This article discusses current transition issues facing teachers and educational diagnosticians working in rural settings with disabled populations. Barriers to successful assessment and programing (financial factors, human factors, and visibility) are noted and seven suggestions offered for implementing a transition assessment and programing…

The study explored how parents interpret the events and relationships surrounding the transition of their severely disabled children from school to adult life. Parents interviewed tended to perceive three distinct types of transition: bureaucratic, family life, and adult status. Findings suggested ways to improve parent-professional cooperation…

Highlights difficulties faced by students with disabilities after leaving public school. Suggests ways in which special education can promote adherence to the Americans with Disabilities Act in helping these students make the transition to postsecondary schooling and employment. (SK)

This paper reviews literature concerning best practices in facilitating transition from school to work or postsecondary education for secondary students with disabilities. Practices cited frequently included vocational training, parent involvement, interagency collaboration and service delivery, social skills training, paid work experience, and…

The Transition Institute at the University of Illinois analyzed 15 studies that had identified effective or exemplary transition programs for students with disabilities. The analysis revealed 107 key elements associated with effectiveness or exemplary program status, including variables in career/vocational training, systematic interdisciplinary…

Missouri's A+ Schools Program is a legislated, statewide framework for providing universal quality education with a career focus and an academic foundation for lifelong learning. The program recognizes that an internationally competitive workforce will require many employees to have more than a high school diploma, but less than a baccalaureate…

Mississippi's one-stop career centers are designed to cater to the demands of business in a highly competitive economy. The centers transform the community colleges from feeder institutions for universities to institutions in touch with the local community and economy by offering everything from traditional education programs to customized…

Presents postpositivism as a useful method for understanding the cultural context of work. Highlights the critical theory approach, presenting qualitative studies that use this framework. Recommends critical research as a way to achieve the democratic transformation of schools and workplaces. (SK)

Describes a partnership involving North Carolina middle school and Weck Industry, a surgical instrument manufacturing company. Steering committee generated ideas to improve curriculum, student services, and teacher services. Several curriculum-related recommendations have been carried out the first year, including a speakers' bureau, facility…

Reports a study that examined the impact of an introductory college computer course on users' subsequent preferences in their choice of computer (IBM versus Macintosh). Surveys found a strong positive relationship between the type of computer students used in the course and their later use and purchasing preferences. (SM)

The industrial age, by mechanizing production and reorganizing the workplace into large factory units, destroyed a pattern of life that saw living, working, and learning as a single interconnected entity. Conventional schooling, stressing abstract knowledge, has separated learning from the community and world of work. The new, higher order…

Through a formal program offering in-school jobs to students who want or need them, kids at a small-town Oregon middle school can experience various work conditions and apply abstract knowledge to practical problems. As science aides, playground assistants, and groundskeepers, students earn tokens that can be spent for parties, field trips, school…

Issues in the reconceptualization of the relationship between higher education and employment, especially in the European countries, are examined. It is proposed that higher education can influence employment patterns and trends in ways that are currently underestimated, and that a new approach to the study of this relationship should focus on the…

Transition experts (n=149) ranked barriers to achieving social integration of individuals with disabilities and identified areas of consensus on social integration outcomes and interventions related to youths' transition from school to employment. Experts agreed that social integration is a multidimensional concept, indicating that varying…

Schools cannot be held responsible for the state of the Canadian economy and have limited ability to affect labor market outcomes. Some would argue that schools should not focus on preparation for work but on learning about work. (JOW)