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Background: Citizens in modern democratic societies are confronted with complex demands, challenges, and economic problems, and they typically act as consumers, savers, voters, and employees. It is highly desirable for citizens to be able to competently manage these various demands. This ability we call economic-civic competence. Given the lack of empirical findings and adequate instruments on this issue, we analyze the economic-civic competence of commercial apprentices in Germany and Switzerland. In Swiss commercial apprenticeships, the fostering of this competence is explicitly anchored in the curricula of vocational schools. In Germany, the curricula coverage is not as broad as in Switzerland, which leads to an assumption of country differences in civic-economic competence. Methods: A total of 1255 apprentices in the commercial occupations/branches of industrial clerk and logistic clerk were assessed at the end of their second or third training year. Our newly developed, reliable and valid technology-based assessment on economic-civic competence includes issues such as the Euro crisis and public debt. Results and conclusions: An advantage among the male trainees, which was expected from previous research, was confirmed only among the German logistic clerks. The expected gender effect was not observed among the German industrial clerks or the Swiss clerks. Furthermore, the results confirm the hypothesized higher scores among German trainees with a university entrance degree. In both countries, the industrial clerks scored significantly higher than the logistic clerks did, and the Swiss trainees scored higher than did their German counterparts in a comparable occupation. This difference becomes markedly stronger if only learners without a university entrance degree are considered. One possible explanation for the country difference may be that the promotion of economic-civic competence has a more prominent role in Swiss vocational schools during commercial apprenticeship. Considering the methodological restrictions, the findings should be interpreted primarily as explorative depictions of the characteristics and group differences of economic-civic competence. However, our study can also be seen in the broader context of contemporary interest and challenges in developing technology-based assessment within the field of education. Thus, our study contributes to further research on the characteristics and genesis of economic-civic competences as well as on technology-based assessments. © The Author(s) 2017.

The education sector continues to be linked by policy-makers to social mobility, particularly in its role in providing the training and skills associated with workforce development and economic growth (Lubienski, 2009). In this respect, legislators look to cultivate and innovate to find ways of meeting these demands, and for better strategies and educational initiatives aimed at educating those communities and students who are underserved, or even essentially excluded, by national education systems, not only to draw on these forgotten groups of human capital but also as a matter of social justice (Johanningmeier, 2009). Such innovations within the education sector can improve outcomes, often without utilising greater levels of resources (Gorard, 2010). While there are a number of policy strategies available for pursuing these goals, one of the more popular approaches in recent years has been to leverage market-style mechanisms, with the introduction of a variety of educational provision in the English school sector. One area that is currently being redeveloped in England is the apprenticeship dimension. © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Brendan Bartram; individual chapters, the contributors.

This chapter explores the complexities Australia faces in sustaining its international influence and position as a competitive nation in numerous areas, such as exports and trade, as well as its stable political system and the overall wellbeing of its citizens. In common with other nations, the challenges relate to the need for improved educational policies in both vocational and higher education in order to support a nation that depends on the skilling and reskilling of it citizens. In addition, Australia has an ageing population alongside a low birth rate. Given Australia’s goal is to provide “high quality skills training that will meet student needs, be valued by employers, and contribute skilled human capital to an economy in transition” (Braithwaite 2016, p. 1), the quality of education (acquired skills and job prospects) must be relevant for students and their families. Braithwaite (2016) maintains that the VET sector once held a proud place in Australia’s education system, providing opportunities along a less academically and more practically oriented path. However, the VET sector is now under threat with “plummeting enrolments and a few rogue operators tarnishing the reputation of the sector” (CEDA 2016, p. 4). © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Roslyn Cameron, Subas Dhakal and John Burgess; individual chapters, the contributors.

Stuart A. Rosenfeld presents a timely analysis of the problems the United States and other industrialized countries face as they adjust from economies based on natural resources and goods to economies based on quality of human resources and high-performance, market-oriented organizations. Some of the questions raised include: Will American industry successfully face the competitive challenge of the global economy? Can US manufacturing raise productivity and innovate enough to remain healthy? Have the latest advances in process technology and management practice penetrated the rural industrial base? How can public policy help improve the competitiveness of the crucial manufacturing sector? This book challenges the conventional wisdom in economic development policy. Past state and local industrial policy focused on locational decisions, not on issues of competitiveness. Building the competitive advantage of industry is more important than promoting the competitive advantages of location. Incentives to modernize are more important than subsidies to locate. Competitive Manufacturing uses the rural South, the most industrialized rural region of the nation, to examine the strengths and weaknesses of manufacturing as the basis for economic growth. Using historical analysis, surveys, and intensive case studies, the author analyzes the technological capabilities of rural manufacturing, the factors that influence the decision to modernize, and the effects of technology on education and work. Comparative studies in Denmark and Italy point to new directions for US economic development policy. © 1992 by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. All rights reserved.

This paper explores the short-and long-term effects on wages of absence from work for young highly attached skilled male and female workers in West Germany. The analysis distinguishes different types of career absence: unemployment, maternity leave for female workers, compulsory service for male workers and other non-work spells. We find negative effects for all types of work absence, except for compulsory service for men. Compulsory service has a positive short-term wage effect. Unemployment decreases wages in the short term only, and for women more strongly than for men. Maternity leave leads to substantial losses for women. An important finding of this study is that maternity leave leads to substantially higher wage losses than other types of work absence, especially in the long term. © The Author(s) 2017.

Humanism has never been able to establish a firm place in technical education, which remains predominantly pragmatist in response to industry needs, certification requirements and educational standardisation. However, after a period of decline, humanism has made somewhat of a comeback as part of the movement toward student-centred education. Research conducted at a technical college showed that although humanistic elements are largely absent from educational practice in post-secondary technical education, they are not detrimental to the achievement of stated educational objectives. This research indicated that including humanistic elements in educational practice will enable instructors to be more effective in helping students to develop skills in relation to team work, problem-solving, systems improvement, lifelong learning and other areas that are becoming increasingly necessary for success in the workplace. The specific recommendations from this research include a constructivist approach with a focus on contextual teaching and learning using situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeships, anchored instruction and authentic assessment. At the same time, some suggestions for improving professional development for teachers by using a Gestalt approach along with self-study in the context of learning communities have been discussed. © 2017 European Research Network Vocational Education and Training. All rights reserved.

In times of economic crisis, labour shortage and high youth unemployment, the attention is put on the relation between education, skills and labour market demand. This article acknowledges the need to assess this relation but claims that a more holistic picture is necessary rather than the one that is behind the attention put on work-based learning in the form of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in some countries. Contrarily, to the concern of current mismatch discourses centred on individual labour wages and national productivity, the paper proposes a human centred approach the Capability Approach (CA) to explore the reasons causing mismatch and the consequences to the individual. By combining documentary and field work research in a college in Spain, the paper posits the view that a capability perspective centred on individual freedoms can be a conceptual but also intrinsic important starting point for formulating an enabling VET which is responsive to the needs of the employers as well as is able to protect students from market imperfections. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.

This paper focuses on the constitution of vocational knowledge, and the development of an analytical framework that seeks to identify and characterise how that knowledge is constituted. Bernstein’s concept of a ‘region’ is outlined as a socio-epistemic entity into which various aspects of disciplinary knowledge are ‘recontextualised’ to meet the requirements of practice. This leads to a discussion of both the ‘internal’ social relations that exist between organisations involved in recontextualisation, and the ‘external’ factors that influence the character of regions, including relations between occupations and the broader macro-context pertinent to vocational practice. Issues of ‘recontextualisation capability’ are considered particularly important for understanding the nature of regions. While it is possible to conceive this capability at a variety of ‘levels’ or in relation to various activities, how knowledge achieves validity in the vocational community and provides a basis for a curriculum is particularly foregrounded here. The discussion is bolstered with examples of regions and recontextualisation processes taken from recent studies of higher apprenticeships in England between 2012 and 2014. In addition, there is some brief engagement with comparative research into vocational education and training systems in order to better understand how differing national contexts and policy-driven change may (re)orientate regions and their capacity to recontextualise. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.

The workforce strategy of firms is increasingly important for competitiveness and for producing at high quality and low costs. Firms must decide on the mix of skills and wages for current and future operations and on whether to train skilled workers or hire them from the open labour market. While traditional human capital theory states that firms will not finance training for general skills, modifications of the theory show training for general skills can be profitable. The modifications are compelling, since employer training for occupational skills varies widely across countries. Employers in the U.S. and France provide little occupational training while the extent of employer occupational training in Germany and Switzerland is enough to reach 55–70 % of a youth cohort. This chapter examines the factors influencing firm choices about providing one type of general training-apprenticeships. Offers of apprenticeships are common in countries where knowledge about apprenticeships is widespread, occupational standards are well developed, and the government finances related, off-the-job training. One reason is that firms in these countries recoup most or all of their investments during the apprenticeship itself, mainly because of the productive contributions to output by the apprentices. But in other contexts, such as the U.S., firms are far less likely to offer apprenticeships. South Carolina’s Apprenticeship Carolina demonstrates how marketing to individual firms and simplifying the process of hiring apprentices can lead large numbers of employers to provide occupational skills training. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.

The role of workers’ agency and intentionality in mediating their work-life learning is key basis for understanding how that learning occurs through and across their working lives. This proposition arises, in part, from the realisation that much of individuals’ learning and development across working life required for effective work and employability occurs through workers’ engagement in everyday work activities and interactions, that is, outside of the circumstances of intentional education or training interludes and being taught, instructed or guided by co-workers. It is individuals’ agency and intentionality that mediates learning in these circumstances, as it also does in close interactions with others (i.e. more experienced workers, trainers, teachers). There is nothing particularly new here. Personal mediation has probably been the key means of learning across human history for most workers and across their working lives. Interactions with more informed others are, however, necessary for learning not able to be secured through individual discovery alone. Indeed, there are clear limits to what can be realised solely through this agency and intentionality. The mediation of other workers is often required for learning concepts to be understood, procedural capacities to be developed and when dispositional aspects of work practice require to be made accessible and appropriated. Co-working and learning, however, also requires individuals’ mediation of what they experience interpersonally. Rather than being the unidirectional passage of knowledge from the expert to novice, these processes are bidirectional and interdependent. Understanding how this interdependent means of learning might be supported through everyday co-working activities and interaction offers ways to promote the potency of work settings as learning environments. This chapter sets out how the development of occupational capacities can be supported in, through and across working lives through co-working. These processes are illuminated and discussed through considering how co-working between novice doctors and pharmacists promotes this learning. This illustrative example is used to offer some initial considerations about the kinds of practice curriculum and pedagogies that can support learning through co-working. Conceptual considerations are also advanced to capture and explain this process of learning as being agentic. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.