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Purpose – Research shows that new graduates of Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) programs often fail to understand and appreciate the connection between library science theory and practice. In other fields, culminating experiences often serve the function of combining theory and praxis for students. While notably different from the current structure of the MLIS curriculum, other disciplines provide a model for how the culminating experience component of a degree program can be facilitated successfully. This chapter examines the culminating experiences of other fields in order to provide guidance for how American Library Association-accredited MLIS programs could adopt or integrate similar programs.

Approach – The study explores four culminating experiences commonly used in other fields: fieldwork, apprenticeships and residencies, service-learning, and creative exhibitions. For each culminating experience, recommendations for potential applications to MLIS curricula are provided.

Findings – Culminating MLIS experiences that bring students into the communities they will serve – for example, fieldwork, residencies, and service-learning – may better prepare them for the new world they will face as LIS professionals and may better introduce them to the experiences of their patrons. Exploration of these alternative culminating experiences may help students bridge the gap between theory and practice during and beyond their MLIS degree programs.

Originality/Value – A thorough literature review revealed no similar examination of culminating experiences in MLIS programs’ curricula in particular. Combined with other studies that make recommendations for updating the MLIS curriculum, this exploratory study can serve as a useful resource for MLIS programs hoping to redesign their curricula.

How do institutional settings and their embedded policy principles affect gender-typed enrolment in educational programmes? Based on gender-sensitive theories on career choice, we hypothesised that gender segregation in education is higher with a wider range of offers of vocational programmes. By analysing youth survey and panel data, we tested this assumption for Germany, Norway and Canada, three countries whose educational systems represent a different mix of academic, vocational and universalistic education principles. We found that vocational programmes are considerably more gender-segregated than are academic (e.g. university) programmes. Men, more so than women, can avoid gender-typed programmes by passing on to a university education. This in turn means that as long as their secondary school achievement does not allow for a higher education career, they have a higher likelihood of being allocated to male-typed programmes in the vocational education and training (VET) system. In addition, social background and the age at which students have to choose educational offers impact on the transition to gendered educational programmes. Overall, gender segregation in education is highest in Germany and the lowest in Canada. We interpret the differences between these countries with respect to the constellations of educational principles and policies in the respective countries.

Teachers leave the profession for various reasons, such as inadequate pay, work demands, and lack of support from their administrative leaders. Hargreaves (2004) attributed the growing teacher burnout phenomenon to accountability pressures in the forms of high-stakes testing and increasing work demands. This stress can result in teacher's low self-efficacy and the perception of workplace alienation. Seyfarth (2008) described an alienated teacher with the “feeling that one's work is meaningless and that one is powerless to bring about change” (p. 198). Administrative leadership can further inhibit a teacher's professional growth by failing to meet the teacher's needs with respect to instructional coaching and lacking opportunities for professional self-reflection.

Generation A individuals with Asperger's (high-functioning autism) might increase their chance that their skills fit with job requirements (person-job fit) by considering various nonacademic and popular lists of Asperger's-friendly jobs. Asperger's “celebrity” and professor Temple Grandin's list of 51 jobs was investigated using Asperger's-related job characteristics from the US Department of Labor's O*NET job description database. Using a factor analysis resulting in six Asperger's-related job characteristics, social orientation was the only factor that significantly predicted Grandin's judgment of what is an Asperger's-related job based on a binomial logistic regression analysis. Another analysis using O*NET data showed a wide variety of jobs that were most and least associated with each of the six factors. Study limitations and future research follow the analyses.

This case study of Kano, Nigeria, examines changes over the past four decades in an education and labor market relationship that has evolved since the 10th century. We first offer an analysis of the historical origins of Kano’s current three-layered segmented labor market and its corresponding three distinct, but increasingly overlapping, educational pathways. We then compare the labor market entry pathways reported in 1974 and 1992 by two cohorts of young adult males, the respondents having first been surveyed as 17-year-olds in 1965 and 1979.

Despite higher levels of modern secular education in 1992 for males in all occupational destinations, apprenticeship participation was significantly lower in 1992 only for young men who entered the professional and clerical positions that dominate Kano’s public sector. Islamic training remained universal, and in fact increased significantly in years of participation across all occupational destinations. We next show that the jointly educated young men who were part of the first, more traditional sector of the labor market, were less seriously impacted in their earnings by Nigeria’s turbulent end-of-the-century economy. Finally, we discuss the possible advantages of an apprenticeship system coupled to modern secular education for moderating social inequality and stabilizing economic development in sub-Saharan Africa and other less-developed regions.

Since 2013 northern Iraq, especially Kurdistan regional province, has seen a constant influx of refugees and internally displaced people (IDP) from Syria, Mosul and the mountains of Sinjar. Number of refugee camps has grown over the years. Over 2.2 million displaced Iraqis are living in private dwellings in host communities, over 700,000 with host families, and nearly 1.5 million in rented accommodation, and mostly in 47 camps across the region. The province is facing additional pressure on public services, including health, education, and infrastructure causing hardship for both communities and individuals, who must cope with uncertain economic and social conditions while striving to improve the situation and provide for their families. The magnitude of the problem has compelled countries and provinces shielding the IDPs to collaborate with wider range of partners in a growing recognition of the imperative and immediate need, both humanitarian and self-development. The authors of this chapter have highlighted certain case studies with whom they have been directly connected to. The effort was to use push factors and work toward capacity building of the IDPs and thereby work toward a self-reliant and self-sufficient livelihood.