?s writing the process of abstraction is portrayed as firmly based on materialist conditions, in Debord?s writing institutionalized abstraction could be relatively separated from the realities represented. The paper first compares the theoretical observations of these three theorists, and then uses the U.S. News and World Report college rankings as a case study to examine the latter form of abstraction characterized by Debord. Based on a document analysis of twelve issues of the USN rankings and a variety of secondary sources, the case study first identifies some peculiar aspects of this institutionalized abstraction process, as it creates divorces between the rankings and the use-values of colleges. The study then proceeds to analyze the basis of social legitimacy of this institution of abstraction by examining the theoretical justifications and practical changes undertaken by this institution in response to criticisms and social pressures. The relationship between the U.S. News rankings and the institution of higher education, implications for change, and the theme of ?culture,? are critically discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 1980s and 90s in Japan, discussions of internationalization were frequent in relation to many different institutions of society, including education. A prominent example was the targeting of 100,000 foreign students in higher education, a goal finally reached in 2003. Globalization has changed the way that Japanese higher education institutions view internationalization by bringing forward considerations of their role as knowledge institutions. Renewed emphasis on research, scientific knowledge production, and human capital formation for international competition have led Japanese universities to seek more network linkages with international partner institutions. A challenge to the accepted practices of allowing those actors (faculty and students) who are most inclined to pursue international connections and opportunities autonomously is apparent in a move toward a more integrated internationalization. This involves struggles over the codification of international practices within the university. This paper reviews the uses of internationalization and globalization in Japanese universities, illustrating their strong ideological bases. Concurrently, the advent of a new law governing public universities, set to take effect in April of 2004, entails that they become IAIs (Independent Administrative Institutions) and ostensibly more transparent and accountable in funding and outcomes. While the public universities are only a minority of the higher education institutions in Japan, they have a disproportionate influence due to their elite status. I conclude that that the problem of change deriving from internationalization and globalization in Japanese universities is not that it is ideological but that it is bureaucratically driven and not openly ideological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The higher education system is significantly stratified with regard to degree completion. Much research on student persistence emphasizes academic and social integration in an institution, and looks to differences in levels of integration to explain differences in completion rates. However, substantial variation remains, even after controlling for these factors. In addition, current theories emphasize student involvement in single institutions over integration into the higher education system. But the growth of multi-institutional attendance and discontinuous enrollment challenges this approach to college retention. Today, nearly one-fifth of undergraduates attend more than two institutions, and nearly one-third take some time off during college. Until now, this pathway, called ?swirling? to emphasize the churning in these students? educational trajectories, was an unexplored potential influence on degree completion. This paper uses national longitudinal postsecondary transcript data to demonstrate that swirling has a negative impact on persistence. Previous work revealed that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely than economically advantaged students to swirl. Thus, swirling is an important new mechanism perpetuating the lower degree completion rates of disadvantaged college students. Class matters in shaping postsecondary pathways; examining swirling provides an improved understanding of how and why, by fleshing out the specifics of one pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between the educational expectations of high school seniors and their parents and whether or not these seniors complete college. Specifically, is there a difference in college completion between those respondents who expect to complete college and those respondents who do not expect to complete college? If this is the case, what are mitigating factors affecting this relationship? Do expectations have an effect on college completion that is independent of the socioeconomic status, race, gender, and academic ability of the respondents being analyzed? Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study from 1988 to 2000, I explore how these variables relate to college completion, i.e. the receipt of at least a Bachelors? degree from a four year institution. My results indicate that educational expectations do have a positive effect on college completion for my respondents, and this effect is independent of the previously mentioned variables: socioeconomic status, race, gender, and academic ability. More specifically, those respondents who report that they and their parents expect college completion are more likely to do so than those respondents who do not have these expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many economically advanced societies, higher education is beeing transformed from elite to a mass system. Massification has been accompanied by institutional differentiation. Systems, which had consisted almost exclusively of research universities have added a second-tier of less selective colleges. These second tier institutions have absorbed most of the growth in enrollments. At one and the same time, higher education is opening up to the working classes, and is being stratified within. This paper reports results of a 15 country comparative study of the association between the transformation of higher education on the one hand, and changes in educational stratification on the other hand. We capitalize on differences between countries in the extent of higher educational expansion and its forms of differentiation, and study how they are related to changes in the rates of attendance in the first and second tier institutions as well as class, gender and ethnic/racial inequalities therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]