The first independent career related decisions are made during the ninth grade of the elementary school when the further educational institution is selected. The concept of possible selves can be used in career education to help students increase self-awareness, explore and generate options, and formulate plans to achieve future goals. The aim of the article is to examine rural adolescents’ ability to generate career-related possible selves and plausible strategies to attain these possible selves. On the basis of the Possible Selves Theory, the open-ended measure was developed by the author. The pilot research was carried out in Latvia in January 2013. Forty six nine-graders from two rural elementary schools and two rural secondary schools participated in the research. Next year and adult possible selves generated by rural adolescents include such domains as education, employment, leisure activities, physical and personal development, as well as interpersonal relationships and lifestyle. The most important ones are domains of education and employment. Statistically significant differences of the results among the gender subgroups are not found in the research, statistically significant differences exist between the possible selves and their attaining strategies generated by rural secondary school students and rural elementary school students.

The socio-economic changes brought about by globalisation, the internationalisation and digitalisation of higher education, as well as the current demographic situation in Europe and Latvia, raise the issue of the competitiveness of academic staff in the context of multicultural higher education. The aim of the study is to provide a theoretical basis for the competitiveness of academic staff in the view of educational sciences, respecting the different trends and based on the conceptual approaches in personal/specialist competitiveness research. The following research methods were used: study, analysis and evaluation of scientific literature (theoretical research method); reflection of personal experience (empirical research method). As a result of the theoretical research, two trends for the substantiation of the concept of competitiveness in the educational sciences were identified. The first trend: the competitiveness of a person is substantiated through transfers from economic and management science, with a particular emphasis on specialist marketability and employability as a significant manifestation of competitiveness. The second trend: according to the new paradigm of competitiveness in educational sciences, the competitiveness of a human as a person and as a specialist is based on the perspective of pedagogy and psychology. The research results led to the conclusion that there are three conceptual approaches in the methodology of competitiveness research: 1) qualitative approach: identifies and lists competitive personality traits and qualities; 2) functional approach: describes the competitive behaviour of a person or specialist; 3) structural approach: competitiveness is substantiated as a complex combination of personal/ specialist qualities, identifying several structural components. All of these approaches are also characteristic to the research of competitiveness of academic staff. The following taxonomy should be respected in the substantiation of academic staff competitiveness: 1) substantiation of personal competitiveness; 2) substantiation of specialist competitiveness in the context of different industries; 3) the substantiation of the competitiveness of specifically academic staff in the context of the specifics of higher education.

It is neccessary for the Regional Universities (RU) to strengthen their regional role. The reason behind such trend is the increased economic and regional differences between regions which applies also to Latvia. The aim of this research is to define the contribution of the RU to the regional development. The research included analysis of scientific sources, correlation and analysis of variance. It was determined that there is a positive correlation 0.979 between the number of students of RU and corresponding regional Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita; thus the RU have a positive impact on the regional development while other drawbacks and problems exist.

The ongoing globalisation and integration processes increasingly influencing the different social processes, including the situation in labour market have raised up the topicality of the necessity in education to develop competitiveness of the society in general as well as in every individual. Several documents of international and national importance provide evidence for such an assumption. Education is to become preconditions, process, result, and tool for the development of competitiveness of an individual. This promotional process should be based on scientific research as well as become a part of the duties of every educator. Therefore it is important to scientifically substantiate the conceptual notion 'competitiveness', differentiating between its structure, components, and features. The authors of the present paper have found the theoretical background: 1) theoretical substantiation of the concept of competitiveness in the researches by scientists from Western countries and Russia; 2) appropriate definitions of the concept 'competence' for research of pupils' competitiveness.

The article addresses the problem of social dimension measurement of for regional development. Authors’ discus approaches of definition of social dimension. There is some discord how social dimension could be understood in more broader or narrowed sense and how it is characterized in international and national social policy documents. Authors focus attention on contiguity of social dimension and social security. The measurement of social dimension demands multidimensional approach. The authors use theoretical analysis and document analysis, as well as analysis of statistical data on key elements of social dimension of regional development (differences of employment rate; GINI coefficient, and the number of people at risk-of-poverty threshold). The main conclusions are that social dimension is more or less covered in development planning documents, but the progress indicators are inadequate. Especially disparities in social dimension of regional development are formally addressed and closer analysis of key indicators shows necessity to elaborate both – policy instruments as well as policy progress measurement.

In the current context of economic instability, youths are faced with the emergence of a feeling of uncertainty with respect to their own chances of having a good debut on the labour market. The world crisis, the social reality that all societies are faced with, brought again up to the forefront the idea of young individuals’ fragility on the labour market (Balan, 2014). According to Eurostat statistical data, in the European Union young people represent one-fifth of the total population. Today the young people are facing the impacts of economical crisis and globalisation, population ageing and innovation explosion, which affects employability, education and training systems and social development. Successful youth’s integration into the labour market is one of the main factors for future development and their inclusion into society. One of the main indicators for youth’s inclusion into society is the development of a knowledge-based economy. It is important to aim at the development of a knowledge-based economy in rural regions because the majority of unemployed persons are concentrated in these regions. The Quintuple Helix Model represents the relationships between universities, firms and governments and, in this case, their influence on youth’s integration into the society and labour market in rural regions. The paper presents a brief analysis of youths’ unemployment development and their integration into the labour market in Latvia’s regions and an analysis of the factors affecting this phenomenon by using the Quintuple Helix Model.