In Japan, the necessity of a prestigious academic degree for advancement has led to extreme educational credentialism ("degreeocracy"). Despite the assumption that educational opportunities are open to all and advancement is thus meritocratic, social class inequalities do influence access to opportunities and educational attainment.…

Interviews with 23 disadvantaged and aboriginal postsecondary students in Canada addressed academic motivation; study barriers and supports; knowledge, skills, and abilities; career goals; and definitions of success. Most had a high need for achievement, encountered situational barriers, were goal oriented, and believed postsecondary education…

Forty years ago, between 1962 and 1964, fieldwork was carried out on the research project "Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles". Using archived materials relating to the little known Norbert Elias project, this paper has two aims. First, to introduce this largely unknown aspect of Elias's work to a wider…

Craft (1984) noted that there are two different Latin roots of the English word "education." They are "educare," which means to train or to mold, and "educere," meaning to lead out. While the two meanings are quite different, they are both represented in the word "education." Thus, there is an etymological…

The author's primary purpose of this article is to share her working process--that is, the organization of a three-credit undergraduate course entitled Women in Science and Engineering, as well as the design and development of its curriculum, pedagogy, and methodology--and to reflect upon the results. To give life to this structure, a variety of…

A recent study focused on workplace learning in the UK, USA and Canada; 14 universities, two community colleges and 15 host organisations were included. Interviews were conducted with directors of professional peak associations, academic supervisors, placement officers, managers and/or field supervisors and students. This paper reports on the ways…

This report is based on a paper that was presented at the 2004 Biregional Randolph-Sheppard Training Conference in Philadelphia. A review of various state licensing agency (SLA) policy manuals by the author revealed no specific SLA policies on reciprocity or guidelines on setting up and managing facilities out of state or on the recognition of…

Unemployment and labour market adjustment have featured prominently in the problems of transitional economies. However, the position of young people and their transitions from school to work in these new market economies has been virtually ignored. This paper examines a new large longitudinal data set relating to young people in Hungary over the…

There has been recent interest in how higher education might improve the employability of students, although there is little feedback from graduates about the value of university experiences to their working life. The aim of the study therefore was to investigate the views of graduates regarding the extent to which work skills had been developed…

In the early 1960s researchers at the University of Leicester carried out a unique survey into the school-to-work transition experiences of nearly 900 young adults. The survey documented most aspects of the school leavers' lives; however, the majority of the data from this Young Worker Project remained unanalysed and unpublished for nearly 40…

Recent research on learning in work situations has focused on concepts such as 'productive learning' and 'pedagogy of vocational learning'. In investigating what makes learning productive and what pedagogies enhance this, there is a tendency to take the notion of learning as unproblematic. This paper argues that much writing on workplace learning…

In recent years there has been significant growth in research that has considered the relationship between worker identity and learning at work. A key part of this relates to discussions of the 'newness' of various types of work manifested in discourses such as post-capitalism, post-bureaucracy and the new work order. On this basis, it is argued…

This study presents a new definition of key qualifications related to occupations based on an extensive literature search. The empirical aspect of this study describes a Delphi study focused on policy where a number of key qualifications were operationalized for three selected jobs: commercial employee at a bank, claims assessor or acceptor at an…

Research has shown that there are differing competency requirements for instructional design and technology professionals working in different career environments such as business and industry, higher education, K-12 education, government, military, nonprofit organizations and the health professions. Over the past two decades, the instructional…

The First Destination Survey of new graduates provides only a snapshot of graduate employment. This longitudinal study explores more fully the career pathways taken by undergraduates from two programmes and examines which skills acquired at university contributed to successful employment and development of their careers. It was found that 99…