The Learning and Skills Network's (LSN's) think tank, the Centre for Innovation in Learning, in association with the 157 Group, the Association of Learning Providers (ALP) and the Association of Colleges (AoC), has undertaken timely and important research into how to support and improve employer engagement in the further education (FE) and skills…

Vocationally based higher education programmes are meant to prepare people for employment in their chosen fields of study. In nursing, historically, employment after qualifying has been almost assured, with sufficient vacancies available for newly qualified nurses. Recently, however, for a number of reasons, primarily related to economic…

The Federal Writers' Project was an arm of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Franklin Delano Roosevelt's massive program to put the unemployed back to work. The Writers' Project was charged with producing an extensive guidebook for each of the 48 states; and more than 6,000 local newspaper writers, novelists, poets, college professors, and…

This paper documents the experiences of a group of parents who came together to form a human service cooperative in their local community to address the needs of their adult children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Each parent felt that their child's needs were not (or could not be) met by existing providers. Parent leaders who…

Living on fixed incomes and faced with increasing taxes, senior citizens frequently feel the squeeze of a tightening economy more than other populations. Their retirement dollars buy less as their property taxes inch upward, despite the fact that they don't have school-age children. The Hempfield and Manheim Township School Districts in…

This report summarizes the final impact results for the national Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project. This project tested, using a random assignment design, the effectiveness of numerous programs intended to promote steady work and career advancement. All the programs targeted current and former welfare recipients and other low-wage…

Research completed since the 1980s has yielded substantial knowledge about how to help welfare recipients and other low-income individuals prepare for and find jobs. Many participants in these successful job preparation and placement programs, however, ended up in unstable, low-paying jobs, and little was known about how to effectively help them…

More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those who are released face daunting obstacles as they seek to reenter their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the…

Low high school graduation rates and sharply declining employment rates among disadvantaged youth have led to increasing numbers of youth who are disconnected from both school and work. What programs and policies might prevent these disconnections and improve educational and employment outcomes, particularly among young men? We review the evidence…

The recent economic downturn and surge in unemployment has focused attention on education and training as a strategic response to Ireland's socio-economic crisis. However, that attention has been concentrated on training through statutory institutions, particularly FAS and the VECs. Longford Women's Link, a Women's Community Education centre in Co…

The experiment reported here tested impacts of New Hope, an employment-based poverty intervention for adults on developmental patterns of children's participation in structured out-of-school activities, using a cross-sequential design spanning ages 6 through 19. New Hope increased participation in activities (lessons, sports, religious, clubs,…

Concept mapping is a technique to represent relationships between concepts that can help students to improve their meaningful learning. Using the cognitive theories proposed by Ausubel (1968), concept maps can help instructors and students to enhance their logical thinking and study skills by revealing connections among concepts that can simplify…

This study uses data from an experimental employment program and instrumental variables (IV) estimation to examine the effects of maternal job loss on child classroom behavior. Random assignment to the treatment at one of three program sites is an exogenous predictor of employment patterns. Cross-site variation in treatment-control differences is…

UK Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) are seen as critical to policymakers' aspirations to develop an education and training (E&T) system that is both "demand-driven" and "employer-led" and where employers "play their part" in national upskilling. However, the concept of employer leadership remains deeply problematic…

This paper reviews some of the most popular policy evaluation methods in empirical microeconomics: social experiments, natural experiments, matching, instrumental variables, discontinuity design, and control functions. It discusses identification of traditionally used average parameters and more complex distributional parameters. The adequacy,…