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Employment counseling is a set of interventions designed to help clients identify and resolve issues in employment-related decisions. This digest examines Canada's measurement model which was designed to enhance understanding of counseling's function. The model uses four employability dimensions: (1) career/occupation decision making; (2) skills enhancement; (3) job search; and (4) employment maintenance. In theory, these dimensions are sequential. Clients should make occupational choices prior to undertaking training programs. However, counselors are expected to assist clients with any employability issue. To assess progress, results are gathered at three stages of the counseling process. In stage one, goal setting and achievement, up to nine goals can be set and measured in each of the four employability dimensions. Stage two, outcome, assesses three possible outcomes after service termination. And in the third stage, impact, indicators of impact of service on clients are measured. Although much quantitative data has been recorded, more such analysis is anticipated. Also, a better tracking system is being developed for human and financial resource allocation in order to determine if employment counseling services are cost effective. Similarly, a monitoring guide for employment counseling services is under preparation and service standards for employment counseling are being developed. (RJM)

Over one-third of high school students in Canada are dropping out of school. However, the advent of multimedia computer technology has increased the potential of career interventions, particularly for at-risk youth. This digest describes such a program entitled Knowledge for Youth About Careers (KYAC). KYAC is based on attribution change theory and self-efficacy theory. Its video scenes model career development skills like information interviewing, networking, and other strategies. In KYAC, students select one of two main characters and then follow the character as he or she ages from 17 to 28 years old by touching their chosen character's face on the computer screen. During scenes, the action stops at key points and small graphic "thought balloons" appear on the screen so as to enhance user identification with characters. Users will actively seek the information in the thought balloons. Approximately two and a half hours of interaction time is available in the main character decision sequences. In addition, 32 hours of classroom and workshop activities reinforce and provide more personal application of the skills. Some 275 youth were used to evaluate the KYAC program; it was found that students sought better ways to resolve problems with learning, math, reading, and other skills and that they discovered good reasons to finish high school, among other findings. (RJM)

As career development becomes established in Canadian secondary schools, the pressure increases to use performance assessments to demonstrate both the effectiveness of programs and the soundness of instructional decisions. This digest examines issues surrounding performance assessments of career development programs. Performance assessments can be implemented in different ways: student performances can be judged against a set of criteria or can be evaluated by individuals other than the students' teachers, and portfolios of student work can be used to assess their understanding. Some career development programs like "Pathways" have built in performance assessments, such as application forms, simulated interviews, and other measures. Critics of such programs claim that performance assessments are too task specific, emphasizing one area rather than evaluating skills that support a wide range of performances. While proponents of performance assessments admit that they emphasize validity over reliability, recent studies have indicated that such assessments may offer useful information. But widespread implementation of performance assessments requires that counselors undertake a number of goals. They must articulate the desired outcomes of career development, state the specific requirements of performances, develop tests of performances so that they demonstrate learning, and educate others so that everyone can work together. (RJM)

Despite professional counseling and courses on career choice in school, students say they are poorly prepared to meet society's challenges. This digest looks at a career counseling initiative in Canada that unites the academic world and the workplace. Clearer ties must be established between education and the workplace; in the collaboration-based, educational approach described here, employers play a central role. However, even if an employer's commitment to education is strong, the rules of the game must be spelled out at the beginning if a real partnership is to be established. It is important to set up a council made up of representatives of the various partners to oversee the partnership. It is necessary to define objectives together, to reach consensus on the common goals, and to name someone credible to manage the project. The project described here addressed two key issues: (1) developing an education resource database, and (2) giving pedagogical support to work-related educational resource experiments. Employers showed enthusiasm for the project and participating educators were happy with the collaboration and appreciated the information in the database. Furthermore, students seemed happy with the curriculum changes and showed greater interest in the classroom. (RJM)

'Comparative Study: Committee powers to assist scrutiny of governments.' The Table--The Journal of the Society of Clerks-at-the-Table in Commonwealth Parliaments 90, 2022: 211-48. * This year's comparative study asked, 'What [...]

Presents a speech by the ambassador from Canada to the United States before the Association For Canadian Studies in the United States, November 16, 1995, dealing with relations between Canada and the United States.

On Canada Day 2017, author Helene Vosters hosted a Stitch-by-Stitch Unsettling Canada 150 sewing circle and picnic. Despite intermittent thundershowers, with umbrellas and soggy red thread in hand, a group of twenty to thirty intrepid stitchers embroidered text from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) 94 Calls to Action onto Canadian flags. By the time Canada 150 reached its Canada Day zenith, Vosters asserts, it had already become increasingly apparent that the story of a beneficent Canadian nation committed to equity and multicultural inclusivity that the celebrations sought to engender had been significantly eclipsed in mainstream and social media by critiques of the sesquicentennial’s ahistorical premise and its disregard for the ongoing violent effects of settler-colonialism. Against this backdrop, Vosters weaves reflections of the sewing circle as a labour of reinscription with an inquiry into the value (and pitfalls) of embracing what Stó:lō scholar Dylan Robinson and settler scholar Keavy Martin call everyday “aesthetic actions.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of meeting an aboriginal person of Canada named George and making him literate.

The article presents a lesson plan for middle school students which teaches concepts about the significance of the Capital Treasures of Canada.

Survey results are often held up as an indication of widespread endorsement in Canada of the multicultural ideology and the policy arising from it. Since it was introduced in 1971, the multicultural policy and the message conveyed to Canadians around diversity have encountered a persistent group of detractors who blame multiculturalism for societal inequities, weak national identity and problems of cohesion. Evidence in support of such criticism has been very thin and hence it is based primarily on conjecture. Moreover, while critics suggest the object of their preoccupations, rarely is explicit reference made to the policy and rather focus often appears to be on the message or ideology of multiculturalism. While there is a lack of strong empirical evidence to measure the outcomes of multicultural policy, there is much evidence to support the connection between the message of multicultural and principal values and concerns shared by most Canadians. Such evidence is presented here and offered as background for the special edition on thirty-five years of Canadian multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A selection of recent publications relating to parliamentary studies prepared with the assistance of the Library of Parliament (March 2018-May 2018) Eichhorn, Jan. 'Votes at 16: New insights from Scotland [...]

A selection of recent publications relating to parliamentary studies prepared with the assistance of the Library of Parliament (November 2017-February 2018) 'Cracking the whips--Parliament's whips have lost their edge, just [...]

The study of the world's most favored nation on the brink of possible breakup is a fascinating subject for scholars at universities both here and around the world. 'Canadian Studies' [...]

Discusses the development of a new generation of academics who will help boost enrollment in Canadian studies programs. Students' attraction to departments like Middle Eastern studies; Retirement of the original generation of Canadian-studies professors; Project Connect, which is helping boost the study of Canadian culture in the United States.

Explores the diffusion of the American culture into Canada. Common features of Canada and the United States; Comparison of population in the two countries; Historical links to Great Britain; Trading relations; Threat on Canada's identity.

The article announces that Harvard University will establish a full chair of Canadian studies. It states that Canadian Beer Baron E. P. Taylor and two members of the Harvard board of overseers namely David Rockefeller, Chase Manhattan Bank President, and Neil McElroy, Procter and Gamble Chairman, are the men who raised most of the $600,000 endowment fund. It notes that Claude Bisell, president of the University of Toronto was chosen to hold the chair for the first year.

The article reports that four academics part of the Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK, an organization with the goal of promoting study of Canada in British universities, have left the organization after board member Rachel Killick was asked to vacate her post.

This article offers Internet-related news briefs for elementary schools in the U.S. CultureGrams Provinces Edition expands the CultureGrams online series with detailed coverage of Canada. Hotmath.com offers video lessons that teach and explain homework topics related to prealgebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, precalculus, trigonometry, college algebra, and calculus. EBSCO's Points of View Reference Center offers full-text essays representing opposing viewpoints on a variety of important issues.

Reports on the formation of the Institute for the Study of the Americas as part of the School of Advanced Study of the University of London in England. Formation of the institute from the merger of the Institute of Latin American Studies and the Institute of United States Studies; Focus on research and postgraduate teaching on Canada and the English and French-speaking parts of the Caribbean, the U.S. and Latin America. INSET: WHO GOT THAT JOB?..

Looks at the contents of the publication `International Journal of Canadian Studies,' released in Ottawa, Canada.

Report on a survey by Annis-May Timpson of the University of Sussex and Julian Baggini, British Association for Canadian Studies research assistant on Canadian studies in Great Britain. Diversity in the subjects tackled by Canadian studies; Leeds as the area with the largest concentration of Canadianists; Reasons for the growing interest in Canada.

Discusses students' understanding of the October 1995 article on Canada, which appeared in the Junior Scholastic periodical. Thinking skills quizzes for students.