Varia n° 145
Being competent” or “having the skills”… Both expressions could be used but both of them have many meanings. People can have one or several skills. The term “skills” has also different interpretations : it could mean knowledge, know-how or soft-skills. It could be associated with a collective dimension, a non-academic one, or even with a kind of entrepreneurship spirit. This new Formation Emploi try to get a better understanding of the skills notion .
Socially and spatially distinguished academic trajectories of students in Paris urban area
Leïla Frouillou et Léonard Moulin
Intersecting quantitative analysis by optimal matching (sequencing) with multiple qualitative interviews with students in Law or AES (French academic courses including social administration and mainly targeting professional and technological students) in and around Paris, this article shows how academic courses vary according to fields of study and chosen institutions. Typology emphasizes the prevalence of stable courses (unchanging university), whereas scholar-escaping tracks are mainly explained according to field of study and geography (Paris/suburban area). Lastly, interacademical courses, which are few, disclose a “positioning insight” on behalf of students who tend to appeal to best universities because of their upscale background.
What does it mean to professionalize? Business schools versus Engineering schools
Francis Guérin et Hédia Zannad
On the basis of different theoretical approaches such as the Projective City or the Convention school and two case studies, this paper shows how engineering and business schools shape their students’ relationship to themselves and to the environment in order to reduce uncertainties concerning employment opportunities. Because the figure and the competencies of engineers and–all the more–managers are fuzzy, engineering and business schools exert efforts to “shape” them in a figure that can be recognized and valorized by private companies.
Gender impact on occupational integration of higher education graduates in four sectors of activity, in Switzerland
Rachel Fasel, Morgane Kuehni et Séverine Rey
Based on a secondary analysis of a panel survey conducted by the Federal Statistical Office on 2008 graduates of Swiss institutions of higher education, this article analyses the gender impact on occupational integration in four sectors of activity in which one gender is under-represented : engineering, architecture, social work, and health. It focuses on employment conditions as well as professional and personal perspectives between masculinized and feminized sectors of activity at one year and five years after graduation. It then analyses gender inequalities from both objective and subjective points of view (working conditions and job satisfaction).
The valorization of innovation skills : the example of the sports educator
Denis Bernardeau Moreau et Matthieu Delalandre
The world of sport, like other professional sectors, doesn’t escape the generalization of the use of skills. These are now at the heart of the definition of professional knowledge in sport. Our intention in this article is to reflect on the skills of sports educators, especially the skills of innovation. The analysis will focus on both the skills prescribed by the standards and those that are really expected by employees and employers. Our approach reports their specificities and evolutions. In this context, the polyvalence, that is to say the fact of being able to ensure a diversity of tasks combining pedagogical face-to-face, administrative tasks or even communication, appears as a condition for the implementation of these innovative skills.
The effects of digitalizing vocational training
Anca Boboc et Jean-Luc Metzger
What are the effects of digitalizing training on employees learning practices ? We analyse here the implementation, in a large company, of a fully digitalized distance training. By mobilizing the A. Sen’s capabilities approach, we show the diversity of relationships that employees develop in conjunction with their training : for example, an abandonment is not always a failure. The results also highlight the intertwining of pedagogical, organizational and collective dimensions in distance learning dynamics. They shed light on the risks of unequal learning among employees in terms of digital training.
When occupational change leads unemployed people to become “novices” again
Murielle Matus
This paper aims to explore the way unemployed people endure "novice" positions when experiencing a career change. It is based on the life stories of people who were previously unemployed and changed occupation. Admittedly, such professional transitions have distinct meaning from insertion process of youth entering the labour market. But the path guided by the search of a new stable situation is paved as well by precarious contracts and the uncertainty about the expected professional stabilisation. The process includes also a phase of formal or informal training to the new activity and a feeling of “start over again”.
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