In response to concerns that the educational system - from public schools through colleges, universities, and apprenticeship programs - cannot adequately prepare students for work in the new economy, Integrating School and Workplace Learning in Canada proposes alternation - a hybrid form of learning that, by combining experiential and cognitive learning skills, allows individuals to develop the relevant skills and intellectual capabilities to address and solve complex problems encountered in the workplace. Alternation involves not only a curricular balance between the theoretical and the practical but also two distinct venues for learning - the classroom and the workplace. The authors discuss cognitive and social learning, its implementation in a variety of settings, its role in smoothing the school/work transition process, and its potential to contribute to the knowledge and skills needed by the workforce. They bring a wide range of disciplinary perspectives to bear in their analyses of the principles and practices of alternation, providing historical, theoretical, and practical insights. Their analysis contributes to and extends the current debate and discussion surrounding necessary changes in our education and training practices.

Concern with learning throughout life has become pervasive in market-driven societies. Will most workers need to become more continuous learners in a new knowledge-based economy or will much of their learning be ignored or devalued in relation to their work? These papers critically assess dominant views of learning and work.

In the past two decades, advanced capitalist countries have seen sustained growth in labour market participation along with a growth in the number of jobs workers tend to have in their working lives. ‘Challenging Transitions in Learning and Work’ presents a critical and expansive exploration of learning and work transitions within this context.

This collection focuses on employer engagement in education, how it is delivered and the differentiated impact it has on young people in their progression through schooling and higher education into the labour market. The focus is not narrowly on vocational or technical education or work-related learning, but on how employer engagement (eg, work experience, internships, careers education, workplace visits, mentoring, enterprise education etc) influences the experiences and outcomes of the broad range of young people across mainstream academic learning programmes. The essays explore the different ways in which education can support or constrain social mobility and, in particular, how employer engagement in education can have significant impact upon social mobility – both positive and negative. Leading international contributors examine issues surrounding employer engagement and social mobility: conceptualisations of employer engagement; trends in social mobility; employer engagement and social class; access and management of work experience; social capital and aspiration; access to employment. The book makes employer engagement an innovative focus in relation to the well established fields of social mobility and school to work transition. By examining what difference employer engagement makes, the essays raise questions about conventional models and show how research drawing on different fields and disciplines can be brought together to provide a more coherent and convincing account. Building on new theorisations and combining existing and new data, the collection offers a systematic exploration of the influence of socio-economic status on school-to-work transitions, and addresses how educational policy can shape more efficient labour market outcomes. In doing so, it draws on, and speaks to, existing literature which has considered such questions from the perspectives of gender, ethnicity and social disadvantage.

Nina Bascia, Alister Cumming, Amanda Datnow, Kenneth Leithwood and David Livingstone This Handbook presents contemporary and emergent trends in educational policy research, in over ?fty chapters written by nearly ninety leading researchers from a number of countries. It is organized into ?ve broad sections which capture many of the current dominant educational policy foci and at the same time situate current understandings historically, in terms of both how they are conceptualized and in terms of past policy practice. The chapters themselves are empirically grounded, providing illustrations of the conceptual implications c- tained within them as well as allowing for comparisons across them. The se- re?exivity within chapters with respect to jurisdictional particularities and c- trasts allows readers to consider not only a range of approaches to policy analysis but also the ways in which policies and policy ideas play out in di?erent times and places. The sections move from a focus on prevailing policy tendencies through increasingly critical and ‘‘outsider’’ perspectives on policy. They address, in turn, the contemporary strategic emphasis on large-scale reform; substantive emphases at several levels – on leadership and governance, improving teacher quality and conceptualizing learning in various domains around the notion of literacies and concluding, ?nally, with a contrasting topic, workplace learning, which has had less policy attention and thus allows readers to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of learning and teaching under the bright gaze of policy.

This six-volume handbook covers the latest practice in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). It presents TVET models from all over the world, reflections on the best and most innovative practice, and dozens of telling case studies. The handbook presents the work of established as well as the most promising young researchers and features unrivalled coverage of developments in research, policy and practice in TVET.

Leaving school, whether to move on to training, work or education, is a fundamental rite of passage the world over. This volume draws on a wealth of international sources and studies in its analysis of the ‘transitions’ young students make as they move on from their secondary schooling. It identifies how these transitions are planned for by policymakers, enacted by school staff and engaged with by students themselves. With data from a range of nations with advanced industrial economies, the book delineates how the policies relating to these transitions need to be conceived and implemented, how the transitions themselves are negotiated by young people, and how they might be shaped to meet the varied needs of the students they are designed to help. The authors argue that the relationship, often complex, between what schools provide in the way of preparation, and the ways in which students take up what is on offer, is the crucial nexus for understanding the experience of transitions by young people, and for enhancing that experience. With a host of case studies of transition policies themselves, as well as evaluative data on how they were received by the school leavers whom they were designed for, this valuable addition to the educational literature deserves to be read by all those with roles in preparing the young for their journey into a complex adult world full of pitfalls as well as opportunity.

Lifelong Learning is essential to all individuals and in recent years has become a guiding principle for policy initiatives, ranging from national economic competition to issues of social cohesion and personal fulfilment. However, despite the importance of lifelong learning there is a critical absence of direct, international evidence on its extent, content and outcomes. Lifelong Learning in Paid and Unpaid Work provides a new paradigm for understanding work and learning, documenting the active contribution of workers to their development and their adaptation to paid and unpaid work. Empirical evidence drawn from national surveys in Canada and eight related case studies is used to explore the current learning activities of those in paid employment, housework and volunteer work, addressing all forms of learning including: formal schooling, further education courses, informal training and self-directed learning, particularly in the context of organisational and technological change. Proposing an expanded conceptual framework for investigating the relationships between learning and work, the contributors offer new insights into the ways in which adult learning adapts to and helps reshape the wide contemporary world of work throughout the life course.

Provides cooperative education and internship professionals and researchers design, carry out, and disseminate quality research and evaluation studies. Highlights key programs and shows how to demonstrate sound learning outcomes. --Publisher description.

Throughout the world, people understand the meaning of 'apprenticeship'. As a model of learning and skill formation, apprenticeship has adapted over the years to reflect changes in work, in technology, and in the types of knowledge that underpin occupational expertise. Apprenticeship serves the needs of government, as well as employers, individuals and society more generally. These needs have always co-existed in dynamic tension. This book explores the contemporary state of apprenticeship in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Ghana. The chapters present perspectives from leading researchers in the field, showing how apprenticeship is evolving and changing in every country (crossing boundaries of age, sector and levels of skill and knowledge) and examining the ability of apprenticeship to facilitate both vertical progression – particularly to higher education – and horizontal progression between jobs and sectors. As such, apprenticeship remains at the core of debates about vocational learning and the nature of expertise. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Vocational Education and Training.