Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore perceptions by higher education (HE) senior professors and managers of their role in preparing graduates for entry to the labour market. By providing a theoretical and empirical overview of the functional role of HE institutions in preparing graduates for work, the paper designs an own research framework for future developments in this area. Design/methodology/approach - The conclusions in the paper are based on a literature review and approximately 240 semi-structured interviews with HE professors and managers from six European countries and from six different study fields. The results are broadly compared with an international survey of graduates from 20, mainly European, countries. Findings - The senior HE professors and managers see their own role in supporting graduates' careers in a surprisingly intuitive way. There are some important differences and similarities among the study fields, although they are generally not motivated to apply an evidence-based approach to study and programme developments. Originality/value - This paper is based on the results of a three-year survey of the European research network, and two international conferences comprising more than 100 contributions from over 30, mainly European, countries.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32769117
Purpose - The goal of the paper is to introduce the special issue on "Employability of Higher Education Graduates in Europe" from the perspective of global changes. Design/methodology/approach - The empirically-based articles of the special issue address six main areas related to the transition of graduates from education to the labour market: employment and employability, job (mis)match, development of particular areas of competency, new certificates of higher education, along with the disciplinarity and status of the self-perceived role of academics in supporting graduatesʼ careers. Findings - This issue provides empirical findings relevant to various stakeholders of higher education systems which are essential for strategic development in the area. Originality/value - The selection of papers proposes an interdisciplinary scientific approach in the areas of bridging (higher) education with the labour market.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32338525
This chapter addresses the broader questions of migration and ethnic diversity in Slovenia, “the level” of multiculturalism in the country, and integration policies that constitute the contemporary framework for migration management. Slovenia has a long experience of protecting autochthonous or indigenous ethnic minorities, but little experience of migrants’ integration. Both these issues are today circumscribed by the long-established protection policies, attitudes towards migrants/communities/minorities from the former Yugoslavia (dubbed “suspicious ić” attitudes, alluding to the surname endings commonly found in other parts of the former Yugoslavia, except in Slovenia), and modern global migrations. This is also the main battlefield where the struggle for social cohesion, social solidarity, multicultural society and inclusion of newcomers is taking place.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32871005
Despite being coined by international forums and promoted chiefly by international/supranational organisations and clubs, sustainable development is a concept that in essence rests on and is largely determined by the local level. The local level’s primacy in terms of introducing the principles of sustainability is openly stipulated by Agenda 21, thus providing the impetus for local sustainable development strategies – Local Agenda 21. These community-specific, long-term visions of sustainable co-existence serve as an important strategic tool for overcoming challenges communities may face while maintaining the general idea of the future. In this paper, we analysed four such visions of a sustainable future for two city and two minor Slovenian municipalities in order to examine their capacity to develop into sustainable communities.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4731179
National policies for long-term management of radioactive waste have for decades been driven by technical experts. The pursuit of these technocratic policies led in many countries to conflict with affected communities. Since the late 1990s, however, there has been a turn to more participatory approaches. This participatory turn reflects widespread acknowledgement in the discourse of policy actors and implementing organisations of the importance of social aspects of radioactive waste management (RWM) and the need to involve citizens and their representatives in the process. This appears to be an important move towards democratisation of this particular field of technological decision-making but, despite these developments, technical aspects are still most often brought into the public arena only after technical experts have defined the "problem" and decided upon a "solution". This maintains a notional divide between the treatment of technical and social aspects of RWM and raises pressing questions about the kind of choice affected communities are given if they are not able to debate fully the technical options. The article aims to contribute to better understanding and addressing this situation by exploring the complex entanglement of the social and the technical in RWM policy and practice, analysing the contingent configurations that emerge as sociotechnical combinations. Drawing upon empirical examples from four countries that have taken the participatory turn - Belgium, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom - the article describes the different ways in which sociotechnical combinations have been constructed, and discusses their implications for future practice.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33070941