Professional Career Opportunities Research Articles

Challenges in oncology career: are we closing the gender gap? Results of the new ESMO Women for Oncology Committee survey

Following a European Society for Medical Oncology Women for Oncology (ESMO W4O) survey in 2016 showing severe under-representation of female oncologists in leadership roles, ESMO launched a series of initiatives to address obstacles to gender equity. A follow-up survey in October 2021 investigated progress achieved. The W4O questionnaire 2021 expanded on the 2016 survey, with additional questions on the impact of ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion on career development. Results were analysed according to respondent gender and age. The survey sample was larger than in 2016 (n= 1473 versus 482), especially among men. Significantly fewer respondents had managerial or leadership roles than in 2016 (31.8% versus 51.7%). Lack of leadership development for women and unconscious bias were considered more important in 2021 than in 2016. In 2021, more people reported harassment in the workplace than in 2016 (50.3% versus 41.0%). In 2021, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion were considered to have little or no impact on professional career opportunities, salary setting or related potential pay gap. However, gender had a significant or major impact on career development (25.5% of respondents), especially in respondents ≤40 years of age and women. As in 2016, highest ranked initiatives to foster workplace equity were promotion of work-life balance, development and leadership training and flexible working. Significantly more 2021 respondents (mainly women) supported the need for culture and gender equity education at work than in2016. Gender remains a major barrier to career progression in oncology and, although some obstacles may have been reduced since 2016, we are a long way from closing the gender gap. Increased reporting of discrimination and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace is a major, priority concern. The W4O 2021 survey findings provide new evidence and highlight the areas for future ESMO interventions to support equity and diversity in oncology career development.

Avancemos! Building Partnerships Between Academia and Underserved Latinx Communities to Address Health Disparities Through a Faculty-Mentored Undergraduate Research Program.

Latinx is the largest minority population group in the United States and disproportionately affected by health disparities. Efforts to address such health disparities require a concerted, multipronged approach that should involve training the next generation of Latinx health professionals to become part of a culturally competent workforce. This article describes a formative assessment of a faculty mentored undergraduate research program at the University Massachusetts-Boston, called "Avancemos!: Advancing Research Skills and Professional Career Opportunities in Health Sciences for Latinx Undergraduate Students" designed to provide mentorship, research training, and professional career development skills for undergraduate Latinx students. We employed a mixed-method approach in the formative assessment of the program. Our results showed that over the course of four academic semesters the program served a majority female, first-generation, immigrant low-income Latinx undergraduate students. Our qualitative assessment of students' perceived benefits of participation in the program suggests positive effects on a number of areas including the acquisition of concrete and marketable research skills, enhanced understanding and application of knowledge gained in other courses, increased network, enhanced sense of belonging to the academic community, increased professional self-confidence, and enhanced preparedness and plans to pursue graduate studies. Furthermore, our findings suggest that participation in community-engaged research activities offered opportunities for students to realize the role research plays in reducing health disparities. Faculty-mentored undergraduate research programs such as the Avancemos! offer essential opportunities to build partnerships between academia and underserved Latinx communities to address health disparities, while contributing to the development of culturally competent health professions workforce.

Evaluating the Building Technology Stimulus Initiative Offered by Ministry of Housing within the Kingdom’s Vision 2030

The ministry of housing recently developed a new initiative to support the housing sector in Saudi Arabia, which is the building technology stimulus initiative (BTSI). The needs of this initiative arose due to the high demands of housing units. The importance of the BTSI appears on its ability to reduce the construction period time and to provide a better life cycle with reasonable prices. This paper aims to assess the positive and negative aspects of this initiative in social, economic, and environmental sides. It explains how this initiative can fulfillment the kingdom’s vision of 2030. The paper adopts a descriptive analysis of BTSI based on the reports of the Ministry of Housing and the National Vision 2030. The survey was designed to evaluate the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of the BTSI from the perspective of (72) specialists and academics in the scope of housing and building technology. The survey has been analyzed using the SPSS software and the Google Drive charts. The results show that BTSI can help to reduce the period time for housing construction, the use of skilled labor, and increase the high-level professional career opportunities. More, over, The BTSI can provide a healthy environment and reduce visual pollution and waste. In case of mass production, The BTSI contributes to reducing the cost of housing provided by the Ministry of Housing for low-income people. Finally, the paper proposes a gradual transition toward construction technology in the Ministry of Housing projects and the development of policies to motivate the private sector to invest in building technology in partnership with international construction firms.

Bilingualism as a Social Factor of Youth Migration

Analysis of the situation with bilingualism among the youth of a megapolis and a middle-sized city in the Republic of Tatarstan is performed. The indigenization processes in power and management institutions, educational and cultural institutions and the impact of this process on the formation of migration motivation in the middle-sized cities of Tatarstan are considered. The ambiguous role of bilingual simulacra in the process of choosing by young people a place of residence is shown. The contradiction between real professional career opportunities and the choice of a job in a megapolis in the case of command of the two main languages in the Republic of Tatarstan and the unstable simulation capabilities of myths in solving the problems of bilingualism in the megapolis are revealed. The prevalence of migratory attitudes among high school seniors in middle-sized towns, and the presence of a stable orientation among some young people to live in their hometowns, as well as the existence of the opposite vector, which forces individual boys and girls to return to their small motherland due to disappointment in the simulacra of megapolises, including bilingual simulacra in cultural and domestic sphere, collapsing under the influence of globalization. On the basis of mass surveys of youth in the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan and medium-sized cities, the important role of the psychophysiological characteristics of youth and their great susceptibility to bilingual simulacra in the process of forming migration attitudes are revealed.

Exploring teaching staff’s experiences of implementing a Finnish master’s degree programme in teacher education in Indonesia

In this paper, we analyse the motivation and experiences of teaching staff participating in a novel exported Finnish degree programme in teacher education for Indonesian students. The data are based on online questionnaires sent to the teachers in March 2017. Huberman’s professional career path and Mezirow’s module for transformative learning are applied to construct the analytical framework. We also use our own experiences from our involvement in this exported programme, as a teacher (Pekka Räihä) and as a PhD candidate (Henna Juusola). In addition, we have taken into account Finnish higher education policy in terms of education export. The findings of this analysis demonstrate that education export projects can extend university teachers’ professional career opportunities and offer a starting point for transformative learning. However, more flexible administrative practices and an adaptive organizational culture at both faculty and institutional levels are required.

Professional Career Opportunities for Rural College Students—An Empirical Analysis Based on the Chinese General Social Survey

Rural college students are an important, integral part of the current urban labor force. This article uses a group comparison perspective to study the professional career opportunities and their impacting factors of rural college students and other related groups. Analysis of 2010 Chinese General Social Survey data shows the following: (1) college students who transfer from agricultural to nonagricultural status and urban college students have the same opportunities to enter party and government organs and state-owned enterprises, have the same opportunities to obtain elite professional status, and have about the same economic incomes; (2) even if they have received college degrees, if they have not achieved the transition from agricultural to nonagricultural status, rural household registration status will decrease the professional career opportunities of rural college students, and their work unit status, professional status, and income levels will be lower than those of urban college students; (3) in non–college student groups, transitioning from agricultural to nonagricultural status will also increase the aforementioned professional career opportunities for the urban labor force with rural backgrounds. The article presents views on six social groups in the current urban labor force, and through empirical analysis lays out the nature and extent of the impact of household registration status and higher education on professional career opportunities.

Indigenous Youth Graduating from Intercultural Universities: Capability Building Through Intercultural Higher Education in Veracruz, Mexico

ABSTRACTIntercultural higher education in Mexico aims at creating new, culturally and linguistically appropriate, professional career opportunities that empower indigenous youth and their communities. In this paper, empirical results are presented from a research project which ethnographically accompanies graduates from an intercultural university, the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVI), located in four indigenous regions of the South Eastern Mexican Gulf coast. After briefly describing the way this university operates by opening up alternative kinds of knowledge, the features of the new indigenous professionals who graduated from this institution are analysed. In the second half of the article, the graduates’ professional and community development related capacities to link diverse sources of academic and non-academic knowledge are empirically studied; finally their emergent political broker capabilities and community roles are explored.

APhA2016; Advanced Preceptor Training; APhA member spotlight; BPS specialty certification

APhA2016; Advanced Preceptor Training; APhA member spotlight; BPS specialty certification

Teacher Motivation - the key to implementation of new pedagogical tools

The academic staff is an important pillar in achieving good pedagogical results in any university in the world. The role of teachers in the process of transforming educational systems on all levels should be underlined. It should be considered as an important strength of any educational institution. On the other hand lack of motivation and commitment can have a negative impact on the students’ learning effects and overall performance of institutions. Teachers’ contribution in development and implementation of new pedagogy in significant extent depends on their motivation and willingness for taking initiatives. There are many factors which affect the academician’s motivation which includes rewards, incentives, reduced workload, professional career opportunities etc. The standard of educational institutions can be improved through knowledgeable, committed and motivated staff. The important challenge for universities is to get the teachers have the work done willingly and efficiently. The research on factors that could motivate academic teachers are discussed in the manuscript. The evaluation is made on the basis of survey carried out in several technical universities. The results could be treated as a founding for change of policy towards teachers in order to make progress in modern pedagogical tools implementation in teaching process in different engineering courses.

Teacher Motivation - the key to implementation of new pedagogical tools

The academic staff is an important pillar in achieving good pedagogical results in any university in the world. The role of teachers in the process of transforming educational systems on all levels should be underlined. It should be considered as an important strength of any educational institution. On the other hand lack of motivation and commitment can have a negative impact on the students’ learning effects and overall performance of institutions. Teachers’ contribution in development and implementation of new pedagogy in significant extent depends on their motivation and willingness for taking initiatives. There are many factors which affect the academician’s motivation which includes rewards, incentives, reduced workload, professional career opportunities etc. The standard of educational institutions can be improved through knowledgeable, committed and motivated staff. The important challenge for universities is to get the teachers have the work done willingly and efficiently. The research on factors that could motivate academic teachers are discussed in the manuscript. The evaluation is made on the basis of survey carried out in several technical universities. The results could be treated as a founding for change of policy towards teachers in order to make progress in modern pedagogical tools implementation in teaching process in different engineering courses.

Urban Communities, State, Spatial Order, and Modernity: Studies of Imperial and Republican Beijing in Perspective

Urban Communities, State, Spatial Order, and Modernity: Studies of Imperial and Republican Beijing in Perspective Yamin Xu (bio) Madeleine Yue Dong. Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. xxiii, 380 pp. Cloth $50.00/£32.50, ISBN 0-520-23050-7. Susan Naquin. Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xxxv, 816 pp. Cloth $85.00/£55.00, ISBN 0-520-21991-0. Jianfei Zhu. Chinese Spatial Strategies: Imperial Beijing, 1420–1911. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. xiv, 281 pp. Hardback $135.00, ISBN 0-415-31883-1. A Historiographic Context During the 1970s, new studies on urban China began to advance rapidly while scholars decisively abandoned Max Weber’s propositions about Chinese cities1 that had dominated the field. The first such systematic challenge to the Weberian approach, it is recalled, was led by G. William Skinner whose path-breaking studies2 were built on his earlier research work on the marketing and social structure in rural China. Skinner refutes several basic Weberian assumptions about Chinese cities. One is that traditional Chinese cities were built neither on nor for trade but mainly served as residences of imperial viceroys.3 By re-presenting the medieval (the eighth through the thirteenth century) economic and urban revolution “discovered” by Denis Twitchett, Shiba Yoshinobu, Mark Elvin, and others4 in a new framework of “regional citification and urban systems” and by further extending the development of this regional pattern well into the Ming-Qing periods, Skinner puts Weberians on a defense position. Moving away from the Weberian Oriental-city typology, Skinner has brought attention to diversified city groups that, depending on their physiographic locations, occupied different positions in two overlapped but not identical hierarchical urban systems and spatial structures—one administrative and the other economical. Of the two, Skinner emphasizes the latter, which was non-state oriented and “reflected the ‘natural’ structure of Chinese society—a world of marketing and trading [End Page 1] systems, informal politics, and nested subcultures dominated by officials-outof- office, nonofficial gentry, and important merchants.”5 Also, Skinner adds, “administrative capitals were but a subset of economic central places.”6 Weber also claimed that since “[t]he urban resident in China normally belonged to his native rural community” and “legally belonged to his family and native village in which the temple of his ancestors stood and to which he conscientiously maintained affiliation,”7 it was hard for the Chinese urban dwellers to develop “oath-bound communities” that would fight to “attain autonomy.”8 While formulating his response, Skinner recognizes a reality that the traditional Chinese elite (gentry) “was by no means predominantly urban” and that in imperial Chinese cities the urban culture was not “comparable to that of the bourgeoisie in late medieval Europe or of the chōnin in Tokugawa Japan.” On the other hand, Skinner argues that there was a growing “merchant influence” in Chinese cities,9 which could be regarded as equivalent to the “bourgeois” culture of the “Occidental city.” There is yet another obstacle to overcome before proving that Weber was wrong about urban communities in Chinese cities: Skinner needs to explain that Chinese merchants were not parochial and particularistic groups bounded by native-place ties. Indeed, Skinner has a different view: he sees native-place ties as a mobility strategy exploited by regional groups to facilitate their moving up to higher-level central places for professional career opportunities. As for monopolies maintained by native-place groups in handcraft industry or trade, Skinner considers them as regionally based specializations, or “an ethnic division of labor.”10 In short, native-place ties are viewed as practical and economical strategies rather than an essential Oriental cultural behavior. To respond to the old generalizations that traditional Chinese cities lacked a complex urban social and spatial structure, Skinner draws attention to “a model of urban ecology” and points to the case of Qing Beijing where two nuclei in the city were formed: “[O]ne the center of merchant activity, the other the center of gentry and official activity.”11 The emergence of a merchant nucleus obviously paralleled a growing “merchant influence.” To confront Weber’s claim that “there...

New Entry and the Rate of Return to Education: The Case of Registered Nurses

In the 1970s, the percentage of high school graduates completing RN training increased with little change in the rate of return to training. During the 1980s, this percentage declined, despite large increases in the rate of return. The national data employed here examine long-run trends (with emphasis on the 1970s and 1980s) in financial incentives and entry into the nursing profession and suggest that broader professional career opportunities in the 1980s exerted a large impact vis-a-vis the 1970s, among other factors. Rates of return remain high in the 1990s with modest signs of the market stabilizing. Successful policies to ensure stability in health care service delivery must incorporate these varying trends in the RN market.

In response to Dr. Malicki

I believe the issues raised by Dr. Malicki regarding the education and training of radiation therapists are important indeed; however, this must be divided into two separate categories of education and training. The first is the initial education and training for entry level radiation therapists; the second is continuing medical education for practicing radiation therapists who must gain additional skill sets over the course of their career as the discipline of radiation oncology advances with new technologies and treatment paradigms. A career pathway for radiation therapists. Does it really exist?: In regard to Kresl et al. (Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2004;60:8–14)International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, PhysicsVol. 62Issue 1PreviewKresl et al. (1) have given an interesting analysis on labor shortages of radiation therapists, medical physicists, technicians, and oncology nurses in the United States and in a few other countries. Most of the problems that are presented and discussed by the authors seem to be important and pertinent. However, I would like to add another problem for discussion, namely that of the lack of professional career opportunities, especially for radiation therapists. I believe that more attention should be paid to this important problem and to finding a proper solution to it. Full-Text PDF

A career pathway for radiation therapists. Does it really exist?: In regard to Kresl et al. (Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2004;60:8–14)

Kresl et al. (1) have given an interesting analysis on labor shortages of radiation therapists, medical physicists, technicians, and oncology nurses in the United States and in a few other countries. Most of the problems that are presented and discussed by the authors seem to be important and pertinent. However, I would like to add another problem for discussion, namely that of the lack of professional career opportunities, especially for radiation therapists. I believe that more attention should be paid to this important problem and to finding a proper solution to it.

Gender and energy: is there a Northern perspective?

Energy, in a Northern context, is seen as gender-neutral; women and men are regarded as equal in their uses of and views about energy, hence policies accurately reflect the needs and wishes of the population. However, recent research has shown that the assumption of gender neutrality might be a misconception. This paper tests the hypothesis of gender neutrality in energy in the North by reviewing the available evidence. The paper argues that on the basis of gender equality, it is valid to ensure that women and men's views should be equally reflected in energy policy and that women should have the opportunity of meaningful and rewarding professional career opportunities in the energy sector. The paper uses four questions as the framework of analysis. Are the lives of women and men affected differently in terms of the energy forms they use? If gender differences towards energy exist, are women and men able to exercise choices that reflect those differences about energy? Do women and men in the North have different preferences for energy policy? Are women able to make effective contributions as academics, as activists and as workers in the energy sector? The findings indicate that there would appear to be a distinct gender dimension in the way women's and men's lives are affected by energy use while the evidence about gender differences in preferences for particular primary energy forms as a basis of supply is, with the exception of nuclear energy, equivocal. Women are clearly under-represented as professionals in the energy sector. There are examples of creative approaches to encouraging women to join the sector but less attention seems to be paid to keeping them there. An interesting finding is the shift in attitudes of young men towards attitudes more strongly associated with women: being more environmentally conscious and socially aware. Young men do not always subscribe to the “masculine culture of work”.

Competencen in home care

More and more people are receiving care while living in their own homes, a far greater number than are in residential and nursing home care, and in some cases with more complex needs. Yet there persists an image of home care as a very basic activity needing little or no training and in volving no career pr ogression. This image will have to change radically if registered providers are to meet the new national regulatory standards and if there is to be sufficient staff recruitment to meet the ever increasing demand for home care. This article sets out ways in which provider or ganisations can respond to these changes, particularly by building staff development and training strategies. Such strategies must recognise the growing importance and complexity of home care and take special account of the need for staff to gain vocational qualifications. Home care must be seen as offering professional career opportunities, not just a job. The article concludes that the future will lie in bringing care to the people who need it, rather than bringing people to the care.

Assimilation, Choice, or Constraint? Testing Theories of Gender Differences in the Careers of Lawyers

Using data on lawyers in Chicago, we test competing hypotheses derived from three broad theoretical models ofgender differences in professional careers: assimilation, choice, and constraint. Men and women begin their careers in different practice contexts and the differences grow over time. The magnitude of these persistent differences argues against an assimilationist view. Some of the divergence in career paths appears attributable to individual choices and preferences, but these do notfully accountfor the observed gender differences. Human-capital endowments are significant predictors of career positions but also fail to explain the observed gender differences. Women's overrepresentation in less prestigious and less remunerative settings and their underrepresentation in law-firm partnerships suggest that constraints continue to affect women's professional career opportunities.

Corporatist Control and Organizational Commitment among Professionals: The Case of Lawyers Working in Law Firms

A prevailing concern in the sociology of professions is the degree to which professional workers are committed to their employing organization. Corporatist organizations strive to maximize employees' commitment to the organization by enhancing employee integration, upward mobility, participation in decision making, and the legitimacy of the authority system. It is argued here that these corporatist properties act as incentives that are highly valued by professional workers and that they should increase their organizational commitment. On the basis of a sample of lawyers working in law firms the findings support this argument. The most significant variables appear to contribute to lawyers' professionalism and professional careers in that they provide a sense of collegiality, contribute to professional career opportunities within the firm, and allow for individual discretion and control.

Classement, déclassement, reclassement

Classification, De-classification, Re-classification. The strategies of reproduction and in particular the strategies of re-conversion depend on the objective profit-risks offered to investments in a given state of the institutional instruments of reproduction and of the capital they are to reproduce ; it follows that the recent transformations of the relationship between the different classes and the educational System —which have resulted in the massive increase in schooling and all the corresponding changes in the educational System itself, and all the transformations of the social structure which, at least in part, are due to the transformation of the relationships holding between qualifications and job-openings— are the result of an intensification of competition for educational qualifications. Thus, those fractions of the ruling and middle classes which are richest in economc capital have had, in order to ensure their reproduction, to greatly intensify the use they made of the educational System, constraining the fractions whose reproduction was hitherto ensured chiefly by schooling to intensify their investments in schooling. Hence the inflation of qualifications and their devaluation. As a consequence of devaluation, the broadening of the monopoly of the holders of educational qualifications over positions which were until then open to non degree-holders means that the chief victims of this process are those who go onto the job-market without qualifications. Hence a reinforcement of the way in which schooling predetermines professional career opportunities and of the interdependence of qualification and job-opening. The re-conversion of the economic capital into cultural capital permits the middle classes to maintain the position of its heirs and explains the morphological changes within the middle classes and, in particular, the emergeance of a new type of craftsmen and trade with a high cultural investment. The hysteresis of the habitus tends to conceal the devaluation of qualifications from the classes which are furthest from the educational System. The other classes can, in order to escape loss of position, either produce new professions more adapted to their social claims, or else modify in accordance with these claims, by a redefinition implying a re-evaluation, those professions to which their qualifications give access. This creative redefinition effect can be observed in professions of sparse distribution and low degree of professionalisation, such as the new sectors of cultural and artistic production and all those professions which ensure the best return on the cultural capital transmitted by the family; consultative occupations, and those of presentation and representation. One can only understand the emergeance of that new petty-bourgeoisie which harnesses to its function as intermediary between the classes new instruments of manipulation by reference to the transformations in the methods of ruling which, since they are concerned to ensure the symbolic integration of the ruled classes, grant more importance to the prescribing of needs rather than the instilling of norms. The increase in school-attendance underlies a whole group of transformations in the educational System itself; the well-defined boundaries of the old system are supplanted by the vague classifications of a system which sanctions vagueness of aspirations. It is as if the new logic of the educational system and the economic system promoted the maximum postponement of the moment when, by a series of imperceptible degrees, the final balance-sheet of the semi-bourgeois abortive careers is settled at last. Hence the type of structural instability we find in the representation of social identity and aspirations. The outcome of all the opposing effects of re-conversion and re-classification, is a global movement upwards of the structure of the distribution, between classes and segments of classes, of the wealth which is the stake of competitiveness, the maintenance of order, that is to say of relational property, being therefore ensured by the ceaseless changes in substantial properties.