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This study explores whether the plans of older workers on the cusp of retirement are in line with the active ageing (AA) agenda set by policy makers in Europe. The study was carried out in Italy, England, and the United States (US). A total of 133 older workers who planned to retire within the next 10-12 months were interviewed (55 in England, 40 in Italy and 38 in the US) between May 2014 and early 2015 using common semi-structured questions. Active Ageing Index (AAI) dimensions were used to gauge the orientation of older people toward their retirement. The results of the study suggest that, with some differences, retirement plans of interviewees were substantially consistent with the active ageing perspective. However, some challenges were highlighted, including the need for governments to do more to promote genuine freedom of choice in relation to leaving the labour market, and to provide greater support for informal family carers. Findings also pointed to the need to measure AA in connection with individual wellbeing, e.g. by including indicators of leisure activities and by considering the re-weighting of employment and informal care dimensions.Companies could also provide more support during the retirement transition, with opportunities for maintained social connection with former colleagues, and help in making and fulfilling retirement plans.

The retirement transition can potentially establish positive health behaviors, but interventions need careful targeting to maximize their benefit. Further research is required to explore how far intentions translate into practice and the barriers and facilitators to doing so.

A cross-cultural study of psychological differentiation of Canadian and Pakistani hgh school students was undertaken to examine the nature of psychologcal differentiation in relation to differences in age/grade, gender, and academic programs. The study involved 707 Canadian students from grades 6.8, 10, and 12; and 349 Palustani students from grades 8,9, 10, and 12. The Group Embedded Figures Test was employed as a measure of the field-dependence-independence cogrutive style. Analyses of data included two-way and three-way analyses of variance to determine the effects of grade, gender, and academic program upon GEFT scores. Differences in psychological differentiation between hgh school students in the two cultures were discussed in terms of Berry's ecc-cultural model. While many recent writings (Guilford 1980;Messick 1982; Witlun et al. 1977) have focused on the nature and implications of cognitive styles in educational settings, others (Berry 1976;Gamble and Ginsberg 1981;Van Leeuwen 1978; Witkin and Berry 1975) have examined cognitive styles as part of a larger dimension of psychologcal differentiation from the cross-cultural perspective. The eco-cultural model (Berry 1976; Witkin and Berry 1975) in particular highlights the role of antecedent factors such as ecology, social pressure, socialization, and possibly biology in the psychological differentiation of people across cultures. The present study was an attempt to shed some light on the nature of psychological differentiation of Canadian and Palustani high school students.Requests for repnnts should be sent to

Introduction In July 2008 the UK government published,``No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility'' (DWP, 2008a), a consultation document proposing changes to the welfare system, later finalised in the white paper published later that year (DWP, 2008b). In addition to committing greater investment to deal with the higher number of benefit claimants as a result of the current recession, reforms also included increasing conditionality' for benefit recipientsöincluding plans for the long-term unemployed tò work for their benefit'öas well as greater integration of training and skills provision into employment programmes. This continues the trend set by previous policies which have increased the conditions placed upon benefit claimants in order to promote the idea of individual responsibility for employability. Alongside this, there has been a growing emphasis on encouraging sustainable employment through retraining, reskilling, and measures to encourage work`advancement'. In this paper we consider the responses to this agenda of a group of long-term unemployed menöthose destined to work for their benefits in current government plans. These are men facing a range of labour market disadvantages, including low education levels, lack of or outdated skills, poor employment records, health problems, a lack of suitable jobs, and employer prejudices regarding age and work history (Miller et al, 2008). In today's postindustrial economy their prospects are unpromising. We draw on qualitative data from an evaluation of the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration, a labour market programme recently trialled in

At MDRC, our thanks go to James Riccio, Gayle Hamilton, Cynthia Miller, and Margaret Bald, who provided insightful comments on previous drafts of the report. Thanks also to Jared Smith for his work on data management and programming, to Nefra Croom for her programming efforts, to Dan Schlaff for coding support, to Diane Singer and Stephanie Cowell for production and to Margaret Bald for editing the report. Sandra Vegeris is a Senior Research Fellow at PSI. She has contributed to research throughout the life of the UK ERA evaluation. Her interests include labour market disadvantage, child poverty, community engagement, older people policy and mixed-methods approaches to policy and evaluation research.

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The objectives of this review were to assess the quality of articles published in JES, to find out whether or not JES is perceived to occupy a distinct niche among the quantitative journals that serve educational research, and to obtain suggestions for improvement. These objectives were addressed by one or another of the five components to the review: an assessment by experts, a questionnaire survey, a citation study, a content analysis of the articles in selected volumes of JES, and a study of keywords. The accumulated evidence indicates that JES is seen to publish good quality articles that make original contributions to knowledge. The questionable relevance of some articles to the study of education and the emphasis in some articles on measurement issues perhaps reflects the fact that the niche occupied by JES is not wholly congruent with the objective stated on the journal’s boilerplate. Suggestions are offered for ways of increasing the number of appropriate articles and increasing circulation.