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Textbooks socialise and legitimise cultural norms, and therefore, learners' social worlds should find expression in their textbooks. In the study reported on here we examined how Grade 4 English First Additional Language and life skills textbooks reflected learner diversity in South African schools as manifested in their racial, gender, occupational, ability and geographical profiling in the textbooks. Content analysis was used to systematically identify instances of diversity representation in Grade 4 English First Additional Language and life skills textbooks. Quantitative content analysis accounted for the ubiquity of human characters' reflection in textbooks on the diversity variables in question. Qualitative analysis focused on the depiction of characters' gender roles. Quantitative data suggest that learners' social worlds were generally represented in the selected textbooks. However, males enjoyed greater visibility than females, and the visibility of disabled people was low. The 2 life skills and 1 English textbook portrayed both urban and rural settings. The qualitative analysis uncovered some gender stereotyping, where, for example, women were depicted in lower positions compared to men's high-paying vocations like judges, scientists, or doctors. Boys were depicted receiving prizes for their Matric achievements. Implications for publishers and writers commissioned to write textbooks include the need to consider representation of learner diversity in textbooks. The Department of Education should develop guidelines that promote such representation.

Addiction is the state of being addicted to any activity, substance, object or behavior in a way that excludes other activities of one's life or causes physical, mental or social harm to oneself and others. In addition to many and various types of addiction, it seems that an important type of addiction is technology addiction. Today, the dizzying development of technological developments and their inclusion in every aspect of our lives has made it necessary for us to rethink the concepts of far and near. With the rapid development in mobile phone technology, the standard mobile phones used in the past to call someone or send a message to someone have been replaced by state-of-the-art smartphones that make our daily lives much easier. However, on the other hand, it is seen that addiction to smartphones, which have become an integral part of life, is on the rise, and this goes back to pre-school periods. In this context, the aim of the research was determined to examine whether the smartphone usage level of students studying in secondary and high schools affiliated to the National Education Directorate of Tunceli province Hozat district in the 2022-2023 academic year varies significantly according to some demographic characteristics of the students. Within the scope of quantitative research, the data of the research designed in the general survey model were collected by applying the "Smartphone Addiction Scale Short Form (ATBÖ-SF)", developed by Kwon et al. and adapted to Turkish by Noyan et al., face to face between May and June 2023. The scale, for which validity and reliability studies were conducted, was found to be suitable for the use of parametric tests, and in addition to test analyzes such as frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, T Test and One-Way Variance Analysis were used to determine the significance of the difference using statistical data analysis techniques. As a result of the analysis, the average smartphone addiction level being below 3 was interpreted as the students not having smartphone addiction, but the measurements being just below the average indicating a risk factor, while the difference between the dependent and independent variables was not significant (p<0.005). According to the research findings, the smartphone addiction level of students at the lower limit of addiction carries a risk factor, in this respect the findings are warning, and it is recommended that parents, society, and especially schools and relevant institutions and organizations take precautions against the apparent danger.

The relevance of science education and its individual, societal, and vocational dimensions is important issues for the modern learning and teaching process in many countries. These dimensions are considered based on the data obtained from 1541 Georgian students. The study was conducted within the frames of the international ROSES project. The structure analysis of the ROSES questionnaire was conducted to define scales and individual items, which then were processed accordingly and relevant conclusions were drawn. The study findings reveal that Georgian students from basic and secondary schools demonstrate motivation and interest in learning science, participate in extracurricular activities, use social media for study aims, are concerned about environmental problems, and consider science classes interesting. However, the levels of interest, motivation, and positive attitudes are not high and the correlations between them are weak. The study shows that the vocational and societal dimensions of the relevance of science education are relatively better represented in our sample, but the individual dimension lags behind. Both structural and content findings might serve educators from similar contexts.

The purpose of this study is to define the main problems and provide organizational-methodological recommendations for ensuring vocational guidance for students with special needs. This research describes the main provisions and results of the realization of project work directed at the development of a modern system of inclusive education in the context of globalization and according to the career guidance of students. The results of the research can help organize career guidance work for secondary school teachers and school administration.

Cybersecurity has become increasingly important not only in the technology sector but in criminal justice professions as well, and significant challenges have arisen as a result. However, these challenges are not well discussed in the literature. To address this gap, and to study the cybersecurity trends impacting criminal justice professionals and the skills, knowledge and abilities criminal justice students need to succeed upon graduation, this research focuses on the role cybersecurity plays in the jobs that compose the main components of the criminal justice system and adjacent areas: law enforcement, the judicial process, corrections, social work, and military. This research utilizes semi-structured interviews with current and recently retired practitioners. Findings from this study revealed eight broad themes, many of which are complementary including changing technologies, generational gaps, over reliance on information technology professionals, and best practices for education composed of experiential learning, soft skills, specialized curriculum and interdisciplinary approaches.

Research represents an essential component of the response to infectious disease outbreaks and to other public health emergencies, whether they are localised, of international concern, or global. Research conducted in such contexts also comes with particular ethics challenges, the awareness of which has significantly grown following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Zika outbreak in Latin America and the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges include the need for implementing meaningful community engagement with the researched communities, not just to build unidirectional trust towards the research team, but to achieve a genuine and mutually respectful partnership before, during and after the research. Here, we describe the real-life experience of 10 well-established research clinics in Nairobi, where a successful experience of community engagement linking prevention and care to research was interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We contrast this experience with the concept and processes of community engagement as described in selected scientific manuscripts and guidelines, to formulate some conclusions and recommendations. We contend that more action is needed, from research ethics committees and other key-research stakeholders, to align policies and practices with ethics guidance and with evidence-based recommendations from the academic literature, to achieve meaningful community engagement during emergency research, irrespective of the scale and location of an outbreak or public health crisis. Failure to do so, will aggravate the (postcolonial) asymmetries of power in global health and local systems.

Loneliness represents a serious health risk. However, studies investigating social inequalities in loneliness are rare. Thus, the current study investigates which socioeconomic groups are the most affected by loneliness. Data from the population-based German Aging Survey were used (N = 3,784), with participants being 40+ years old. Education, income, and occupational prestige were used as socioeconomic indicators. It was found that loneliness scores were descriptively higher in groups with lower educational attainment, lower income and lower occupational prestige. In a linear regression analysis, significant socioeconomic differences in loneliness emerged only for income and occupational prestige. Thus, individuals with a low occupational position and those with low income are systematically more affected by loneliness than higher status groups. Material and occupational resources are likely to constitute major socio-structural explanatory variables for loneliness and should be further investigated as such by future studies.

Situated and Activity theories have exercised a significant influence in the field of vocational learning for some considerable time, both sharing a focus on bounded forms of work and forms of learning that facilitate learning in, or to changes to, bounded forms of work. Yet much learning occurs in unbounded contexts often referred to as projectification, where collaborations occur only for the life of a project thereby creating new contingent contexts for learning. Given the existence of this form of working and learning, what type of unit of analysis (UoA) is required to analyse that vocational working and learning in the context of projectification? To address this question, the paper advances the following inter-theoretical argument. Firstly, it is timely to develop a new unit of analysis (UoA) to capture the fractional (intermittent, discontinuous and concurrent) working and learning dynamics associated with the forms of projectification, where funding has to be procured in order to commence. Secondly, that unit of analysis is constituted by the concept of project assemblage, which is based on ideas from Actor Network Theory, Cultural-historical Activity Theory and Cultural Sociology. Thirdly, this new UoA enables researchers to identify the way in which project teams, where members are coming in-and-out, learn to use their different forms of specialist activity to enact objects, why team members will have different backgrounds and understandings of their work, why objects may not cohere, even though team members may treat them as unified and coherent, and how team members learn to incorporate one another's insights and suggestions, and establish a finalized object.

This study aims to investigate the effect of gifted students' art education on their professional preferences. The survey model, one of the quantitative research models, was used. A total of 320 students from the Çukurova Science and Art Center art field and general talent field, which were determined by the convenience sampling method, constitute the research sample group. The occupational preference inventory prepared by Atli and Kendal (2017) was used in the research. The inventory comprises six sub-dimensions: investigative, entrepreneurial, artistic, social, realistic, and traditional. Independent Sample t-Test and Anova Test were applied for the analyses, and Cohen's d and Eta Square tests were applied to calculate the effect level in meaningful data. As a result of the research on general talent and art students, it has been determined that there are significant differences in gender, school type, school level, and age.

There is limited information concerning the experiences and career decision-making processes of male sex workers in South Korea. The aim of this study was to understand the motivations, career decisions, and decision-making processes of a group of male university students and graduates who decided to join the sex work profession in South Korea as part of their career development. Qualitative research design and snowball strategies were employed in 2021 with nine male sex workers. Interview sessions, online focus group activity, remarkable items sharing, and member-checking interview sessions were undertaken to collect rich stories and promote understanding of male sex workers who are completing or have completed their bachelor's degrees in South Korea. Based on the social cognitive career and motivation theory, three main themes were highlighted: (1) financial consideration, (2) personal interest in sexual activities, and (3) limited career opportunities for the younger generation. The findings illustrate the motivations of a group of educated male sex workers and the social issues for sex workers in South Korea. Government bodies, policymakers, and non-profit organizations may use this study as a reference for policy development and human resources schemes.

The number of Black suburbs has expanded since the 1960s, however, research on gender and how Black women contribute to their formation is understudied. Grounded in an intersectional framework, this article places women at the center of the analysis of Black suburban life. Using a multisite ethnography conducted during the Great Recession, I make a case for a Black diasporic suburb model and analyze the labor and household practices Black women use to sustain their families' suburban lives. This article generates new insights into the heterogeneity of and Black suburbs in general, and the dynamic culture and economies of Black suburban women, in particular. Thus it contributes to new thought in Black feminist geography and the sociology of suburbs.

The aim of the study is to determine the level of parents' attitudes towards their children's use of information and communication technologies and to obtain parental views on the use of technology. To this end, the study was carried out with parents whose children were studying at primary and secondary school levels. Data were collected from 417 guardians for the quantitative dimension of the study, which was designed with a mixed methodological approach in which qualitative and quantitative models were used together, and interviews were conducted with 10 parents in the same sample group for the qualitative dimension. For the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, oneway analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple comparison tests and descriptive analysis technique was used. The results of the analysis of the data showed that the attitudes of the parents towards their children's use of technology were at a "good" level. In the study, no significant difference was found between the attitudes of parents towards their children's use of technology and the gender variables, while there was a significant difference between the variables of age, educational level, occupation, computer usage skills and computer usage time. The study also addressed which technological device their children use for which purpose, the technology-assisted applications used by their children for educational purposes, and the support given by parents to their children in terms of knowledge, skills, time management and safe use when using technology, and the positive and negative aspects of technology use, and various suggestions were made to parents for the correct and effective use of technology by parents.

This article reports on teacher trainees' ability in doing a critical analysis of an extract of English teaching materials from a gender perspective. The critical ability was prompted using a textbook extract that generated two gender issues, namely woman-man relationship and the position of women in occupational discourse. The participants were 38 trainees enrolled in textbook analysis subject in the English Department of a college in regional Indonesia. The research data were the trainees' results of the mid-term test, designed with explicit instruction to ascertain the afore-mentioned critical elements, and their results of the final exam with implied instruction to discern the same critical elements. The data were analysed qualitatively by interpreting the participants' responses based on their degree of criticality. The mid-term test results show that more than half of them were critical about woman-man relationship, while only 18% were critical about women position at work. The trainees' results in the final test demonstrate a significant downturn of their critical thinking performances. Only 15% criticized woman-man relationship and 13% problematized women position at work. These findings raise concerns about the trainees' level of criticality and so systematic efforts to sharpen trainees' critical analytical ability should be further attempted.

According to the Institute for Women's Policy, women in the United States working in the state of Louisiana earn sixty-nine cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. This is a substantial discrepancy and has been used as a call for action. However, what is really behind this variance in pay between women and men? For a large part, it is the types of careers that men and women choose to enter. A more valid comparison between men's and women's pay is to look at pay differences within the same chosen career path. This study looks at faculty pay at a regional university to ascertain whether there is evidence of a difference in pay between women and men in academia. This paper's results show that once the area of specialty, rank, and years of experience are considered, male faculty actually, on average, earn less than their female counterparts.

This study investigated the influence of mothers' occupation on children's upbringing in the Udenu Local Government Area in Enugu State. Specifically, the study aimed to determine the feeding, clothing, academic, and health practices adopted by mothers in Enugu State. The study utilized a survey research design, focusing on the Udenu Local Government Area. A sample of three hundred respondents was used, and data was collected through questionnaires. The instrument was face validated by experts from the Department of Home Economics and Hospitality Management Education at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. To ensure reliability, a trial testing was conducted, resulting in a Cronbach alpha reliability estimate of 0.87. Data analysis involved frequency count and percentages. The findings revealed limited mother care in terms of children's feeding, clothing, health, and academic upbringing, which was attributed to the negative influence of the mothers' occupation. Recommendations were made to enhance children's upbringing, including an increase in maternity leave to allow mothers to spend quality time with their children.

The social studies course can be described as an ongoing process that attempts to prepare individuals for life through the transfer of culture and ensures their socialization. It is thought that students' beliefs and attitudes toward this course are essential for achieving the course objectives. The objective of this research is to determine the attitudes and belief levels of fourth-grade students toward the social studies course with respect to various variables and to review the relationship between attitudes and belief levels toward the social studies course. During the research, descriptive survey and relational survey models, both quantitative research methods, were used in combination. The study population consists of primary school students throughout Turkey in their fourth grade during the 2022-2023 academic year. 1326 primary school students in the fourth grade constituted the sample group of the study. The research data were collected using the "Social Studies Course Attitude Scale" and the "Social Studies Course Belief Scale". Because of the study, it was determined that there was a positive and moderate relationship between the students' attitudes and beliefs toward the social studies course, and it was noted that students' attitudes and beliefs toward social studies course were significantly high. Teachers and educators, while conducting efforts to enhance students' attitudes toward the social studies course, can also contribute to students' success by focusing on their positive beliefs about this course.

This study examines whether premature termination of vocational education and training (VET) is more likely when trainees have to make compromises between their realistic occupational aspirations and the occupation for which they are trained in terms of the occupational dimensions of gender type, prestige, and occupational interests. Specifically, it examines the relative importance of the three compromise dimensions on premature VET termination. The study is based on a sample of 3,241 VET entrants from a cohort of ninth graders in 2010 in the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS-SC4) in combination with aggregated data on occupational characteristics. Results from discrete hazard rate models indicate a higher risk of premature VET termination for trainees whose VET occupation differs from their realistic occupational aspiration from their school days. While compromises in prestige have no overall effect, both compromises in interests and gender type threaten the stability of VET. The results also indicate that compromises in interests have the strongest effect on the risk of premature VET termination and that the effects of compromises in gender type are partly mediated by the effects of compromises in interests. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis revealed that the main effects of compromises in gender type and prestige are gender specific.

The relationship between parents and children is important for realizing developmental tasks, intra-family, and peer relationships. Self-concept and self-esteem are closely related to a person's personality and identity. This study examined the relationship between 5th grade primary school students' secure attachment to their mothers and their self-perceptions. The study group consisted of 431 5th grade students in a secondary school, aged 12-13 years. Piers Harris' Child Self-Concept Scale (PHCSCS) and Kerns Secure Attachment Scale-KSS were used to collecting data. The correlation coefficient and the decision tree CHAID algorithm, one of the classification techniques, were used to estimate data trends in the data analysis. The CHAID analysis was used to decide whether demographic characteristics and secure attachment to the mother, which are independent variables, affect self-perception, the dependent variable, and the extent of this effect. Finally, secure attachment to the mother and self-perception in middle childhood were related to the father's occupation; family structure, birth order, and gender were important variables in the child's self-perception. It was found that the mother-child secure attachment pattern in middle childhood affected the development of high self-perception. It is foreseen that the consequences of the study will provide to the literature.

Despite increased emphasis on the role of inclusive practices and materials in post-COVID-19 classrooms and warnings about implicit biases against disadvantaged groups, the textbook problem has rarely been approached with equity measures in mind. This multimethod study aimed to investigate to what extent L2 reading materials, locally produced and used for refugee education in Turkey and New Zealand, include all children with different proficiency levels, gender identities and cultural backgrounds using corpus-driven methods. All verbal and nonverbal texts from ten thematically similar third-grade storybooks were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. Comparisons against measures of grammatical and lexical complexity, and of gender and cultural equity revealed that despite both being far from achieving the ideal composition for creating inclusive learning-friendly environments, TSL materials were lagging further behind ESL counterparts. They depended on almost uniform sets of easy-to-read narratives embodying simpler grammatical features and high-frequency words, and thus needed extension with relatively elaborate ones to accommodate mixed-abilities. Gender disparities were institutionalised through male overrepresentation in hero-making, negative stereotyping, familial and occupational identification, and engagement in monetary and mobility activities, but occasionally ameliorated, in the ESL case, by reversing conventionally-gendered domestic, technical and intellectual skills in texts and illustrations. The widest gap was observed in cultural representations because TSL materials, written from a tourist's perspective, focused on imposing superficial knowledge of target-culture elements, and ESL materials on ensuring relevance through greater use of elements from diverse cultures. Therefore, egalitarian representations in gendered and cultural contents are required for their rehabilitation.

Ageism in today's job market has a range of detrimental emotional, psychological, and economic impacts on older job seekers aged 50-83. Even as such job seekers "de-age" their professional documents and online profiles, they still navigate misperceptions about older workers that disadvantage them in the recruitment and hiring process. While anecdotal evidence raises concerns about older job seekers' equitable access to employment, empirical evidence documenting the impacts of ageism on this population remains limited, thus impeding the efficacy of their support systems. This article reports on progress from the qualitative case study that I designed for my CPED-informed Problem of Practice Dissertation that captured data from 30 job seekers, aged 50-83, through one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires. This article offers preliminary findings from this research, documenting the negative financial, emotional, psychological, and physical effects of navigating persistent ageism for older job seekers.

A curriculum on English for cultural tourism communication was designed, developed, and implemented for Thai adult learners in Doem Bang Nang Buat, Suphan Buri, based on adaptation of the grassroots model (Taba, 1962) and relevant research. This study focused on measurement of the learning outcomes and satisfaction levels of Thai adult learners with an English for Cultural Tourism Communication course. Participants were 21 adult learners living in the community of Doem Bang Nang Buat in Suphan Buri. Data were collected through pretests and posttests, a questionnaire, and participant observation, and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation. Content analysis was also applied. The results indicated that the learning outcomes of the adult learners improved significantly as the posttest mean scores were higher than the pretest mean scores at the statistical significance level (p < 0.05). The satisfaction levels of adult learners with the course were rated overall as very satisfied regarding teaching competencies, materials and methods, activities, learning facilitation, and knowledge and understanding of lessons. The study suggests that an English language development curriculum for adult learners should concentrate on learner needs and interests with the aim of presenting everyday English situations in an effort to enable learners to apply English language knowledge and skills to their professions. Furthermore, collaboration between native and non-native English speakers along with the utilization of technology in a positive learning environment is seen as necessary to enhance adult learning.

Over a half century ago, researchers found that so-called classic professions attract socially advantaged recruits with better labour market outcomes; however, as semi professions become increasingly institutionalized, and classic professional programs expand, differences between these two groups may be less pronounced. Using Statistics Canada's 2018 National Graduate Survey, we compare inputs and outcomes of four classic professions (law, pharmacy, medicine, and dentistry) and three semi-professions (teaching, social work, and nursing). Bivariate statistics show semi-professions have more non-traditional graduates who invest less in training. Multiple linear regression models also show that after controlling for demographics, classic professions have stronger education-job matches and higher earnings three years after graduation. We interpret these findings as being consistent with our theory of intensifying logic, where classic professions have tight training-job connections, and accommodating logic which suggests semi-professions have looser labour market connections. We end by discussing directions for future research on the classic and semi-professions.

The goal of every young person not only in Kosovo but also beyond remains to find a job that would be safe and liked by them. The young years for all young people are rightly considered as one of the most important challenges, as each of these age groups is at the "crossroads" of a weighty decision for his/her future. This time consists of starting/completing the educational process and finding a job. If the young person completes the education cycle and is employed according to the qualification he has completed then this would have a positive impact not only on him but also on society in general. Many young people have difficulty finding a job after finishing school and some of them cannot do it at all or are forced to be a part of the "gray economy". This type of employment has a negative impact not only on workers but also on increasing informality in the country.

Education is a critical area in promoting gender equality to the young generation of this country. The curriculum that promotes gender equality could be represented in a textbook as a teaching material resource commonly used in Indonesia. This study is a critical discourse analysis that examines the gender representation in the English textbook for the third grade of primary school in order to discover whether or not the textbook promotes gender equality. The data were collected from "Grow With English" English book 3 published by Erlangga Publisher. The data in the forms of pictures, words, phrases, and sentences were then analyzed qualitatively by using Fairclough's three dimensional frameworks and Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics. The findings revealed that: the examined textbook represents genders equally in terms of the quantity in which females and males are portrayed equally in pictorial representation and names of characters. In terms of social roles of job positions, male and female are also portrayed occupying various professional occupations such as doctors, fire fighters, police officers, and so on. However, the portrayals of male and female in domestic roles and activities are still stereotypical in which females are portrayed doing more domestic activities and less active, while males are portrayed doing more active outdoor activities. These results may have the implication that the English teachers for young learners could improvise by providing more understanding about gender equality while using the textbook.