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Research on transfer student flows has focused almost exclusively on transitions occurring between colleges and universities. Few have sought to systematically examine the regional dimensions of these student flows, and how they may map on to prevailing migration patterns that drive individuals out of remote geographical regions. Through this study, we perform the first comprehensive analysis of regional dynamics in early transfer student flows within Ontario post-secondary education (PSE), drawing on novel administrative linkages within Statistics Canada's Education and Labour Market Linkage Platform (ELMLP). Our empirical analyses: (1) map the magnitude of transfer student flows across the province; and (2) statistically model the predictors of within- and cross-region forms of student transfer. Our findings demonstrate that PSE students commencing their studies in the provincial north are more likely to transfer out of their region, and that correcting these imbalances could serve as a useful strategy to retain and inject further human capital into northern communities. We explore the implications of these findings for both provincial policy makers and researchers interested in how geography shapes student trajectories.

It is generally accepted that Canadian universities are less stratified than their southern neighbours, a hypothesis popularized in the mid-2000s and verified by subsequent comparative empirical research. Through this piece, we revisit the Canadian "flatness" hypothesis, embracing a more sociological definition of status hierarchies and using social media followers as a focal proxy for status. Despite our theoretically based skepticism, adoption of an alternative status proxy, and use of more recent data, our analyses validate the flatness hypothesis. We theorize the implications of these findings, and our novel approach, for the study of organizational stratification in higher education.

The study of transfer in Canadian post-secondary education is a fractured terrain, with vast inter-provincial differences and deep schisms between participating communities. At the time of writing, there exists no comprehensive review that maps the predictors and associated outcomes of transfer in Canada, thus complicating the advancement of this sub-field. Drawing on a review of over 100 academic articles, policy reports, and institutional research documents produced from 1968 to 2020, we discuss the major findings of, methodological approaches to, and gaps within the existing quantitative transfer literature. Further, we outline challenges that Canadian researchers face as they attempt to emulate "best practices" used by international counterparts. In particular, we emphasize the need for the use of more robust administrative data linkages and enhanced methodological sophistication in Canadian quantitative transfer research.

The development of cost-efficient pathways is a topic of increasing political and scholarly interest across many North American jurisdictions. It has been suggested that 'seamless' transfer pathways can provide financial savings to both students and taxpayers. However, such claims are typically based on hypothetical cost calculations, as opposed to empirical analysis. Through this study, we model the relationship between student pathways and borrowing behavior in Ontario, Canada -- the country's most populous province -- using Statistics Canada's novel Education and Labour Market Linkage Platform (ELMLP). Our models produce little evidence that touted transfer pathways systematically reduce either (i) students' propensity to borrow from the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP), or (ii) the total amount that graduates end up borrowing from the program. We identify the implications of these findings for both policymakers and scholars of social stratification.

Some analysts foresee that the rise of automation--triggered by advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and other novel technologies--will soon unsettle sizable sections of our labour market, prompting the need for mass upskilling and re-skilling. Continuous learning is perceived as the new norm within the future of work. Many believe that solutions to future surges in training demand will require a degree of dexterity not exhibited by traditional postsecondary education (PSE) organizations, and advocate for radical alternatives. However, we outline how basic reforms leading to a more robust articulation and credit transfer system could also improve our PSE system's ability to handle augmented training demands. In turn, we explore how the Canadian federal government can facilitate these reforms by (a) providing additional incentives for domestic colleges and universities to engage in seamless transfer, and (b) supporting the production of knowledge to inform more strategic forms of pathway articulation.

Conventional scholarship within the sociology of education and organizations posits that schools achieve legitimacy by virtue of conforming to normative standards, abiding by government regulations and mimicking the forms of successful peers. Through this study, an examination of a sample of 751 Canadian for-profit colleges (FPCs) is performed, revealing the presence of an alternative logic. Rather than conformity, organizations within this sector engage in niche-seeking behaviour, using promotional materials to carve out unconventional identities. They do so by directly drawing on symbolic resources and affiliations from the industrial sectors which they service. These findings are interpreted through the prism of contemporary theorizing within organizational sociology.

Despite several decades of postsecondary expansion, new research finds youth from northern and rural areas in Canada still experience difficulties making the transition to postsecondary education, and those who do attend take longer to do so. Proximity, we argue, may also have a considerable impact on one's field selection, as many of Canada's larger universities and colleges, who offer considerably more program and degree options, tend to be concentrated in large, urban centers, and in the southern regions of Canada's provinces. This study draws on Cycles 1-4 of Statistics Canada's Youth in Transition Survey -- Cohort A to examine regional inequalities in accessing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-related fields at both the university and non-university levels. Indeed, our findings suggest that location of residence does impact field choices, as students from northern and rural areas were less likely to enter STEM as well as non-STEM, university programs.

Government-sponsored student loans have emerged over the decades as a primary method of financing post-secondary education across most North American jurisdictions. Despite this, the empirical literature examining the correlates of repayment difficulty and default in Canada has remained stagnant in recent years. This study taps into an underutilised data source--the 2013 National Graduates Survey--to examine the relationship between demographics, human capital, borrowing behaviour and other known predictors and repayment difficulty. Our logistic regression models demonstrate that disability status, geographic region and borrowing behaviour are correlated with loan default and repayment difficulty, while failing to verify the existence of other demographic effects routinely found in the existing literature. We discuss the implications of these findings, along with multiple avenues for further empirical work on this topic within Canada.

Ontario's Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities is currently attempting to increase institutional differentiation within that province's postsecondary education system. We contend that such policies aimed to trigger organizational change are likely to generate unanticipated responses. Using insights from the field of organizational studies, we anticipate four plausible responses from universities to the ministry's directives: remaining sensitive to their market demand, ceremonial compliance, continued status seeking, and isomorphism. We provide several policy recommendations that might help the ministry overcome these possible barriers to further differentiation.

Interdisciplinary programmes have proliferated across post-secondary education in recent decades. Despite this, little attention has been paid to the manner in which interdisciplinary programmes promote themselves to external constituents. To study this process, we conduct a content analysis of the online self-descriptions of 203 credential-granting interdisciplinary programmes across the Canadian university sector. We find that these entities embrace contrasting logics of superior knowledge, labour market outcomes and customisation. We interpret these findings through the lens of contemporary theorising within organisation studies, noting that their ambidexterity bodes well for their continued existence within the sector.

The last two decades have witnessed an explosion in the growth and sophistication of post-secondary education (PSE) marketing. Education scholars have taken notice, both decrying such developments and studying its emerging characteristics. However, to date, empirical studies of PSE marketing have focused on mainstream secular organizations. Few researchers have sought to examine how Christian colleges and universities (CCUs) present themselves via promotional materials. This limits our understandings of how PSE marketing has evolved in different segments of the field. Through this study, we conduct an exploratory thematic analysis of the home web pages of 93 Canadian CCUs. We find that, depending on their field positioning, this organizational population varies in the extent to which it leverages religiosity to construct and communicate their identities. We make sense of these dynamics through the 'nested fields' perspective within organization studies.

Research on promotional behavior within higher education has exploded over the last two decades, spurred on by the intensification of student recruitment. To date, studies have focused on mapping the content of conventional promotional texts (e.g. viewbooks, web sites), to identify how institutions depict themselves through them. By comparison, recruitment events, such as exhibitions or fairs, have received limited scholarly attention. This study aims to ameliorate this gap within the present literature, using observational methods and collaborative auto-ethnography to analyze branding strategies and broader social dynamics within a prominent Canadian university fair. Using such methods, this study identifies (i) variance in the uptake of 'house of brands' and 'branded house' strategies, (ii) diverging degrees of student interest across institutional types, along with (iii) 'niche'-oriented marketing tactics across information booths. Observed patterns are theorized from the standpoint of contemporary research within the field of organizational sociology and higher education marketing.

Concern with university rankings have become widespread throughout post-secondary education (PSE), fuelled in part by administrative concerns that demotions down the rank ladder will produce negative institutional outcomes. There is reason to believe, however, that ranking 'effects' may be partially muted in Canadian PSE due to the (1) national system's flatter hierarchical structure and (2) the generally inconsistent findings produced by domestic research on rankings. Through this study, we provide a qualitative analysis of how rankings shaped the institutional selection processes of 90 undergraduate students across three universities in southern Ontario, Canada. Our data indicate that these students rarely consulted ranking publications, relying instead on reputational information available through their informal networks (e.g. peers, family). We theorise that the unique structural characteristics of Canadian PSE minimise the influence of rankings within this jurisdiction, and discuss the practical implications of this finding for both scholars and administrators.

Existing research on marketing within PSE tends to focus on homogeneous groups of high-status organisations. This study ameliorates this gap in the literature, conducting a comparative analysis of promotional materials produced by public universities and community colleges in Ontario, Canada. We find that these two groups draw on unique strategies to communicate their quality to external constituents. Public universities emphasise faculty and institutional-level accomplishments, such as research grants and rankings. Meanwhile, community colleges, lacking access to these symbolic resources, employ corporate-like strategies, such as taglines and non-traditional logos.

The current fiscal environment has driven Canadian universities to become more entrepreneurial, seeking out and competing over new sources of funding. Despite such intensifying competition, little effort has been made to document the promotional tactics that Canadian universities are using to render themselves appealing to external audiences. This study examines the contents of the home pages of English-speaking universities in Canada. It finds that, though there are some differences in the tactics that primarily undergraduate and research-intensive universities employ, both generally strive to emulate the same institutional "template". Moreover, the usage of more unorthodox promotional tactics, drawing on labour market rhetoric or discourses of inclusivity, is limited. These findings are theorised in relation to contemporary work within organisational sociology and strategic management.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine how entrepreneurship education is being marketed to students within the Canadian university sector. Design/methodology/approach: A content analysis of the webpages representing 66 entrepreneurship education programs in Canada is performed. Findings: Entrepreneurship education is found to be framed as providing students with a collaborative learning experience, useful hands-on skills with real world applications and an entrepreneurial mindset. Research limitations/implications: This study looks at only one type of promotional material, and thus, further research is needed to triangulate its findings. Originality/value: This is the first study that empirically examines the marketing of entrepreneurship education in Canada.

Conventional wisdom within the sociology of education and organizations posits that schools achieve legitimacy by conforming to institutionalized norms and mimicking the actions of successful peers. Recent work on non-elite private schools (NEPS) shows that this institutional type may serve as an exception to this logic, generally adopting what can be perceived as "illegitimate" forms and practices. We conduct a mixed-methods analysis of the promotional profiles of 204 NEPS located within Ontario, Canada. We ask: How does this unorthodox organizational population carve a space for itself within a fiercely competitive and centuries-old market? Our findings illustrate that these schools engage in niche-seeking behavior, specifically catering to changing parental preferences for a "caring consumer ethos" with more holistic forms of child development. More broadly, they employ rhetorical strategies (e.g., fostering confidence and global-mindedness) that render their efficiency beyond the scope of verification by potential consumers. We interpret these empirical findings through the lens of contemporary theorizing within organizational sociology.

This study empirically examines how for-profit career colleges in Ontario, Canada market themselves to prospective students. It uses a mixed-methods approach to review the content of 489 online promotional profiles representing 375 unique for-profit colleges. It finds that for-profit colleges adopt several distinct marketing strategies, including (1) emphasizing their expedient provision of modern, practical skills and (2) the convenience afforded by the location of their campuses. We interpret these findings through the lens of the new institutionalist theoretical perspective, highlighting how these organizations draw upon alternative strategies to legitimate their chosen forms.

Canadian community colleges operate within a trying market environment. They compete against a diversified group of post-secondary institutions, ranging from small and relatively unknown for-profit vocational colleges to larger and more prestigious public universities. To date, there has been no effort to empirically examine how Canadian community colleges market their services within this contemporary environment. This study provides a first empirical look at how Canadian community colleges render themselves appealing through promotional materials. Using novel web-scraping techniques and a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis procedures, it finds that this institutional type primarily showcases their: (1) linkages to their local community, and (2) modern physical facilities to convey an attractive organizational image. Canadian community colleges are also found to (3) rely primarily on unconventional organizational symbols.

Despite several decades of postsecondary expansion, new research finds youth from northern and rural areas in Canada still experience difficulties making the transition to postsecondary education, and those who do attend take longer to do so. Proximity, we argue, may also have a considerable impact on one's field selection, as many of Canada's larger universities and colleges, who offer considerably more program and degree options, tend to be concentrated in large, urban centers, and in the southern regions of Canada's provinces. This study draws on Cycles 1–4 of Statistics Canada's Youth in Transition Survey – Cohort A to examine regional inequalities in accessing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-related fields at both the university and non-university levels. Indeed, our findings suggest that location of residence does impact field choices, as students from northern and rural areas were less likely to enter STEM as well as non-STEM, university programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government‐sponsored student loans have emerged over the decades as a primary method of financing post‐secondary education across most North American jurisdictions. Despite this, the empirical literature examining the correlates of repayment difficulty and default in Canada has remained stagnant in recent years. This study taps into an underutilised data source—the 2013 National Graduates Survey—to examine the relationship between demographics, human capital, borrowing behaviour and other known predictors and repayment difficulty. Our logistic regression models demonstrate that disability status, geographic region and borrowing behaviour are correlated with loan default and repayment difficulty, while failing to verify the existence of other demographic effects routinely found in the existing literature. We discuss the implications of these findings, along with multiple avenues for further empirical work on this topic within Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws from American research on "concerted cultivation" to compare the parenting logics of 41 upper-middle-class parents in Toronto, Canada. We consider not only how parents structure their children's after-school time (what parents do) but also how the broader ecology of schooling informs their parenting logics (how they rationalize their actions). We find that parenting practices mirror American research. Upper-middle-class families enroll their children in multiple lessons and cultivate their children's skills. However, unlike their American counterparts, Canadian parenting logics are not explicitly stratification oriented, guided by a desire to access elite universities. Canada's relatively flat stratification system of higher education, where prestige differences between universities are minimal, prompts the emergence of a more expressive parenting ethos. Our findings draw attention to the macrofoundations of social behavior by articulating the connection between parenting logics and educational status hierarchies. We conclude by considering the implications of cross-national differences to theories of parenting and social stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elevated demands of the new knowledge economy pose particular challenges to rural and northern regions in Canada, long acknowledged by policymakers to suffer from acute human capital deficits. Rural residents obtain lower levels of education than their urban counterparts and those that do obtain post-secondary training often migrate to urban regions offering abundant employment opportunities and higher wages. Despite an emerging consensus around over skill deficits across rural regions, Canadian researchers have yet to systematically explore contemporary rural-urban differences in human capital using refined measures of literacy and numeracy skills. We ameliorate this deficiency by mapping rural-urban disparities in skills across the working age population (16–65) using Statistics Canada's 2012 Longitudinal International Study of Adults (LISA). Our results indicate that residents from smaller population centers and rural areas within Canada show significantly lower skills proficiencies. These differences across location of residence shrink considerably when controlling for education level, underscoring the need to enhance post-secondary access in rural areas. • Residents from smaller population centers and rural areas within Canada show significantly lower skills proficiencies. • Rural residents show significantly lower literacy as well as numeracy proficiencies compared to urban counterparts. • Skills differences across population centers are largely explained by differences in formal education levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have witnessed an explosion in the growth and sophistication of post-secondary education (PSE) marketing. Education scholars have taken notice, both decrying such developments and studying its emerging characteristics. However, to date, empirical studies of PSE marketing have focused on mainstream secular organizations. Few researchers have sought to examine how Christian colleges and universities (CCUs) present themselves via promotional materials. This limits our understandings of how PSE marketing has evolved in different segments of the field. Through this study, we conduct an exploratory thematic analysis of the home web pages of 93 Canadian CCUs. We find that, depending on their field positioning, this organizational population varies in the extent to which it leverages religiosity to construct and communicate their identities. We make sense of these dynamics through the 'nested fields' perspective within organization studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increased proportions of students attending some form of postsecondary education (PSE), some social groups continue to face significant barriers and encounter difficulties making the transition. Previous research suggests that proximity to postsecondary institutions may have a positive impact on PSE participation rates, even more so for lower- and middle-income families. We know comparatively less, however, about how these processes operate for social groups in varied social and economic contexts. In Canada, many highly ranked, prestigious universities and colleges (with greater arrays of fields) tend to be clustered in large, urban centers, and in the southernmost parts of Canadian provinces, but it is not clear whether these differences impact PSE outcomes. Drawing on cycles 1 to 4 of Statistics Canada's Youth in Transition Survey (YITS --Cohort A), our findings reveal that individuals from the northernmost parts of Canadian provinces do experience difficulties accessing various types of PSE (and in the timing of doing so). Moreover, our results suggest that much of these location effects are attributable to not only economic differences in terms of parental income but also cultural and dispositional differences related to parental education and their aspirations for their children's education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on marketing within PSE tends to focus on homogeneous groups of high-status organisations. This study ameliorates this gap in the literature, conducting a comparative analysis of promotional materials produced by public universities and community colleges in Ontario, Canada. We find that these two groups draw on unique strategies to communicate their quality to external constituents. Public universities emphasise faculty and institutional-level accomplishments, such as research grants and rankings. Meanwhile, community colleges, lacking access to these symbolic resources, employ corporate-like strategies, such as taglines and non-traditional logos. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine how entrepreneurship education is being marketed to students within the Canadian university sector.Design/methodology/approach A content analysis of the webpages representing 66 entrepreneurship education programs in Canada is performed.Findings Entrepreneurship education is found to be framed as providing students with a collaborative learning experience, useful hands-on skills with real world applications and an entrepreneurial mindset.Research limitations/implications This study looks at only one type of promotional material, and thus, further research is needed to triangulate its findings.Originality/value This is the first study that empirically examines the marketing of entrepreneurship education in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives about the influence of neo-liberal forces on post-secondary education are legion within the contemporary literature. Some have recently argued that the promotional tactics used by Canadian sociology departments reflect the broader corporatization of the system, highlighting the vocationalization of the discipline at the hands of market forces. We conduct a mixed-methods analysis of the marketing practises used by English-speaking sociology departments in Canada and find only limited support for this argument. Instead, observed promotional tactics appear to be quite diverse, aimed at multiple stakeholders, and reflecting the complex institutional environment in which sociology departments operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current fiscal environment has driven Canadian universities to become more entrepreneurial, seeking out and competing over new sources of funding. Despite such intensifying competition, little effort has been made to document the promotional tactics that Canadian universities are using to render themselves appealing to external audiences. This study examines the contents of the home pages of English-speaking universities in Canada. It finds that, though there are some differences in the tactics that primarily undergraduate and research-intensive universities employ, both generally strive to emulate the same institutional 'template'. Moreover, the usage of more unorthodox promotional tactics, drawing on labour market rhetoric or discourses of inclusivity, is limited. These findings are theorised in relation to contemporary work within organisational sociology and strategic management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]