This book provides a comprehensive discussion of the relationship between higher education & working life from three different perspectives: society, higher education & the world of work. The chapters discuss the interplay between education & work both from the societal point of view & from the pedagogical perspective.

Shaping Work-Life Culture in Higher Education provides strategies to implement beneficial work-life policies in colleges and universities. As compared to the corporate sector, higher education institutions have been slow to implement policies aimed at fostering diversity and a healthy work-life balance, which can result in lower morale, job satisfaction, and productivity, and causes poor recruitment and retention. Based on extensive research, this book argues that an effective organizational culture is one in which managers and supervisors recognize that professional and personal lives are not mutually exclusive. With concrete guidelines, recommendations, techniques, and additional resources throughout, this book outlines best practices for creating a beneficial work-life culture on campus, and documents cases of supportive department chairs and administrators. A necessary guide for higher education leaders, this book will inform administrators about how they can foster positive work-life cultures in their departments and institutions.

This book explores the issue and struggle of work-life balance in higher education. It provides a rare opportunity to shape the conversation surrounding work-life balance in academia and provide a venue for dialogue around balance that had previously been forced into secret. The challenges that surround work-life balance are something that we must all confront, but they are also something that is rarely discussed within academia. Faculty and graduate students face increasing demands to publish, while also being expected to effectively teach and engage in service to both the university and the community. The demands of an academic career have been cited as a reason for faculty and students to leave the academy, but they have also been tied with rising rates of depression throughout the community. Concerns about balance have led to challenges in recruiting diverse students and faculty for academic careers. Each chapter explores how faculty and graduate students have sought and found balance. The research included in this book is by leading scholars who discuss the challenge for academia to pay attention to the cultures and policies that may improve, or hinder, work-life balance. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Public Affairs Education.

Shaping Work-Life Culture in Higher Education provides strategies to implement beneficial work-life policies in colleges and universities. As compared to the corporate sector, higher education institutions have been slow to implement policies aimed at fostering diversity and a healthy work-life balance, which can result in lower morale, job satisfaction, and productivity, and causes poor recruitment and retention. Based on extensive research, this book argues that an effective organizational culture is one in which managers and supervisors recognize that professional and personal lives are not mutually exclusive. With concrete guidelines, recommendations, techniques, and additional resources throughout, this book outlines best practices for creating a beneficial work-life culture on campus, and documents cases of supportive department chairs and administrators. A necessary guide for higher education leaders, this book will inform administrators about how they can foster positive work-life cultures in their departments and institutions.

This multidisciplinary book brings together scholars from Norway and the UK to discuss the notion of trust within the structures and forms of higher education located in two distinctive localities. The meaning of trust is multi-variant and nuanced, but is omnipresent in the literature on higher education ranging from student engagement to policy exhortations. A key feature of this book is the effort to integrate the term ‘trust’ conceptually, functionally and phenomenological more generally as well as within the context of higher education. Practice from within Norway and the UK is used to illustrate and expose relevant similarities and varieties in trust and the (possible) lack of it within the sector. The book thus faces the complexity of trust and its distinctive manifestation through a number of analytical lenses and realities.

Taking a broader view of transition outcomes than many previous comparative studies, this study reveals the complex and many-faceted national institutional arrangements that can result in successful transitions to working life.

Skill shortages in the Finnish labour market are increasingly apparent and there are growing concerns about the supply of higher-level skills, given demographic change and stagnating educational attainment levels. Finland’s skill development system must get future-ready. This report analyses the status quo of the Finnish continuous learning system for adults, highlights its key challenges and makes actionable policy recommendations.

The book draws on the 2007 Changing Academic Profession international survey in order to document the personal characteristics, career trajectories, sense of identity/commitment and job satisfaction of academics in 14 countries with different levels of economic and social development and different higher education systems. With nearly 26,000 academics surveyed in 19 countries (of which 14 are reporting their results in this volume), the empirical basis of the book is the most up-to-date and far-reaching in the area. With major changes taking place both in the local and global contexts of higher education and in the working conditions within individual universities, as exemplified by increasing managerialism and performance-based funding, it is important to consider the impact of these changes on the profiles and working lives of the academic profession across different countries. But it is also important to look at the ways in which the faculty’s changing profile impacts on the organisation and management of universities and on the delivery of their central functions. Although not always obvious in the short-term, academic work and its conditions attract, incorporate and promote different types of individuals who, in turn, exert considerable influence on the nature of academic work, higher education institutions and, potentially, society. As faculty members are central to the teaching, research and service enterprise activities of higher education, it is important to understand their personal characteristics, career trajectories, sense of identity and commitment, and job satisfaction. These are central for understanding the academic profession in general and, in particular, the factors affecting their involvement and productivity in the work of their institutions. These are a complex result of a mixture of contextual factors (e.g. the status and regulatory framework of the higher education system, the features and atmosphere of the particular institution) and personal factors (e.g. gender, educational attainment, family background, attitudes to work and broader social values).This book examines the different situations facing the academic profession in individual countries and provides comparative studies of country differences.

This book investigates how social and cultural factors affect the education, training and career development of graduates of higher education in Japan and the Netherlands. The aim of this book is to explore how Dutch and Japanese graduates choose and develop their careers in reference to the above-mentioned challenges. It is based on a unique data set consisting of surveys held among graduates three and eight years after leaving higher education.

Service learning brings together students, academics and the community whereby all become teaching resources, problem solvers and partners. In addition to enhancing academic and real-world learning, the overall purpose of service learning is to instil in students a sense of civic engagement and responsibility and work towards positive social change within society. Embedding Service Learning in European Higher Education promotes service learning as a pedagogical approach that develops civic engagement within higher education. It both describes and assesses the most recent developments and contextual positioning of service learning in European higher education and considers if and how the pedagogy is responding to European Union policy and the strategy of higher education institutions and towards engagement with broader societal issues. With case studies from 12 universities across Europe, this book draws on existing practice, shares knowledge and develops best practice to provide conceptual and practical tools for teaching, researching and practising service learning. This book: exposes service learning as a key approach in terms of embedding a culture of political and civic literacy within higher education; considers service learning in Europe, an area of growing research in service learning practice; explores the issue of university social responsibility; presents chapters from leaders in the service learning movement at a national and international level. Practical and engaging, Embedding Service Learning in European Higher Education is a fascinating read for anyone working in service learning as well as those working at universities with an interest in social and civic engagement and institutional reform.