The transformative trends of the past 50 years that have led to a sharp decline in marriage and a rise of new family forms have been shaped by attitudes and behaviors that differ by class, age and race, according to a new Pew Research Center nationwide survey complemented by an analysis of demographic and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau. A new ―marriage gap‖ in the United States is increasingly aligned with a growing income gap. Marriage, while declining among all groups, remains the norm for adults with a college education and good income but is now markedly less prevalent among those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. The survey finds that those in this less-advantaged group are as likely as others to want to marry, but they place a higher premium on economic security as a condition for marriage. This is a bar that many may not meet.
The survey also finds striking differences by generation. In 1960, two-thirds (68%) of all twenty-somethings were married. In 2008, just 26% were. How many of today’s youth will eventually marry is an open question. For now, the survey finds that the young are much more inclined than their elders to view cohabitation without marriage and other new family forms — such as same sex marriage and interracial marriage — in a positive light. Even as marriage shrinks, family— in all its emerging varieties — remains resilient. The survey finds that Americans have an expansive definition of what constitutes a family. And the vast majority of adults consider their own family to be the most important, most satisfying element of their lives.
Here is a summary of the key findings of the report:
 The Class-Based Decline in Marriage. About half (52%) of all adults in this country were married in 2008; back in 1960, seven-in-ten (72%) were. This decline has occurred along class lines. In 2008, there was a 16 percentage point gap in marriage rates between college graduates (64%) and those with a high school diploma or less (48%). In 1960, this gap had been just four percentage points (76% vs. 72%). The survey finds that those with a high school diploma or less are just as likely as those with a college degree to say they want to marry. But they place a higher premium than college graduates (38% versus 21%) on financial stability as a very important reason to marry.
. Is Marriage Becoming Obsolete? Nearly four-in-ten survey respondents (39%) say that it is; in 1978 when Time magazine posed this question to registered voters, just 28% agreed. Those most likely to agree include those who are a part of the phenomenon (62% of cohabiting parents) as well as those most likely to be troubled by it (42% of self-described conservatives). Despite these growing uncertainties, Americans are more upbeat about the future of marriage and family (67% say they are optimistic) than about the future of the country’s educational system (50% optimistic), its economic system (46% optimistic) or its morals and ethics (41% optimistic).
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. An Ambivalent Public. The public’s response to changing marital norms and family forms reflects a mix of acceptance and unease. On the troubled side of the ledger: Seven-in-ten (69%) say the trend toward more single women having children is bad for society, and 61% say that a child needs both a mother and father to grow up happily. On the more accepting side, only a minority say the trends toward more cohabitation without marriage (43%), more unmarried couples raising children (43%), more gay couples raising children (43%) and more people of different races marrying (14%) are bad for society. Relatively few say any of these trends are good for society, but many say they make little difference.
. Group Differences. Where people stand on the various changes in marriage and family life depends to some degree on who they are and how they live. The young are more accepting than the old of the emerging arrangements; the secular are more accepting than the religious; liberals are more accepting than conservatives; the unmarried are more accepting than the married; and, in most cases, blacks are more accepting than whites. The net result of all these group differences is a nearly even three-way split among the full public. A third (34%) say the growing variety of family arrangements is a good thing; 29% say it is a bad thing and 32% say it makes little or no difference.
. The Resilience of Families. The decline of marriage has not knocked family life off its pedestal. Three-quarters of all adults (76%) say their family is the most important element of their life; 75% say they are ―very satisfied‖ with their family life, and more than eight-in-ten say the family they live in now is as close as (45%) or closer than (40%) the family in which they grew up. However, on all of these questions, married adults give more positive responses than do unmarried adults.
. The Definition of Family. By emphatic margins, the public does not see marriage as the only path to family formation. Fully 86% say a single parent and child constitute a family; nearly as many (80%) say an unmarried couple living together with a child is a family; and 63% say a gay or lesbian couple raising a child is a family. The presence of children clearly matters in these definitions. If a cohabiting couple has no children, a majority of the public says they are not a family. Marriage matters, too. If a childless couple is married, 88% consider them to be a family.
. The Ties that Bind. In response to a question about whom they would assist with money or care giving in a time of need, Americans express a greater sense of obligation toward relatives—including relatives by way of fractured marriages– than toward best friends. The ranking of relatives aligns in a predictable hierarchy. More survey respondents express an obligation to help out a parent (83% would feel very obligated) or grown child (77%) than say the same about a stepparent (55%) or a step or half sibling (43%). But when asked about one’s best friend, just 39% say they would feel a similar sense of obligation.
. Changing Spousal Roles. In the past 50 years, women have reached near parity with men as a share of the workforce and have begun to outpace men in educational attainment. About six-in-ten wives work today, nearly double the share in 1960. There’s an unresolved tension in the public’s response to these changes. More than six-in-ten (62%) survey respondents endorse the modern marriage in which the husband and wife both work and both take care of the household and children; this is up from 48% in 1977. Even so, the public hasn’t entirely discarded the traditional male breadwinner template for marriage. Some 67% of survey respondents say that in order to be ready for marriage, it’s very important for a man to be able to support his family financially; just 33% say the same about a woman.
. The Rise of Cohabitation. As marriage has declined, cohabitation (or living together as unmarried partners) has become more widespread, nearly doubling since 1990, according to the Census Bureau. In the Pew Research survey, 44% of all adults (and more than half of all adults ages 30 to 49) say they have cohabited at some point in their lives. Among those who have done so, about two-thirds (64%) say they thought of this living arrangement as a step toward marriage.
. The Impact on Children. The share of births to unmarried women has risen dramatically over the past half century, from 5% in 1960 to 41% in 2008. There are notable differences by race: Among black women giving birth in 2008, 72% were unmarried. This compares with 53% of Hispanic women giving birth and 29% of white women. Overall, the share of children raised by a single parent is not as high as the share born to an unwed mother, but it too has risen sharply — to 25% in 2008, up from 9% in 1960. The public believes children of single parents face more challenges than other children — 38% say ―a lot more‖ challenges and another 40% say ―a few more‖ challenges. Survey respondents see even more challenges for children of gay and lesbian couples (51% say they face a lot more challenges) and children of divorce (42% say they face a lot more challenges).
. In Marriage, Love Trumps Money. Far more married adults say that love (93%), making a lifelong commitment (87%) and companionship (81%) are very important reasons to get married than say the same about having children (59%) or financial stability (31%). Unmarried adults order these items the same way. However, when asked if they agree that there is ―only one true love‖ for every person, fewer than three-in-ten (28%) survey respondents say, I do.
Organizations depend upon capable leadership to guide them through unprecedented changes. Yet, there is ample evidence in
the news and in recent research reports that even some of the best and most venerable organizations are failing to adapt to
change, implement their strategic plans successfully or prepare for a more uncertain future. We believe the turmoil we
are currently observing has something to do with leadership, and that if we don’t change our current approach to leadership
development, we will see even more of the same.
Student wellness is an essential component of academic success in higher education and subsequent opportunities in the labor market. The Ohio State University Office of Student Life’s Student Wellness Center uses a model that includes nine key dimensions of wellness: career, creative, emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual.
The past few years have ushered in more strident calls for accountability across institutions of higher learning. Various internal and external stakeholders are asking questions like "Are students learning what we want them to learn?" and "How do the students' scores from one institution compare to its peers?" As a result, more institutions are looking for new, more far-reaching ways to assess student learning and then use assessment findings to improve students' educational experiences.
However, as Trudy Banta notes in her article An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators, “just as simply weighing a pig will not make it fatter, spending millions simply to test college students is not likely to help them learn more.” (p. 6)
While assessing institutional effectiveness is a noble pursuit, measuring student learning is not always easy, and like so many things we try to quantify, there’s much more to learning than a number in a datasheet. As Roxanne Cullen and Michael Harris note in their article The Dash to Dashboards, “The difficulty we have in higher education in defining and measuring our outcomes
lies in the complexity of our business: the business of learning. A widget company or a fast-food chain has clearly defined goals and can usually pinpoint with fine accuracy where and how to address loss in sales or glitches in production or service. Higher education is being called on to be able to perform similar feats, but creating a graduate for the 21st century workforce is a very
different kind of operation.” (p. 10)
This special report Educational Assessment: Designing a System for More Meaningful Results features articles from Academic Leader, and looks at the assessment issue from a variety of different angles. Articles in the result include:
• The Faculty and Program-Wide Learning Outcome Assessment
• Assessing the Degree of Learner-Centeredness in a Department or Unit
• Keys to Effective Program-Level Assessment
• Counting Something Leads to Change in an Office or in a Classroom
• An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators
Whether you’re looking to completely change your approach to assessment, or simply improve the
efficacy of your current assessment processes, we hope this report will help guide your discussions
and eventual decisions.
Rob Kelly
Editor
Academic Leader
CACUSS is pleased to support the second edition of this guide to “Researching Teaching and Student Outcomes in Postsecondary Education.”
The first edition was a useful resource for our members in working collaboratively to understanding academic and co-curricular learning in postsecondary contexts. The guide offers an accessible introduction to the issues and techniques in conducting research and we believe that it is a good resource for student affairs staff who are considering a research project to measure outcomes in their departments, programs, or campus.
Student affairs professionals are involved in various research and assessment projects seeking to understand the student experience. We are asked more and more frequently to provide evidence of how our work impacts student learning, wellbeing, development and success rates. In addition, the need to refine programs, build outcomes-based plans and engage with faculty on academic initiatives to support student success also persists.
We congratulate the authors and collaborators on their work in updating this useful tool.
With a population of 13 million people, the province of Ontario covers a significant geographic distribution of 917,741 square kilometres (Statistics Canada, 2005). Fourteen per cent of the population is categorized as living in a rural, remote or northern area (Statistics Canada, 2011). Within this land mass is a rich diversity of people, systems and institutions that are privileged to call it home - including Francophone persons and First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. There are unique challenges that exist within these communities that affect access to health services: geographic distance, socioeconomic status, availability of health human resources and infrastructure. These factors have an impact on health status, wellness and the ability to offer person-centred health care.
ABSTRACT
Psychological theory and research can make key contributions to sustainability scholarship and practice, as is demonstrated here in the fi eld of higher education pedagogy. College students undergo profound changes in epistemological assumptions and in identity during their undergraduate years. Data on the Measure of Intellectual Development for students participating in learner-centred pedagogies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, showed a trend toward more complex thinking by these students (N=153). Qualitative data on student identity development associated with transdisciplinary, project-based campus sustainability courses were collected at Canada’s University of Prince Edward Island and at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Findings revealed the identity of “learner†blending with that of “change agentâ€; a greater sense of identity in relation to the campus community and the different perspectives of its stakeholders, the sustainability movement; and a sense of empowerment backed up by practical skills. Sustainability poses new challenges for intellectual-moral development and identity development. Psychological theory gives insights into how pedagogies should be designed to challenge students just beyond their level of intellectual, moral, and identity development, in order to expose them to intellectual-moral growth and identity alternatives conducive to the complexities of sustainability advocacy and practice.
RÉSUMÉ
Les théories psychologiques ainsi que la recherche peuvent apporter d’importantes contributions clés à la recherche et à la pratique de la durabilité, comme cette étude le démontre dans le domaine de la pédagogie dans l’éducation
supérieure. Les étudiants collégiaux subissent de profonds changements en terme de réfl exion épistémologique et d’identité lors de leurs années d’études au premier cycle. Nous présentons d’abord des données se rapportant à la Mesure du Développement Intellectuel (Measure of Intellectual Development) pour des étudiants de Western Washington University à Bellingham dans l’état de Washington aux Etats-Unis qui ont participé à des pédagogies centrées sur l’apprenant ; les résultats démontrent une tendance à une pensée plus complexe chez ces étudiants (N=154). Ensuite, nous analysons des données qualitatives sur le développement de l’identité des étudiants de l’Université de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard au Canada et des étudiants de Western Washington University aux États-Unis qui ont assisté à des cours sur la durabilité sous forme de projets transdisciplinaires appliqués au campus universitaire ; les résultats révèlent la superposition de l’identité de « l’apprenant » et de celle d’ «agent
de changement », mais aussi un sentiment identitaire plus fort envers la vie de campus et les différentes perspectives de ses partenaires, le mouvement de la durabilité, et enfi n un sentiment de confi ance consolidé par un savoir-faire pratique. Les théories psychologiques éclairent la manière dont les nouvelles pédagogies devraient être conçues afi n de stimuler les étudiants juste au-delà de leur niveau de développement intellectuel, moral et identitaire, pour les exposer à des alternatives identitaires, et soutenir leur engagement envers des identités d’un genre nouveau en matière de durabilité.
ABSTRACT. I argue in this article that responsible leadership (Maak and Pless, 2006) contributes to build- ing social capital and ultimately to both a sustainable business and the common good. I show, first, that responsible leadership in a global
stakeholder society is a relational and inherently moral phenomenon that cannot be captured in traditional dyadic leader–follower relationships (e.g., to subordinates) or by simply focusing on questions of leadership effectiveness. Business leaders have to deal with moral complexity resulting from a multitude of stakeholder claims and have to build enduring and mutually beneficial
relationships with all relevant stakeholders. I contend, second, that in doing so leaders bundle the energy of different constituencies and enable social capital building. Social capital can be understood as actual or potential resources inherent to more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual recognition (Bourdieu 1980). By drawing on network analysis I suggest,
third, that responsible leaders weave durable relational structures and ultimately networks of relationships which are rich in ties to otherwise unconnected individuals or groups.
Student wellness is an essential component of academic success in higher education and subsequent opportunities in the labor market. The Ohio State University Office of Student Life’s Student Wellness Center uses a model that includes nine key dimensions of wellness: career, creative, emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual.
Vincent Tinto (1993) identifies three major sources of student departure: academic difficulties, the inability of individuals to resolve their educational and occupational goals, and their failure to become or remain incorporated in the intellectual and social life of the institution. Tinto's "Model of Institutional Departure" states that, to persist, students need integration into formal (academic performance) and informal (faculty/staff interactions) academic systems and formal (extracurricular activities) and informal (peer-group interactions) social systems.
The 2015 Engineers Canada Labour Market Study provides supply and demand projections for 14 engineering occupations. The report highlights a large and growing need to replace retiring engineers as they exit the workforce. This is particularly relevant for civil, mechanical, electrical and electronic engineers as well as computer engineers. Replacement demand for engineers
is an important theme that will be relevant for the next decade as the baby boom generation retires.
Canadian universities are granting an increasing number of engineering degrees to Canadian and international students and creating new entrants to these occupations. Ontario and Quebec universities are granting many of these degrees. However, economic activity is shifting to western Canada and shifting the demand for engineers in that direction. Engineers Canada would like to highlight the growing importance of inter-provincial migration for engineers. In addition, federal government immigration policy such as the new Express Entry program is important to help streamline international migration of engineers to meet the country’s future workforce requirements.
Promoting public discussion of key educational issues
With this report, CEA provides a context for rethinking schools to drive dialogue and critical thinking about the challenges we face in educating all students to take their place in a world of dynamic social, technological and economic change.
CEA encourages reflection and welcomes your feedback on the following questions:
. When it comes to education, what matters most to Canadians?
. Does Canada have a clear picture of what a good school system looks like?
. What are the goals of our education systems in the 21st century?
. Who should decide what children and youth in Canada learn?
. What ideas do people trust when it comes to education, and how do they come to trust new ideas?
School and university, and the well-trod path between them, play a dominant role in thinking about education policy. But outside these two institutions there exists a less well understood world of colleges, diplomas, certificates and professional examinations – the world of post-secondary vocational education and training. many professional and technical jobs
require no more than one or two years of career preparation beyond upper secondary level, and in some countries as much as one-quarter of the adult workforce have this type of qualification (see Figure 1). Nearly two-thirds of overall employment growth in the European Union (EU25) is forecast to be in the “technicians and associate professionals” category – the category most closely linked to this sector (CEDEFOP, 2012). A recent US projection is that nearly one-third of job vacancies by 2018 will require some post-secondary qualification but less than a four-year degree (Carnevale, Smith and Strohl, 2010). The aim of this OECD study (see Box 1) is to cast light on this world, as it is large, dynamic, and of key importance to country skill systems.
Education is a crucial enabler in the modern world, giving children skills that are essential in later life. Parents expect these skills to be learned at different stages of education, with confidence (47%) and competency in the core skills of Maths, Science and English (43%) the most important outcomes of a good primary education.
At secondary school, parents want a good education to deliver skills in core subjects (40%) and in key areas such as problem solving (35%), computer literacy (32%) and analytical thinking (32%). University is seen as a springboard for success. More than two in five (43%) parents around the world say the ability to compete in the workplace is a key expectation of a good university education.
However, parents are united in having high aspirations for their children. Nearly nine in 10 (89%) parents want their child to go to university. Just over three in five (62%) want their child to study to a postgraduate level.
One of the most profound transformations in postsecondary education is coming from the realization that digital communication skills really do matter in everyday life; therefore, it is imperative that digital skills also matter in academic life. Students and enlightened faculty alike understand that the convergence of technical and creative competencies is helping to create new opportunities for a whole new generation of creative professionals. “Imagine a curriculum that is based on achieving comprehensive goals where students must create and produce a computer game, suggests Eric Converse, CEO of ATIV Software, a mobile application development company. “This requires an understanding of physics and math, programming and scripting, story and dialog writing, cinematography, art and design, music, collaboration, teamwork, and delegation.Digital storytelling has become an essential method of enhancing education in the humanities by making abstract or conceptual content more understandable. It engages students through images, audio, and video and provides a compelling way of sharing their work with their peers that, in turn, fosters more collaboration and accomplishment. The availability of increasingly sophisticated audio editing, image editing and video editing tools, such as those provided in Adobe® Creative Suite® software, has given educators and students unprecedented abilities to become master composers in nonprint media and to build digital stories in the humanities that can captivate and teach an audience and connect people like never before. In addition, competencies that have traditionally been associated with art and design professionals are now expected from professionals working in such disciplines as journalism and education. Institutions are also seeing an increasing awareness of the value that subject matter experts with deep technological ability bring to the classroom and the workplace. This realization that the sum of discipline expertise plus technology expertise is even greater than its respective parts is leading to the emergence of fields of study such as informatics, instructional design, and educationaltechnology, areas of study that claim digital proficiencies as core components.
This paper explores the impact that digital communication skills, using processes associated with digital storytelling, is having on disciplines including liberal arts, humanities, and cross-curricular humanities/ technology collaboratories. In its simplest forms, digital storytelling involves the illustration of story elements using photographs and graphics tools, sometimes using nothing more than free and open source tools that can help make an abstract idea more conceptually complete. Increasingly, however, digital storytelling has evolved to include more complex forms of digital expression requiring video skills, such as micro-documentary production. In some cases, digital storytelling is dependent upon computer programming skills for application development and augmented reality.
Table of contents
1: Background
1: Introduction
2: The evolution of 21st century digital communication skills
2: Digital storytelling for enriched communications
3: Integrated enrichment: digital humanities instruction and practice
3: English language and literature course presentations enhanced by use of Adobe CS5
3: Other notable digital storytelling initiatives
4: Summary
4: References
Every developed country is racing to keep up with profound and fundamental changes in the 21st century. The new knowledge economy is creating unprecedented demands for higher levels of expertise and skills, while, at the same time, changing demographics will significantly reduce the numbers of qualified people available in the economy.
The cumulative impact presents great opportunities and great challenges to Ontario.
The province has an opportunity to implement meaningful and transformational changes that exploit the potential for growth in the new economy and drive Ontario’s prosperity to unprecedented levels.
But the threats to Ontario’s future are just as great. Failing to move forward now with significant measures could leave Ontario unprepared for the challenges ahead, and strand thousands of people as permanently unemployable.
I am pleased to report that Humber had another strong year as we embrace and deliver on our new strategic plan: Strengthen, Sustain, Maximize. Leading up to the launch of this plan last fall, Humber experienced unprecedented growth.
From 2008-2013, full-time postsecondary enrolment increased by 43% compared to the provincial increase of 25% over the same period. As we approach our 50th anniversary, we continue to innovate and collaborate in order to bring our
students the highest quality education delivered by faculty and staff committed to their success.
We do this by living the values of a learning organization. That means fostering an organizational culture that encourages curiosity, creativity, innovation and collaborative problem solving. All skills necessary to succeed in today’s increasingly
interconnected and global world.
While there is broad consensus that literacy skills are essential for work and life in general,
there is less consensus about numeracy, even though both are defined as essential skills by a number of sources,
including provincial and national governments and international agencies. As a part of HEQCO’s
continuing examination of learning outcomes in Ontario’s postsecondary sector, this report reviews the available data on numeracy skills and revisits the postsecondary sector’s understanding and treatment of numeracy as an
essential skill.
The authors address three questions: (1) What are the foundational practices of team-based learning (TBL)? (2) What are the fundamental principles underlying TBL’s foundational practices? and (3) In what ways are TBL’s foundational practices similar to and/or different from the practices employed by problem-based learning (PBL) and cooperative learning (CL)? Most of the TBL vs. CL and PBL comparisons are organized in relation to the size of and strategies for forming groups/teams, the strategies for ensuring that students are familiar with the course content, the nature of the group/team assignments, the role of peer assessment, and the role of the instructor.
Abstract The challenge of teaching sustainable development in higher education can mean that students—as future citizens—are left without insight, commitment, or a sense of their position regarding meaningful beliefs and actions related to sustainability. A paradox arises when educators approach a sustainability curriculum that has the potential to transform students’ thinking and actions, with a reductive and non-substantive pedagogy. This paper uses an epistemological and pedagogical analysis of relevant literature to redefine, clarify, and provide a more systematic and holistic understanding of a transformative pedagogy required for learning. The central thesis juxtaposes three sustainability curricular positions with three pedagogical models that vary decidedly in their emphasis on the prerogative of the learner’s prior knowledge and beliefs, the engagement of the learner, and the potential for critical thinking and transformative learning. It is found that a transformative pedagogy overcomes and eliminates the paradox, helping societies become more sustainable.
Résumé Parce que l’enseignement du développement durable représente un vrai défi pour les éducateurs, les étudiants sont privés de connaissance, d’engagement, et de compréhension de leur position à mieux connaître et à maîtriser tous les aspects du développement durable. Un paradoxe se pose lorsque les éducateurs abordent un programme d’études sur le développement durable avec le potentiel de transformer la pensée et les actions des étudiants avec une pédagogie réductrice. Une analyse épistémologique et pédagogique de la littérature a été utilisée pour redéfinir, clarifier et prévoir une compréhension plus systématique d’une pédagogie transformative nécessaire pour l’apprentissage du développement durable. La thèse centrale juxtapose trois positions curriculaires pour enseigner le développement durable avec trois modèles qui varient résolument dans leur accentuation sur l’apprenant et sa connaissance préalable, son engagement et son potentiel de la pensée critique et de l’apprentissage transformateur. L’article révèle que la pédagogie transformative surmonte et élimine le paradoxe, et ainsi aide la société à devenir plus durable.