Educational Pathways and Skills: Past, Present and Future Educational Pathways and Skills: Past, Present and Future Alison Cathles
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Educational Pathways and Skills: Past, Present and Future and Skills: Past, Educational Pathways Educational Pathways and Skills: Past, Present and Future Alison Cathles 223 UNU MERIT MGS o G Alison Cathles 2019 Alison Cathles Cover v0.indd 1-3 29-3-2019 09:45:29 Educational Pathways and Skills: Past, Present, and Future DISSERTATION to obtain the degree of Doctor at the Maastricht University, on the authority of the Rector Magnificus Prof. Dr. Rianne M. Letschert, in accordance with the decision of the Board of Deans, to be defended in public on Wednesday, 17 April 2019, at 14:00 hours by Alison Cathles Author: Alison Cathles Illustration cover: Melanie Waidler Layout and printing: Proefschriftmaken ISBN: 978-94-6380-434-9 Educational Pathways and Skills: Past, Present, and Future by Alison Cathles Supervisors Prof. Dr. Jo Ritzen (Promoter) Prof. Dr. Adam Szirmai Assessment Committee Prof. Dr. Bart Verspagen (Chair) Dr. Elena Arias Ortiz (Education Specialist, IDB) Prof. Dr. Joop Hartog (Emeritus Professor of Economics at Amsterdam University) Prof. Dr. Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink Prof. Dr. Rolf van der Velden Dr. Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin (Senior Analyst, OECD) Acknowledgements The path that led to and through my PhD was a non-linear one. Along my path I was influenced by a series of people to whom I am forever grateful. My two supervisors formed an excellent team. Prof. Jo Ritzen, my promoter, is someone who I believe is an academic entrepreneur. He is enthusiastically supportive of new ideas, but always seems to have a back-up card to play if an idea does not blossom according to expectation. He has a positive entrepreneurial spirit which is combined with high standards. When drafts did not meet these standards, he was unequivocally the steward of the thesis. However challenging it may have been at the time, I am very grateful to Prof. Jo Ritzen for driving me to improve this dissertation. Prof. Eddy Szirmai is someone who I believe has a secret power of thesis-omnipotence. In the early and middle days of my time at UNU-MERIT, he somehow always stopped by my office or asked me to meet him, when he sensed things were stalled and not moving forward as they should be. He has a knack for getting to the root of the problem. He was patiently persistent in helping me figure out how I could surmount the obstacle, so I could move on to the next step. His attention to detail and his inclination toward systematic approaches were extremely useful in guiding me through different parts of the thesis. His dedication to his students and to the people who are fortunate enough to work with him is unassailable. I am lucky and thankful to have had two excellent supervisors guiding my PhD. I would also like to thank the members of my reading/assessment committee: Prof. Bart Verspagen, Prof. Joop Hartog, Dr. Elena Arias Ortiz, Prof. Rolf van der Velden, Prof. Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink and Dr. Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin. I admire the many accomplishments each of you has. Imagining the numerous tasks that must await you every day, I am deeply appreciative of the time you took to read my thesis, comment on and approve it! UNU-MERIT is a home away from home for many of the PhD students and the administrative staff at UNU-MERIT are truly wonderful people who make us feel welcomed and supported. Thank you to Marc, Liesbeth, and Susan for doing everything you do to keep the institute running and still smiling and making time for a friendly conversation at the coffee corner or end-of-year party. Thank you to Herman and Mourik for being the best IT team I have ever encountered and for always addressing even the smallest issues with gracious expedience. Thank you to Ad for being willing to hunt down books such as UNESCO’s 1950 World Survey of Education that made the first part of my thesis much more meaningful. Thank you to student affairs: Danny, Kim, Muriël, Janneke for facilitating supervision and instruction of MPP students. Thank you to Monique for a big smile on a day when I needed one. Thank you to Ingrid, Ingeborg, Mieke, Marlies, and Mitie for being great companions on the ground floor. Thank you to Sueli, Diego, and Howard for involving and highlighting PhD fellows in the institute’s communication with the rest of the world. It may be impossible for each of you to know just how much your friendliness can uplift a person’s spirits during thesis doldrums. I personally have memorable smile from each of you and I have seen many other fellows’ spirits uplifted by you too. Eveline, I’m not the first and I’ll not be the last to emphasize my thanks to you in particular. If we did a text mining exercise of the acknowledgements sections of all the institute’s theses, I am quite sure that your name would come out huge and in the center - like the THANK YOU in the last slide of our presentation templates. And Eveline, you deserve every thanks you get. Like many before me, I have benefited from your counsel. You always made time for me. Your selfless support during all my years in Maastricht means a lot to me. A special thanks to Robin for his advice over the years. Thank you to Neil, Fred Gault, Pierre Mohnen, Rene Belderbos, Carlo, Anthony Arundel, Julieta, Noi, Tom van Veen, Serdar, Micheline, Lonneke, Michiko, Mindel, Bruno, Fransizka, Rene Kemp, Melissa, Shyama, Michaella, Maty, Zina, Kirsten Haaland, Nyasha, Lili, Thomas Ziesemer, and Hampton for (in no particular order) imparting wisdom, trusting me with responsibility, and/or facilitating or discussing the value of physical exercise and healthy habits. “Just walk beside me and be my friend” attributed to Albert Camus. Many friends have walked beside me and they (collectively and individually) have made my years in Maastricht (and pre-Maastricht) more successful. Here I invoke Emerson’s definition of success, to which I subscribe. With gratitude, I thank the following people: For barbeques, dinners and laughter, Circo: Agustín, Andi, Carmen, Elisa, Fernando, Jenny W., Juanca, Julieta, Mary, Santana and Simone. For being risk takers and consuming my ‘innovative’ recipes, WLC: Andrea F., Bea, Danilo, Elisa, Emanuelle, Giacomo, Jenny, Iulia, JuanK., Mary, Michelle, Paula N., Shivani, Simone and Tobias. For memorable moments over the Maastricht years: Alejandro, Andres, Charlotte G., Chen, Cheng, Clotilde, Daniel O., Davina, Emmanuel M., Francesca G., Francesca R., François, Gintare, Giorgio, Hibret, Iman H., Iman R., Jennifer T., Josy, Julien, Katrin, Nasser, Ortrun, Patima, Richard, Sergio, Sheng, Solomon, Tatevik and Victor. For being wonderful Bosscherweg neighbors: Petra and Coen, Jeroen and Laura, Marijn and Erik, Jan and Irma and the rest. And for being my yoga teachers: Lisalotte and her talented Saturday class and Aliana. For living with me in Maastricht: Baer, Erika, and especially Elisa and Mary. For teaching me so many things, a profound thank you to my batch: Ayla, Charlotte K., Elisa, Elise, Elvis, Ibrahima, Iulia, Hassen, Jenny W., Mary, Mira, Mueid, Nana, Tamer and Youssef. My life would not be what it is without my great companions from my pre-Maastricht days: my DC friends, my IDB friends and colleagues, my CIPA and Bolivia friends, my Ohio experiences, my Boston friends, i-to-i, my Portlandia adventurers, my CC girls, and my most beloved Ithaca friends. Thank you for making this world an inhabited garden. If I trace my steps backwards, I can identify a few key turns in my path that serendipitously led me to where I am now. When Ionela took a gamble and hired me as the Job Developer at the YMCA International Learning Center, it was because I ‘smiled a lot’ during my interview. My job was to help people who were usually more than twice my age and recently laid off from manufacturing companies find new jobs in the Boston area. They needed to reskill and find employment in an unforgiving economic slump. I found jobs for at least three of our students at the Dunkin’ Donuts down the street from our school; the pay was worse, the hours were worse, and work was worse than their previous jobs. But to find a job at all, was considerably better than not finding one. My experience with these students (some more successful), who trusted me to help them navigate re-employment, engrained in me images and real life stories to go along with dry terms like ‘displaced workers’ and the ‘difference between manufacturing and services’. Collectively these students taught me that it’s never too late to learn new skills for a changed workplace, and that a positive attitude and persistence are crucial to adaptation. If I had never moved to Ohio, I never would have worked for David Harrington. Sharing an office with a brilliant economist who relies on you for data collection is the rarest of fortunes. During this ‘apprenticeship’ which was better than any education I could have paid for, David taught me the foundations of economics and the excel skills that I have relied upon ever since. It is at the IDB that I began to understand innovation. I also began to understand how difficult it is to facilitate innovation. The friendships I formed over my working years and the admiration I have for my colleagues and their pursuit of a better world has shaped my approach to the research in this thesis and my understanding of its importance. Something that has been on my mind is the role of extracurricular activities in educational formation.