The occupational group of ordained ministers is currently facing two types of change: the role of religion in Western societies is transforming, and the boundaryless work culture is expanding even further. As the profession is becoming more demanding, leaving clergy has become a worldwide problem across denominations. Churches are therefore increasingly applying psychological assessments to screen their applicants for ministry. Surprisingly, no studies have yet looked into the connections of these assessment results and later job-person fit: eventual ordination, early-career turnover and commitment, or earlycareer job performance and job satisfaction. In this study, personality metatraits (stability and plasticity), general mental ability, and social & attributional strategies were assessed for 785 persons heading for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland during 2006-2010. In a follow-up in 2012 (n=314, 40%), career mobility and career adaptation were inspected. The results indicate that the most influential feature is the determination of the applicant. Other aspects related to a successful career pattern were stability and absence of pessimistic strategies. The study confirms that personality metatraits are an applicable approach in selection assessment. Overall, the study provides an outlook on the entry stage recruitment to a vocational religious occupation in the boundaryless age of work.
Universities are expected to encourage the education of the active citizen, and thus provide students with the skills associated with civic competencies. In addition, students need to acquire working life skills to navigate their employment in increasingly boundary-less work cultures. This chapter evaluates the potential of service learning in fostering these skills in higher education. We provide a review of research literature on the topic and provide an example from one university course at the University of Helsinki in 2017. From this basis, the potential of service learning in fostering working life and civic skills is analysed and discussed.Contemporary society is increasingly facing global, multi-dimensional challenges such as climate change or the humanitarian crises and conflicts resulting in waves of migrants around the world. These challenges require an awareness of belonging to a common social and cultural space, and values that are directed towards constructive solutions instead of simplified, populist, or even violent processes. Such pro-social, democratic values, motivation, and engagement are in this article referred to as civic competencies. The Council of Europe has highlighted civic competencies as competencies, whereby individuals need to participate actively in a democratic context, and they also have adopted the 'framework of democratic citizenship' Competences for democratic culture, 2016). This framework contains a commitment to democratic legislation and human rights, respect towards cultural diversity and equality of all citizens as well as willingness to express one's own opinions and take other opinions into account. (Competences for democratic culture, 2016) Such civic values,
Psychological assessments are nowadays often used when recruiting new pastors in churches. However, no studies have yet examined how the results from these assessments are used when deciding on ordination. It is not known how the candidates evaluate their result and how it impacts their career process, or how bishops use the assessment results in their evaluation of a candidate. The present study inspected these aspects in the context of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. A quantitative survey was sent to those who had participated in the psychological assessment during 2006-2010, and bishops and diocesan chapter members received an electronic survey containing open-ended questions. Both parties considered the assessments important, although they did not use the results themselves. According to Self-Determination Theory, this reluctance to use standardised selection practices can be explained as lack of perceived autonomy.
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