Rosario Scandurra

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya | UOC

We conduct a systematic literature review of the academic literature on activities organised by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with the aim of improving skills associated with employability and facilitating labour market outcomes. The search resulted in 87 papers followed by an iterative evaluation of their relevance. Papers in the corpus wer...

Open enrolment policies assume that students living in disadvantaged areas can access better schools outside their neighbourhood. However, characteristics of in- dividuals, quality of schooling and neighbourhood characteristics interact in very complex ways to produce heterogeneous patterns of school choice in local educa- tional markets. This arti...

Territorial disparities and youth labour markets have been often considered as separated themes, due to challenges in data availability. Comparative regional or sub-regional research on youth labour market integration (YLMI) have been therefore scarce. In this article, we address this gap by presenting a composite measure of YLMI that covers a wide...

The debate on territorial cohesion and spatial inequality recognises the role and influence different scales have on individuals' opportunities with extended effects especially for young people's life chances. In particular, a regional perspective into territorial disparities of socioeconomic conditions and welfare in Europe provides a more fine-gr...

Patient perspectives on their post-operative health are acknowledged as valuable healthcare outcomes and should be scrupulously considered when designing interventions for patient-centered healthcare. Yet, following the COVID-19 lockdown and in the absence of standardized guidelines on how to best provide virtual chronic care to kidney transplant r...

p>Comparative research on school-to-work transitions mainly focused on country differences, examining the variation in institutional design and its impact on shaping youth labour market outcomes. The field has been dominated by a sort of methodological nationalism assuming nation states as homogeneous objects of comparison, while the territorial va...

We use new survey data from 1,203 households in rural Eastern India to estimate cross-sectional models of overall energy use and embedded emissions. Findings indicate that the primary driver of household energy use is household size and affluence. This is unsurprising and consistent with findings from the engineering literature on energy demand. Ho...

Activation measures have assumed a prominent role within policy perspectives aimed at increasing labour market participation to support welfare sustainability. Most comparative studies on active labour market policies (ALMPs) have been conducted at the national level, although several scholars recently stressed the need to consider more carefully t...

Addressing poor learning outcomes and underachievement is a policy priority in the EU agenda. This chapter sets out to explore learning outcomes by providing a quantitative and comparative assessment on educational (under)achievement of young people in Europe. We consider data from the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Compet...

Research on economic activity in Africa consistently ignores the importance of individuals' linguistic repertoires. We argue that an important contributing factor to the persistence of this lacuna is the lack of visibility of language in the social and economic data that is collected by governments through social surveys. We examine the specific ca...

According to many authors the ranking of institutes and universities of higher education (HE) has provoked dramatic consequences in terms of transforming these institutions into a global market, sending the university prices skyrocketing and generally modifying the landscape of HE. While these measures, developed worldwide by several actors, abound...

In this chapter, we analyse how governance patterns of LLL policies, particularly VET systems, shape youth opportunities in the transition from education to employment in specific regional contexts. In doing so, we resort to institutional analysis, applying a general framework of institutional opportunity structures. We consider specific policies t...

The study examines the effect of multilingual skills on earnings using the World Bank’s STEP Skill Measurement Survey and employing Heckman model. We found that multilingual competence provides an economic return. We also deduced that individuals are highly rewarded if they are proficient in English in addition to a multilingual competence in the...

The study examines the effect of multilingual skills on earnings using the World Bank’s STEP Skill Measurement Survey and employing Heckman model. We found that multilingual competence provides an economic return. We also deduced that individuals are highly rewarded if they are proficient in English in addition to a multilingual competence in the o...

The study examines the effect of multilingual skills on earnings using the World Bank’s STEP Skill Measurement Survey and employing Heckman model. We found that multilingual competence provides an economic return. We also deduced that individuals are highly rewarded if they are proficient in English in addition to a multilingual competence in the o...

Existing quantitative studies use various measurements and methods to examine Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction in the field of education. Yet, most studies either misunderstand the concepts involved or only test part of the theory. This article addresses these gaps by using the ‘structure-disposition-practice’ (SDP) framework to develop a...

A Science Shop acts as a mission-oriented intermediary unit between the scientific sphere and civil society organizations. It seeks to facilitate citizen-driven open science projects that respond to the needs of civil society organizations and which, typically, include students in the work process. We performed a thematic analysis of a systematical...

This paper examines the impact of higher education on youth unemployment. Following the 2008 financial crisis, youth unemployment returned to the fore as a serious concern among policy makers in Europe. A crucial difference from previous recessions is that this time around supply of higher education opportunities was much higher than in the 1980s,...

Comparative research on youth employment has mostly focused on differences between countries or regimes of youth transitions. The territorial differentiation below country level has been less explored, notwithstanding the potential impact on youth-life chances and the territorial cohesion of the European Union. This paper aims at deepening into the...

This article explores cross-country patterns in how conditions relating to family background, education, and the labor market are related to literacy and numeracy skills. It seeks to assess whether these patterns are in agreement with models of skills formation as identified in the political economy literature. The novelty of this article resides i...

Literature on education and training highlights two factors that impinge on the distribution of early leaving (ELET) and exclusion from employment and training (NEET) across EU regions. One of these factors lies in the institutions that regulate the transition from education and training to employment at the national level. Over time, these institu...

This article explores the relationship between school choice, student mobility and school segregation in Barcelona. The case of Barcelona is particularly interesting because the school admissions policy combines a particular design of catchment area with a significant level of choice options. We work on students and school register datasets for the...

p>Existing quantitative studies use various measurements and methods to examine Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction in the field of education, yet, most either misunderstand the conception, or only test part of the theory. This article addresses these gaps by using the "Structure-Disposition-Practice" framework to picture an integrated model...

p>Existing quantitative studies use various measurements and methods to examine Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction in the field of education, yet, most either misunderstand the conception, or only test part of the theory. This article addresses these gaps by using the "Structure-Disposition-Practice" framework to picture an integrated model...

Countries’ institutional configurations and structural characteristics play an important role in shaping transitions from school to work. Recent empirical evidence shows significant regional and territorial differences in youth unemployment and labor market participation. Along this research strand, we argue in favor of a place-sensitive approach t...

This chapter uses harmonized quantitative regional data on the mediating role of LLL policies in the configuration of individuals living conditions. We focus our attention on four indicators: youth unemployment, tertiary education enrolment, early school leavers and NEET rates. To analyse the determinants of the contextual living conditions we fit...

This comprehensive collection discusses topical issues essential to both scholarship and policy making in the realm of Lifelong Learning policies and how far they succeed in supporting young people across their life courses, rather than one-sidedly fostering human capital for the economy. Examining specific regional and local contexts across Europe...

This article features supplementary data related to the article "How are adult skills configured?" [1]. The tables show the descriptive statistics of the variables included in the model together with the measurement model and the measure of overall model fit. Moreover, the data article describes the procedures used and can be beneficial for the res...

The economic impact of tertiary education is important for regional development, and whilst participation rates have increased, it is unclear whether this has benefited regions equally. The paper analyses a panel of European regions to determine how the geography of tertiary education has evolved between 2002 and 2012. The results show a mixed pict...

This article examines the dynamics of the relationship between residential and school segregation in Barcelona. The analysis explores which educational and non-educational drivers foster the school segregation of foreign students between the city's neighbourhoods. The article also analyses to what extent the particularities of Barcelona's admission...

This article employs a single framework to examine the relationship between family background, education, skills use and direct measures of literacy skills in five countries: the United States, Japan, Germany, Denmark and Spain. Its main aim is to contribute to research on adult skills by undertaking a comprehensive analysis of literacy skills. We...

The purpose of this chapter is to evidence the shortcomings of large-scale assessments and the new shift towards capability oriented indicators. Focusing on the international data on adult skills (PIAAC) and its impact in forging VET (Vocational Education and Training) policies, we assume that current VET systems are confronted with many challenges...

This document presents preliminary findings related to context-specific living conditions of young adults at the regional level. In order to better inform policies, more effort is needed in developing richer context-based information at regional and local level. Identifying existing data gaps and improving the availability of territorial informatio...

The good economic performance and low levels of youth unemployment in countries with dual vocational education and training (VET) systems have provided good arguments to the advocates of dual apprenticeships as a global role model. Many governments in the Global North have started to show great interest in adopting dual apprenticeships in their own...

Research in the social sciences has focused extensively on the relationship between family background, educational attainment and social destination, on the one hand, and on the processes of skills creation and skills use, on the other. This paper brings these two branches of the literature together by examining the correlation between a range of s...

The present work intends to provide a complex picture of both the configuration of skills outcomes and their acquisition with the inclusion of a plurality of social factors in order to consider the lifelong path of skills acquisition. The overall approach of the thesis to the issue of skills acquisition is based, first, on a theoretical and complex...

Background: The analysis of intergenerational transfers can shed light on the interaction between population age structure and welfare. Nevertheless, a thorough examination of this issue requires consideration of both monetary (market) and time (non-market) transfers. Objective: We analyse market and non-market production, consumption, and transfer...

Although it has declined in recent decades, alcohol consumption in Spain is still high compared with other European countries. The consumption pattern shows a converging trend with Europe, with a decrease in consumption of wine and an increase in the consumption of beer. Likewise, mortality related to alcohol consumption has also declined in the la...

Disclaimer: This report reflects the views of its authors and these are not necessarily those of either the European Commission or the Member States.

Although it has declined in recent decades, alcohol consumption in Spain is still high compared with other European countries. The consumption pattern shows a converging trend with Europe, with a decrease in consumption of wine and an increase in the consumption of beer. Likewise, mortality related to alcohol consumption has also declined in the la...