How are adult skills acquired? Three comparative essays based on PIAAC
- Autores: Rosario Scandurra
- Directores de la Tesis: Elisabet Almeda Samaranch (dir. tes.), Jorge Calero Martínez (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat de Barcelona ( España ) en 2016
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Xavier Bonal i Sarró (presid.), Alvaro Choi de Mendizábal (secret.), Stefano Boffo (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Sociología
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: Dipòsit Digital de la UB TDX
- Resumen
This thesis is composed of three chapters. The first research study is, “A comparative analysis of skills formation.” It aims at providing an overview of how OECD countries differ in the configuration of skills competences. It explores whether there are any similarities or divergences between OECD countries and how life course factors contribute to the diverging education and training models. A decomposition analysis using Shapley rule was applied and then, the results were clustered. Findings show diverging models of skills formation which are compatible with the literature of education and training models.
The second research study, “An integral model of adult skills in OECD countries” examines whether it is possible to identify a model of adult skills acquisition which is common for the OECD countries. Additionally, it estimates how diverse life course factors intervene in the formation of adult skills. Results provide an overall model of configuration of skills acquisition and show how unequal access to education affects skills at a later stage in life. Moreover, skills practices in the workplace and in daily life have a consistent impact on skills.
The third study, “How different education and training systems configure adult skills? A comparative analysis of five OECD countries using structural equation modelling” analyses whether there are differences between diverse education and training models in the acquisition of adult skills. Based on the framework of the second study, this work delves deeper into the differences between some country specific models’, which are defined in the comparative education literature as a diverging type of skills formation.
These three pieces of research are closely connected and might be considered in aggregate terms as they provide an overall picture of the research objective. The points of connections are basically three: a) the analysis of a common measure of educational outcomes; b) an assessment of a group of countries (e.g. OECD); c) a special attention to intergenerational inequality transmission and to diverse sources of inequality; d) the identification of the internal consistencies and divergences between the group of countries analysed in the first and third studies.
The implications of this research are two-fold. First, it illustrates with different statistical techniques the configuration of adult skills by using a newly implemented dataset. Second, it proposes an integral theoretical model of adult skills acquisition, providing evidence on the impact of diverse life-course factors.
