工時不定 衝擊美少數族裔家庭

Unpredictable schedules can be brutal for hourly workers, upending their lives. New research shows that African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities — particularly women — are much more likely to be assigned irregular schedules, and that the harmful repercussions are felt not just by the workers but also their families.

對時薪工人來說，難以預測的工作時間表是殘酷的，搞亂了他們的生活。最新研究顯示，非裔、西語裔跟其他少數族裔美國人，特別是女性，分配到不規律時間表的機率遠高於他人，而身受其害者除工人本人外，還有他們的家人。

The findings come from continuing surveys of 30,000 hourly workers by the Shift Project at the University of California. The researchers compared workers who earned the same wages, including at the same employers, but had different degrees of predictability in their schedules. Those with irregular hours fared worse — and so did their children.

這些發現來自加州大學持續調查3萬名時薪工人的「輪班計畫」，研究人員比較了薪資相同、但工作時間可預測性不同的工人，包括為同一雇主工作者。工時不規律者狀況最差，他們的孩子亦然。

Black and Hispanic women had the worst schedules, and white men had the best, the researchers found. The children of workers with precarious schedules had worse behavior and more inconsistent child care than those whose parents had stable schedules.

研究人員發現，黑人和西語裔女性的時間表最差，白人男性的最好。跟父母有規律時間表的孩童相比，時間表變動大者的子女行為表現較差，托育情形也更不穩定。

“We’re talking about serious deprivation from relentlessly unstable paychecks,” said Daniel Schneider, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who works on the Shift Project with Kristen Harknett, a sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

柏克萊加州大學社會學家丹尼爾．施奈德說：「我們談的是持續性不穩定工資造成的嚴重剝奪。」他跟舊金山加州大學的社會學家克里斯汀．哈奈特共同投人「輪班計畫」的研究。

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a left-leaning policy group, published five papers based on data about various subsets of the 30,000 survey respondents who are part of the Shift Project.

左傾政策團體華盛頓平等成長中心日前發表了五篇論文，悉以取自前述3萬名受訪者各子群體的數據為基礎。

Workers at all income levels are increasingly expected to be on call. At the high end, it can lead to overwork. At the low end, it means getting work schedules at the last minute, varying day to day, and not being guaranteed the number of hours that employees may need to support themselves.

各收入水平的工人都日益被期望能夠隨時待命，這在高收入端可能導致過勞，在低收入端則代表最後一分鐘才拿到工作時間表，每天變動而且無法保證員工獲得可維持生計的工時。

The researchers said the biggest reason for the scheduling differences by race was not because of factors like education or which jobs workers chose, but because managers gave worse shifts to employees who weren’t white.

研究人員說，時間表因種族而有差異，最大原因並非教育等因素，亦非工人所選擇的工作，而是管理者把比較差的班次分給了非白人員工。

Workers of color were 30% more likely than white workers to have had a shift canceled in the last month, for example. They had more schedule instability even when they had the same education, age and other characteristics as white workers, and worked at the same companies.

例如，過去這一個月有色人種工人被取消班次的情況，比白人工人高出三成。即使他們與白人工人教育程度、年齡和其他特點都相同，並且在同一公司上班，他們的時間表還是比較不穩定。

“We think what’s left after parsing out all these other reasons is discrimination,” Schneider said.

施奈德說：「我們認為，在解析了所有其他原因後，剩下的就是歧視。」

Children of parents with precarious schedules were much more likely to exhibit anxiety, guilt or sadness than children of parents with stable schedules, according to survey results from 4,300 workers with children 15 and younger. They were also more likely to argue, destroy things and have tantrums.

針對4300名有15歲以下子女的工人所做調查顯示，父母工作時間表不穩定的孩子，遠比父母時間表穩定的孩子更容易表現出焦慮、內疚或悲傷。他們也更容易爭論、破壞東西跟發脾氣。

Perhaps the biggest stressor for parents with unpredictable schedules was finding child care. Formal, high-quality day cares don’t allow families to drop off children unplanned and rarely operate outside typical business hours.

對於那些時間表難以預測的父母來說，最大的壓力源也許是找到托育服務。正式、高品質的日托服務並不接受家庭臨時送托，且很少在非一般上班時間營業。

美大學新思維：60年的高等教育-可實現？

The 60-year curriculum.

為期60年的課程。

It’s a new way of thinking about higher education. Not as a discrete four years of classroom learning, but stretching over the six decades or so that today’s college students are expected to work over their lifetime.

這是對高等教育的一種新思維，不再是獨立的四年課堂學習，而是延伸60年左右，也就是目前的大學生預計一生之中將會工作的年數。

The 60-year curriculum, which is more an evolving model than a concrete program, is primarily taking shape in the continuing education arm of universities, with the goal of developing a higher education model that is much more nimble. It needs to respond quickly to the reality that employees now change jobs and careers many times and that rapidly evolving industries require them to continually learn new skills.

這種60年的課程與其說是個具體學程，不如說是個正在演進中的模式，主要是在大學的繼續教育部門中形成，目標是發展出一種靈活得多的高等教育模式。它必須對眼下員工經常更換工作和職業，快速演變的產業又需要他們不斷學習新技能的現實迅速做出反應。

“The real driver of the 60-year curriculum is the job market and length of life,” said Huntington D. Lambert, the dean of the division of continuing education and university extension at Harvard University, who is a leader in the movement.

這項運動的領導者之一，哈佛大學繼續教育暨大學延伸院長杭亭頓．藍伯特說：「真正驅動60年課程的力量，來自就業市場和人的壽命。」

The employee of the future, he added, “typically will have a new job every five years, probably for 60 to 80 years, and probably every one of those will require skills you did not learn in college.”

他接著說，未來的員工「很可能在60到80年的時間裡，通常五年就換個工作，而且可能每樣工作都必須具備在大學裡沒有學到的技能」。

While the 60-year curriculum may sound like a new name for lifelong learning, the difference is that it focuses on how an institution can provide formal education courses and programs, said Gary Matkin, dean of the Division of Continuing Education and vice provost of the Division of Career Pathways at the University of California at Irvine.

爾灣加州大學繼續教育學暨職涯路徑學院院長蓋瑞．麥特金表示，雖然60年課程聽起來可能像是終身學習的一個新名稱，但不同之處在於，它側重於一個機構如何提供正規的教育課程跟學程。

“The 60-year curriculum is really the organizing principle behind a lot of different trends in higher education, including the trend of being more accountable and very relevant to the work force needs of a particular region,” said Matkin, who is credited with coining the phrase. “It’s not just inward looking, in terms of students, but also outward looking in how the university can really help the community.”

麥特金說道：「60年課程實際上是高等教育中許多不同趨勢背後的組建原則，包括對特定區域勞力需求更負責任且高度相關的趨勢。它不是只從學生的角度出發向內省視，還向外探看大學如何才能真正幫助社區。」麥特金被公認為這個新名詞的締造者。

It also includes more short courses that emphasize job skills — both hard skills, such as a new computer language or technology, and soft skills, such as learning how to engage in difficult conversations — using real-life problems and case studies.

另外它還納入更多強調工作技能的短期課程，包括新的電腦語言或科技這類硬技能，與學習如何參與困難對話等軟技能，這些課程觸及現實生活中的問題，並做個案研究。

Many continuing education programs already offer some of the elements. For example, the University of Washington Continuum College, which is the continuing education and professional development division of the University of Washington in Seattle, offers 99 certificate programs — most noncredit — as well as 111 graduate degree programs.

許多繼續教育學程已提供前面提到的某些元素，例如華盛頓大學教育拓展學院提供99個證書學程（大多為非學分學程）及111個研究生學位學程。該學院是西雅圖華盛頓大學的繼續教育和專業發展部門。

※說文解字看新聞

一般來說專科以上教育通稱高等教育，而時至今日，取得大學與研究所文憑並不代表高等教育即可結束，以繼續教育觀念為基礎的終身化高等教育，已成為因應新時代需求所不可或缺的工具。curriculum指「課程」，複數為curricula，課程表為curriculum schedule，課外課程是extra-curriculum，又program在文中指的是「學程」。

此外，division常見意思為「部門」，在文中則指高等院校內某一學科的「院」，管理學院的人為dean（院長），而provost意指「教務長」，源自拉丁文praepositus，為美國和加拿大高等教育中常設的高級管理職位，是校長（president）以外最高管理者，在英國則為大學裡的院長，而有多個校區的大學校長則稱為chancellor，例如文中的加州大學。

Credit一般指「信用、功勞」，但在學術或教育語境中意為「學分」，所謂營養學分，英文可以說easy A's，因國外用A到D來打成績。片語be credited with是「把…歸功於」的意思，例：He is credited with creating the theory.