A lack of career opportunities and long spells of temporary employment are seen as major problems in science, and are thought to decrease the attractiveness of the scientific profession. In... Show more A lack of career opportunities and long spells of temporary employment are seen as major problems in science, and are thought to decrease the attractiveness of the scientific profession. In the long run, this could hurt countries’ ability to conduct high-quality research and innovation. This dissertation examines the origin and effects of the preponderance of junior and temporary jobs in science. The research described in the dissertation shows how career prospects and employment conditions have changed in Germany since the emergence of the research university, and how publications careers of PhD graduates have changed in the United States since the 1950s. Furthermore, the dissertation describes how career prospects and employment conditions affect the job choice of recent PhD graduates. Women are more negative about career prospects and employment conditions in science and are therefore more affected by these issues when choosing a job. In addition, the dissertation describes how student status of PhD candidates limits the availability of material research infrastructure. Finally, the research in the dissertation shows that temporary employment decreases job satisfaction and affects the personal life of PhD graduates. Show less
Mokhles, M.M.; Siregar, S.; Versteegh, M.I.M.; Noyez, L.; Putte, B. van; Vonk, A.B.A.; ... ; Registry Comm Netherlands Assoc 2016
This research elucidates various responses of the Yao to the social consequences of civilizing projects historically implemented by a powerful ‘Other’ to them, that is, the successive... Show more This research elucidates various responses of the Yao to the social consequences of civilizing projects historically implemented by a powerful ‘Other’ to them, that is, the successive Chinese imperial and post-imperial states. The Yao are one of the 56 nationalities in today’s China. The research reveals that the Yao’s reactions to the state’s civilizing force are gendered, as manifested in a religious domain. The research shows that Yao men embrace the power of ‘otherness’ that an imperial Daoist cosmology and manuscripts in Chinese entail, while Yao women sustain indigenous culture and belief by ‘singing’. A textual analysis of the probable products of female singing—narratives about goddesses of fertility—points to two types of Yao reaction in the position of women. On the one hand, the narratives embody a symbolic ‘space of negotiation’ in which Yao struggle to claim their agency, but the natural power of female fertility that symbolizes the layer of indigenous culture and belief is eventually domesticated. On the other hand, the narratives convey Yao’s criticisms of the social consequences of imperial Chinese state governance, imposed in the form of patrilineal ideology in marriage and kinship, showing also how different women sought their escape from that. Show less
Taking a series of popular jokes about fictitious “anti-societies” as its point of departure, this article explores the responses to the transformation of reform in the decade between 1825 and 1835... Show moreTaking a series of popular jokes about fictitious “anti-societies” as its point of departure, this article explores the responses to the transformation of reform in the decade between 1825 and 1835 and places them in the context of social and political change brought about by Jacksonian democracy. Rooted in the tradition of the moral reform society, through specialization of its aims, the anti-society seemed to become a democratic pendant of older reform societies and was thought to play a more divisive role in local communities. Critics denounced the new societies for their prescriptive character, the prominent role women played, and the “spirit of opposition” they triggered. Contemporaries increasingly understood the evolution of reform culture from the relatively harmonious religious and moral reform societies of the Benevolent Empire of the first quarter of the 19th century to the oppositional and highly contested organizations of radical antislavery and temperance of the 1830s as a serious threat to the social order and the future of the United States. Using the Benign Violation Theory of Humor, this article argues that the American reaction to anti-societies suggests that while they were broadly perceived as a threat to the social order from the late 1820s on, this threat was at first understood to be benign, and thus could be laughed off, while from 1833 on, anti-societies were increasingly regarded as a destructive force, and provoked substantial fears that could justify violent responses as an alternative way to reinforce the “normal” order of things. Show less
