Career barriers influencing career success: A focus on academics’ perceptions and experiences

Purpose – Few research has addressed the factors that undermine people’s subjective perceptions of career success. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to further illuminate the issue of career barriers in perceptions of career success for a specific group of professionals: academics. Design/methodology/approach – This study adopts an interpretative-social constructionist methodology. Complementarily, it was employed a phenomenological method in data gathering and analysis – with the use of in-depth interviews and a theme analysis. The research was undertaken with a group of 87 Portuguese academics of both sexes and in different stages of their academic careers. Findings – The findings pinpoint the existence of multi-level barriers encountered by the academics when trying to succeed in their careers. The interviewees mentioned particularly the organizational-professional career barriers pertaining to three general themes: poor collegiality and workplace relationships; the lack of organizational support and employment precariousness; and the career progression standards and expectations. At the individual life cycle level the interviewees referred to the theme of finding balance; at the same time, the gender structure was also a theme mentioned as an important career barrier in career success, particularly by the women interviewed. Research limitations/implications – One of the limitations of this research is related to the impossibility of generalizability of its findings for the general population. Nevertheless, the researcher provides enough detail that grants the reader with the ability to judge of its similarity to other research contexts. Practical implications – This research highlights the role played by distinct career barriers for a specific professional group: academics. This has implications for higher education policy-makers and for human resources managers in higher education institutions. Originality/value – The current study extends the literature on career success by offering detailed anecdotal evidence on how negative work experiences might hinder career success. This research shows that to understand career barriers to success it is useful to consider multi-level factors: organizational-level factors (e.g. poor collegiality and workplace relationships); individual-level factors (e.g. life-cycle factors such as age/career stage); and structural-level factors (e.g. gender).

Inbreeding levels in Northeast Brazil: strategies for the prospecting of new genetic disorders

A new autosomal recessive genetic condition, the SPOAN syndrome (an acronym for spastic paraplegia, optic atrophy and neuropathy syndrome), was recently discovered in an isolated region of the State of Rio Grande do Norte in Northeast Brazil, in a population that was identified by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) as belonging to the Brazilian communities with the highest rates of "deficiencies" (Neri, 2003), a term used to describe diseases, malformations, and handicaps in general. This prompted us to conduct a study of consanguinity levels in five of its municipal districts by directly interviewing their inhabitants. Information on 7,639 couples (corresponding to about 40% of the whole population of the studied districts) was obtained. The research disclosed the existence of very high frequencies of consanguineous marriages, which varied from about 9% to 32%, suggesting the presence of a direct association between genetic diseases such as the SPOAN syndrome, genetic drift and inbreeding levels. This fact calls for the introduction of educational programs for the local populations, as well as for further studies aiming to identify and characterize other genetic conditions. Epidemiological strategies developed to collect inbreeding data, with the collaboration of health systems available in the region, might be very successful in the prospecting of genetic disorders.

What the reasons for no inbreeding and high genetic diversity of the neotropical fig tree Ficus arpazusa ?

Ficus arpazusa Casaretto is a fig tree native to the Atlantic Rain Forest sensu lato. High levels of genetic diversity and no inbreeding were observed in Ficus arpazusa. This genetic pattern is due to the action of its pollinator, Pegoscapus sp., which disperses pollen an estimated distance of 5.6 km, and of Ficus arpazusa`s mating system which, in the study area, is allogamous. This study highlights the importance of adding both ecological and genetic data into population studies, allowing a better understanding of evolutionary processes and in turn increasing the efficacy of forest management and revegetation projects, as well as species conservation.

Formation Of The Maritime Labor Force In Brazil: Culture And Daily Life, Tradition And Resistance (1808-1850).

Formation Of The Maritime Labor Force In Brazil: Culture And Daily Life, Tradition And Resistance (1808-1850). Since the 16(th) Century, Brazil has played a major role in the rise of a new economical and social order, in which ships represented a space of struggle and contradictions among rulers, captains and sailors. This article will study the proletarization process that transformed Indians, small farmers, free and slave black people in maritime labor force in Brazil during the first half of 19(th) century.

Mating behavior of Trissolcus basalis (Wollaston) (Hymenoptera : Scelionidae): Potential for outbreeding in a predominantly inbreeding species

The mating behavior of the quasi-gregarious egg parasitoid Trissolcus basalis (Wollaston) was investigated under field conditions. Trissolcus basalis has female-biased sex ratios and is a protandrous species, with males emerging 1-2 days before females. Males competed aggressively for control of the egg mass, with one male assuming dominance and control of the egg mass, although changes in dominance occurred at least once on each egg mass observed. Typical mating behavior involved the dominant male mating his sisters immediately upon their emergence from the egg mass. These behaviors are characteristic of an inbreeding species that manifests local mate competition. However, several aspects of the mating behavior of T. basalis are inconsistent with that of an inbreeding species. Over 18% of emerging females were not mated by the dominant male upon emergence, 13% of females were not observed to be mated at all and may have left their natal site as virgins, 25% of females were mated multiple times and sometimes by multiple males, females remained near the natal site for up to several hours after emergence before emigrating, and males dispersed away from the natal site during female emergence. Trissolcus basalis may be a predominantly inbreeding species but its emergence and mating behavior suggest that low-frequency outbreeding is also likely to occur.

The public performance : impact to music learning in conservatoire tradition

Paper presented at the Conference “The Reflective Conservatoire – 2nd International Conference: Building Connections”. Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Barbican Conference Centre, London. 28 February – 3 March 2009

The most Portuguese village in Portugal: tradition in the age of its technical reproducibility

Ethnographic film is often associated with many European countries’ past as colonial powers and the way these countries used film to depict African, American and Asian territories and populations they once ruled. However, ethnographic film also has a European tradition of its own, closely interlaced with the history of ethnography and anthropology as autonomous sciences and with the desire of scholars to represent local, regional and national cultural identities. This paper presents a Portuguese attempt of this sort dating from 1938, when the authoritarian regime organized a national contest to determine which would be Portugal’s most “authentic” village – something other European countries also did. As part of this metonymic contribution to the construction of Portugal’s national identity as an agrarian utopia, a short documentary was shot, sponsored by the same official propaganda office that had organized the contest. In this film, the viewer’s gaze is made to coincide with the one of the national jury visiting the final selection of 12 villages and to whose benefit local scholars had organized all sorts of colourful peasant traditions hoping to cause the strongest impression. The film makes a strong case for the importance of ethnographic film as a relevant instance not only of the iteration of existing European national cultures, but also of the construction of so many of Europe’s national identities and traditions. Suffice to say that even today the village of “Monsanto”, which won the 1938 contest, is still referred to as “Portugal’s most Portuguese village”.

Recensão: Michelangelo Sabatino, "Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy"

Recensão de: Michelangelo Sabatino, "Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy", Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011