Search Results for
"education"

Employment and training programs aimed at women and men without 4-year college degrees address the needs of the majority of the working population. Noncollege women tend to hold lower-paying jobs with fewer opportunities for advancement, compared with the opportunities noncollege men have. One type of policy seeks to increase the numbers of women in occupations where men hold most of the positions, or "nontraditional occupations for women" (NTOs). Since many NTOs require a college education, do such policies improve noncollege women's economic self-efficacy? Is there a link between holding a nontraditional occupation and earning significantly higher wages? This study establishes that, indeed, these programs provide access to jobs that are linked to higher earnings. Such policies redistribute earnings opportunities to noncollege women successfully, and therefore improve the economic efficacy of noncollege women.

Government policy aims at a 'seamless web' of learning provision. This is exemplified in a local Learning and Skills Council supported by work on widening participation to higher education (HE) in another London sub-region. The emerging system described is comprehended as a whole from 'Foundation Learning' in compulsory schooling to post-compulsory 'Lifelong Learning' in further, higher and continuing education and training thereafter.

A study of key phases in apprenticeship (such as the choice of a trade, the learning of occupational know-how or the opportunities open during and after apprenticeship) and a comparison between young people with different types of schooling (in five "trades" in Bamako, Mali) serve as the basis for analyzing how what is learned at school relates to apprenticeship. The knowledge gleaned in school is a cultural capital helping these young people to advance faster and farther in apprenticeship, a social capital making them less dependent on family networks and, above all, a symbolic capital authorizing them to imagine setting up business or benefiting from further training. It thus serves as a selection process that is all the more insidious in that actors in this system never present it as such.

In the 1990s, federal legislation authorizing funding for secondary vocational education, increasingly called career and technical education (CTE), began to mandate accountability requirements such as improved academic achievement. These requirements have necessitated a search for ways to integrate CTE into broader school reforms that have improved student achievement as their goal This review examines research on the effects of CTE reform efforts in general and on efforts to meld CTE with comprehensive secondary school reforms. The authors found that the intersection of CTE with comprehensive school reform is under-researched. However, the studies reviewed here reveal the potential benefit for research and practice in re-examining CTE as a means of preparing our nation's youth for the future.

This paper reviews reflective practice and associated terms and suggests an approach that can encompass the criticality required in professional education and training in relation to current agendas for health promotion. Although reflective practice is an accessible notion and has achieved great popularity as a means of synthesising thinking and doing, it is contested in terms of its conceptualisation and application. It is not neutral and value free, but affected by personal, political and professional factors that impact upon practitioners. Examples are drawn from professional literature in teaching, nursing and social work that illustrate different levels of reflection, to show that whilst there are considerable benefits there are dangers in assuming common understandings. A developing conceptualisation of critical reflective practice is proposed for health promotion which seeks to enable professionals to use reflection in their immediate situation, as part of a wider social process that contributes to societal change and professional development.

Because workers must be prepared to constantly update their skills and reeducate themselves for new skills, lifelong learning must be a goal for every teacher and student. The curriculum provided during educational experiences should pave the way for attainment of this goal. This is particularly true for deaf and hard of hearing students. School-to-work (STW) has become an umbrella term for activities, experiences and opportunities that prepare students for the world of work, such as youth apprenticeships, mentoring, internships, job shadowing, career exploration, and integration of academic and vocational curriculum. This article provides historical background on STW, laws shaping requirements for STW programs, and research supporting STW components. Recommendations are provided for curricular elements of an STW program, and trends in STW are forecast.

Workplace learning has developed as a field both of practice and of research over the past decade. The increase in interest is due in part to heightened awareness that workplace knowledge and skills contribute to enterprise and national competitiveness, but it is also due to an increased focus on the connections to be made between theory and practice as part of an education or training experience. At the same time, new learning technologies have enhanced delivery of instruction and learning materials in workplaces. This article reviews some of the conceptualizations of workplace learning and its cognitive bases. It also examines workplaces as learning environments and considers the special challenges involved in the flexible delivery of training to workplaces.

In this paper, the authors present an overview of proposals to revise educational provision for the public health/health improvement workforce in Scotland. Debates and tensions engendered by these proposals are outlined. The authors suggest that work-based approaches to learning are ideally suited to equipping practitioners to work within the complex arena of public health. They conclude that this approach is congruent with a value base that incorporates empowerment, participation and partnership. In order to translate the new proposals into action however a 'change of hearts ands minds' of practitioners and academics must be effected. Employers must also demonstrate a greater commitment to providing quality placements and learning experiences.

For most workers, access to suitable employment is severely restricted by the fact that they look for jobs in the regional labor market rather than the global one. In this paper we analyze how macrolevel opportunities (regional market characteristics) and microlevel restrictions (the extent to which job searchers are restricted to the regional market) can help to explain the phenomenon of overeducation. We use a two-step procedure to control selective access to employment. The results show that the size of the labor market is an important factor in avoiding overeducation. © 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

The German apprenticeship system is considered an exemplary school-to-work program for youth not intending to complete a baccalaureate degree. Yet the traditionally highly stratified system has been changing, with more students pursuing both general education and obtaining vocational certification. Using the German SocioEconomic Panel, this paper analyzes initial wage levels based on school quality and training track for two cohorts of non-university young adults, 1984 versus 1994. For the older cohort from the more stratified system, graduation from the lowest school track predicted lower initial wages which vocational certification did not ameliorate. Vocational certification did predict higher wages for youth from higher quality school tracks. In contrast, for the 1994 cohort among whom general education is becoming more prevalent, formal vocational certification is an important predictor of higher initial wages for both high and low quality school tracks. The earnings of the 1984 cohort are also compared five, ten and 13 years after labor market entry. Apprenticeship predicts higher changes in wages by the final period. Returns to specific vocational training manifest in higher initial wages, but the effect obsolesces quickly over time. This pattern of initial returns and obsolescence holds for subsequent vocational certification, suggesting support for lifelong learning. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.