Economics of education research: a review and future prospects

In this paper we offer an appraisal of the economics of education research area, charting its history as a field and discussing the ways in which economists have contributed both to education research and to education policy-making. In particular, we highlight the theoretical and methodological contributions that economists have made to the field of education during the last 50 years. Despite the success of the economics of education as a field of inquiry, we argue that some of the contributions made by economists could be limited if the economics of education is seen as quite distinct from the other disciplines working in the field of education. In these areas of common interest, economists need to work side by side with the other major disciplines in the field of education if their contribution to the field is to be maximised, particularly in terms of applying improved methodology. We conclude that the study of education acquisition and its economic and social impact in the economics of education research area is very likely to remain a fertile research ground. Acknowledgement

Synchronization of active mechanical oscillators by an inertial load

Motivated by the operation of myogenic (self-oscillatory) insect flight muscle, we study a model consisting of a large number of identical oscillatory contractile elements joined in a chain, whose end is attached to a damped mass-spring oscillator. When the inertial load is small, the serial coupling favors an antisynchronous state in which the extension of one oscillator is compensated by the contraction of another, in order to preserve the total length. However, a sufficiently massive load can sychronize the oscillators and can even induce oscillation in situations where isolated elements would be stable. The system has a complex phase diagram displaying quiescent, synchronous and antisynchrononous phases, as well as an unsual asynchronous phase in which the total length of the chain oscillates at a different frequency from the individual active elements.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

tert-Butyl N-hydr­oxy-N-[(1S*,2R*)-2-(1-naphth­yl)cyclo­pent-3-en-1-yl]carbamate

The relative stereochemistry of the title compound, C20H23NO3, was established by X-ray analysis. The asymmetric unit contains two independent mol­ecules. In the crystal structure, each type of mol­ecule forms a centrosymmetric dimer via pairs of inter­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, resulting in an R 2 2(10) loop in each case

Overeducation across British regions

This paper analyses levels of over-education and wage returns to education for males across eleven regions of the UK using Labour Force Survey data. Significant differences are found in the probability of being over-educated across regions; also, differences are found in the return to the ‘correct’ level of education in each region, in each case associated with flexibility of movement between and into particular regions, which determines the ease of job matching. Furthermore, evidence is found that, after controlling for the level of education acquired, there exists a premium to the ‘correct’ level of education, which varies across UK regions

Beating patterns of filaments in viscoelastic fluids

Many swimming microorganisms, such as bacteria and sperm, use flexible flagella to move through viscoelastic media in their natural environments. In this paper we address the effects a viscoelastic fluid has on the motion and beating patterns of elastic filaments. We treat both a passive filament which is actuated at one end, and an active filament with bending forces arising from internal motors distributed along its length. We describe how viscoelasticity modifies the hydrodynamic forces exerted on the filaments, and how these modified forces affect the beating patterns. We show how high viscosity of purely viscous or viscoelastic solutions can lead to the experimentally observed beating patterns of sperm flagella, in which motion is concentrated at the distal end of the flagella

The role of familial habitus in shaping children's views of their future employment

As the field of Geographies of Children, Youth and Families grows and diversifies as a testament to the active and vigorous interest in this area of research, the collection of papers presented within this Special Issue proves timely in addressing developing research on education and aspiration. At a variety of spatial scales and from different perspectives, the contributors have shown how educational settings are invoked by politicians, educators and practitioners as sites where the aspirations of future citizen-workers can be managed for perceived individual and collective benefit. It is unsurprising that young people remain the focus of policy attention and analyses in relation to ‘raising’ aspirations, given normative understandings of their chronological proximity to transitions to adulthood. What emerges alongside efforts to affect the aspirations of young people through education is a strand of thought which acknowledges the role of the family in the lives of young people. Research has shown distinctions in parental aspirations for their children according to ethnic and socio-economic background (Coleman, 1988; Portes and MacLeod, 1996), and has highlighted how families are viewed by educationalists as key to the academic success of their children (Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson, this issue). Whilst young people and parents remain central to considerations of aspiration (Nairn et al., 2007), the hopes of young children are also crucial when we take into account the implications which may arise when children judge one path of action feasible as a future goal whilst others appear unattainable. In this article, I argue that the voices of children need to be included in research which considers aspiration, acknowledging the influence of the family on these imagined futures whilst also recognising that children reflexively develop their own perspectives as they encounter new experiences. In the next section of the paper, I engage with policy interest in families and discuss further my conceptualisation of habitus and how this relates to children’s hopes for the future. In the central section I present a case study of children’s future employment plans, putting forward evidence to show that family socialisation predisposes children to consider particular occupational types over others. To this end, I utilise the concept of habitus as a flexible and non-deterministic method for understanding children’s perceptions of what courses of action are most appropriate for their future. Thirdly, I provide evidence to suggest that children’s aspirations are not simply a reflection of parental practices but rather show how the habitus is continually evolving, illustrating children’s agency in their reflexive resistance of particular occupational types in light of family experience. In conclusion, the article calls for further consideration of children’s hopes for the future and the factors which influence the dispositions of individuals, highlighting the imperative for educationalists to remain cognisant of children’s dispositions in efforts to (re)shape aspirations

Disclosing physician ratings: performance effects and the difficulty of altering rating consensus

I examine effects of a health care system's policy to publicly disclose patient ratings of its physicians. I find evidence that this policy leads to performance improvement by the disclosed, subjective ratings and also by undisclosed, objective measures of quality. These effects are consistent with multitasking theory, in that physicians respond to the disclosure by providing more of a shared input—time with patients—that benefits performance by ratings and underlying quality. I also find, as predicted by information cascade theory, that the ratings become jammed to some degree near initially disclosed values. Specifically, raters observe the pattern of initial ratings and follow suit by providing similar ratings. Finally, I find evidence that physicians anticipate rating jamming and so concentrate their effort on earlier performance in order to set a pattern of high ratings that later ratings follow. These results demonstrate that the disclosure of subjective ratings can benefit performance broadly but can also shift effort toward earlier performance