The "employability" paradigm is beginning to be publicly regarded as one of the key developmental paths and "modernisation" principles of higher education institutions. In this context, the article first overviews the existing practices for tracking graduates' early careers in Europe. Next, it identifies and discusses relevant conceptual aspects for designing system(s) for tracking graduates' careers and using the results of graduate studies. This includes understanding and interpreting employability, possible societal tensions surrounding higher education when seeking to support the needs of graduates, employers or initiating new "professional projects", and the development of disciplinary assumptions about career success. Third, based on the results of a national survey among higher education institutions in Slovenia, it explores institutional views related to establishing systems for monitoring graduates' "employability". Understanding higher education institutions' attitudes and capacities towards monitoring the employability of their graduates is important for the success of tracking surveys in terms of their involvement in the collection of data, adapting the research instrument to reflect possible disciplinary particularities and the use of survey results. By combining the institutional perspective with the previously elaborated conceptual framework, the article calls on higher education stakeholders to support the strategic function of career monitoring systems.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36014941
The objective of this paper is to analyse and compare in detail the social structure of the two most acclaimed European sustainable neighbourhoods, which have had a completely different implementation approach: bottom-up urban development in Vauban (Freiburg) and top-down urban development in Western Harbour (Malmö). The goal is to uncover the unrevealed urban elements that determine social sustainability. The paper uses an innovative methodological framework - the Fainstein's "Just City" concept, which encompass several social determinants within three main pillars/principles: democracy, equity and diversity. The "Just City" principles and its determinants add a new perspective to social urban manifestation encompassing "social justice" and "local governance" dimensions. These dimensions represent innovative research approaches in exploring urban social sustainability. Through the Just City framework, the social structure of the two representative case studies is dissected to establish the level of urban social sustainability in each urban area. The aim of the paper is to answer to the question: Do the most acclaimed leading sustainable neighbourhoods embody democratic values, assure equality and respect (allow) diversity?
COBISS.SI-ID: 35165533
The book emphasizes the interaction of four thematic areas, which define a sustainable neighbourhood: sustainable usage of natural resources, sustainable transport, sustainable urban design elements and socio-economic balance. These four main pillars of urban sustainability are divided into several sustainable urban principles, which represent a theoretical background for the analysis of seven most representative European sustainable neighbourhoods: Western Harbour (Malmö), Hammarby Sjöstad (Stockholm), Vauban and Rieselfeld (Freiburg), Kronsberg (Hanover), EVA Lanxmeer (Culemborg) and GWL Terrein (Amsterdam).These seven sustainable neighbourhoods are analysed from four different perspectives, which refer to the identified four pillars of urban sustainability. In addition, the author have emphasized particular historical, geographical and political circumstances, which have contributed to the implementation of particular sustainable neighbourhoods. The objective of the research in the monograph is to present and analyse exemplary sustainable urbanism practices, and at the same time to disseminate concrete sustainable urban solutions. The monograph aims to propagate the principles of urban sustainable development, and in addition to provide theoretical and practical guidelines that would facilitate the implementation of new sustainable neighbourhoods.
COBISS.SI-ID: 297835776
Along with the growth of creative economies, one can observe the phenomenon of increasing precarious work, which follows young individuals engaged in creative activities. The working process of creative individuals is very flexible in terms of schedules, place of work, and payment. As such, they often do not belong to the traditional (i.e., economically and socially stable) employment setup, which was usually organized around huge firms or institutions in the public sector. Instead, they tend to self-employ and quickly move from project to project, assignment to assignment, and job to job. Although some have described this as a type of desirable ever-changing lifestyle, such a work profile could be also described as precarious self-employment: a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material and/or psychological welfare. On the one hand, their work offers freedom, independence, and creative space, but it also has possible side effects manifested in a decrease in social security and an increase in stress due to work overload. Based on employment and wage statistics, this article analyzes fluctuations and changes in the social status of specific groups of creative workers in Slovenia and South Korea. It is assumed that intense employment restructuring points to the growing global trend of precarious working relations in the creative sector.
COBISS.SI-ID: 35967837
This conceptual paper seeks to show why and in what ways higher education should worry about the precarisation of professional work. Increasing number of higher education institutions recently strive to improve professional relevance of study programmes in relation to skill (mis)matches and the problem of unemployment. In this context the paper examines the key factors of the development of professional workers in higher education and explains the precarisation of professional work as an increasingly relevant social problem. Particular attention is paid to comparing the precarisation of young graduates of higher education with the elements of precarisation of academics. The paper concludes that the precarisation of graduates and the quality of academic employment are related phenomena.
COBISS.SI-ID: 35968093