Apprenticeship: Towards a New Paradigm of Learning
Abstract
In the light of changes the government has launched as part of its welfare to work initiatives, this text explores apprenticeship. The authors set the historical context and discuss the theoretical and practical aspects of acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills for competence. é Patrick Ainley, Helen Rainbird and named contributors, 1999.
... Those unable to secure such employment cannot learn the trade, regardless of their interest in and potential to be a good tradesperson. In some countries, eras and situations, apprenticeships have been exercised within family or community (Aldrich, 1999). Here, being apprenticed is restricted to members of a particular community for sustaining customary practices (Singleton, 1989), or to respond to local imperatives of ensuring young people are effectively employed and prepared (Aldrich, 1999). ...
... In some countries, eras and situations, apprenticeships have been exercised within family or community (Aldrich, 1999). Here, being apprenticed is restricted to members of a particular community for sustaining customary practices (Singleton, 1989), or to respond to local imperatives of ensuring young people are effectively employed and prepared (Aldrich, 1999). So, access to opportunities for learning can be constrained by societal and situational factors. ...
This paper discusses what constitutes the didactics of practice: learning in the circumstances of work. Learning through practice has and continues to be the principal process through which the occupational capacities upon which human society and individuals depend have been developed. Currently, there is an increased interest in this method of learning for extending experiences in educational programs, sustaining workers’ employability across lengthening working lives and assisting the transformation of work and occupational practices. These are important goals for societal purposes, communities, workplace continuity and workers’ employability and development. It seems timely, therefore, to outline an explanation of the qualities and characteristics of learning through experiences in practice settings, such as workplaces, and how these experiences can be used and enriched to support effective work-related learning across working lives: the didactics of learning through practice. It is proposed here, that practice-based curriculum and pedagogy, and workers’ personal epistemologies are the key framing elements of such didactics. However, these institutional and personal practices are also framed by global, cultural, societal and situated factors that shape individuals’ engagement in and their learning through work, and, hence, the didactic qualities and potential of learning through practice. Here, these elements, factors and their consequences are discussed in terms of understanding and enhancing learning experiences in the circumstances of work.
... 6 Interestingly, the effect of the dummy on organizations in Great Britain is significantly positive. It is important to note that Great Britain represents the least typical continuing VET country: it contains more elements of initial VET systems than any other continuing VET country in our study (Ainley & Rainbird, 1998;Maguire, 1998). The coefficients of the control variables show that the level of inequality in the provision of training increases with organizational size, whereas the degree of unionization tends to decrease the level of difference. ...
... Apprenticeships were launched in over 50 industrial sectors in 1995. However, this route of occupational training was chosen in the late 1990s by only a minority of the relevant age group (Ainley & Rainbird, 1998;Maguire, 1998). ...
Do headquarters influence the subsidiaries' arrangements of vocational training in foreign countries? Our analyses of the amount of training offered to employees by organizations in 14 countries in which different training systems prevail (either continuing vocational training or initial vocational training) show that the cultural models of training diffuse between training systems in both directions. Independent from their own location, headquarters have the power to export their expectations concerning the training of employees to their subsidiaries that are located in countries with training systems different from those of the headquarters. This result is in accordance with the country-of-origin effect.
... In addition to the changes in academic education, a new apprenticeship initiative called 'Modern Apprenticeships' was established in order to enhance the technical and vocational skills of young workers (Saunders et al. 1997; Ainley and Rainbird 1999). Young people were now eligible for new, nationally recognised, vocational qualifications (Smithers 1999). ...
... In addition to the changes in academic education, a new apprenticeship initiative called 'Modern Apprenticeships' was established in order to enhance the technical and vocational skills of young workers (Saunders et al. 1997;Ainley and Rainbird 1999). Young people were now eligible for new, nationally recognised, vocational qualifications (Smithers 1999). ...
First paragraph: In this chapter we explore school to work transitions by documenting the activities of young people who reached the minimum school leaving age in the 1990s. Our starting position is that changes in the economy, education and training lead us to suspect that the landscape of social and economic conditions under which young people grew up during the 1990s were sufficiently different from those a decade before to justify exploration. Through the analysis of data from cohorts of young people who reached minimum school leaving age in the 1990s we evaluate the ‘detraditionalisation’ thesis.
... The first part of the chapter explains why a study of tacit knowledge in craft and its pedagogy is considered germane despite a dramatic decline in trade apprenticeships in many countries (Maguire, 1999;Kraak and Hall, 1999). While trade apprenticeships have declined there is a growing consensus that it is not apprenticeship as such, but rather the idea of apprenticeship that remains useful for developing a more general social theory of learning (Ainley and Rainbird, 1999: 1). The position put forward in this study is that a conceptual interest in a general model of apprenticeship that focuses on learners as active participants in the organisation of their own learning (Guile and Young, 1998: 174) poses the 'tacit' as the kind of learning that happens in a piecemeal and incidental manner in the workplace; the kind of learning that happens by virtue of 'being there' rather than through conscious effort (Fuller, 1996: 239). ...
... It could thus be concluded that such theorisation provides an explanation for the acquisition and dissemination of the kind of local knowledge described by Sabel (as cited in the previous section), but it does not explain that which cannot be put into words, or what Polanyi (1958: 88) calls the 'ineffable'. Social practice theory does not illuminate the 'tacit'.Although the 'tacit' has not tended to enjoy discreet attention in writing on apprenticeship (Coy, 1989;Mjelde, 1993;Ainley and Rainbird, 1999) its presence is discernible in the use of metaphors as a stand-in for that which is at the heart of the apprenticing relation but not stated in words. Donnelly (1993: 42-43) argues, for instance, that while formal indentured apprenticeships have long been public in the sense of being subject to clear national legislative frameworks, the transmission of skills and knowledge through the relationship of master and apprentice has been, in its content, in the private domain, where it has been restricted to a well-defined group of individuals in the guild or trade union and often termed a 'mystery'. ...
Word processed copy. Thesis (Ph. D. (Education))--University of Cape Town, 2004. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-218).
... The economic and social case for an increase in the number and range of apprenticeships has been a policy concern for the past 20 years at least (Ainley and Rainbird, 1999). The UK government, in response to the concerns raised by employers of the need to develop 21st century skills, pledged to increase the quality and quantity of apprenticeships in England, with the ambitious target of three million starts by 2020. ...
Apprentices are generally trained at one company during their apprenticeship. But, responsibilities in an apprenticeship can also be shared
between different companies, through collaboration and external support, relieving the companies of the risks, time and effort associated with
training an apprentice for an entire programme.
Sharing apprenticeships is particularly relevant
for companies which are too small (SMEs) or
specialised to cover the whole curriculum of an
apprenticeship, for companies which have a relatively short production horizon, or for those
with limited availability due to seasonal or cyclical changes. For apprentices, rotating between
different workplaces can be a solution whenever
there is a shortage of companies which can cover the entire training programme.
Rotation can thus be a solution for companies and apprentices whenever an entire apprenticeship is difficult or impossible to attain. How
this rotation is organised is not always the same:
there are different ways in different countries,
and some countries even have several forms of
rotation. This study reports such examples of rotation in different countries and investigates the
possible benefits for companies and learners, as
well as the issues which should be addressed.
From these examples, the study identifies a set
of aspects of rotation, such as the type of learner
and level of education, whether or not rotation
occurs in the same sector, the order of workplaces, individual or group learning, how many companies are involved, what the type of agreement
is and whether the apprentices are remunerated.
The last aspect, who or what is responsible for
the organisation of the rotation, is what categorises the different examples into different types
of rotation: rotation where the companies, the
apprentices or an external body is responsible
for the organisation.
... Traditional apprenticeship learning is often associated with on-the-job training of an apprentice becoming competent in a skill or craft that, in turn, contributes to the overall manufacturing and skilled labor workforce (Ainley & Rainbird, 2014). However, apprenticeship learning can be applied to less industrial contexts, including in OST robotics programs where mentors are guiding students how to use programming and construction tools. ...
Participation on a robotics team affords students the opportunity to learn science and engineering skills in a competition-based environment. Mentors on these robotics teams play important roles in helping students acquire these skills. This study used an apprenticeship learning theory to examine how mentors on one high school robotics team contributed to students attaining the knowledge associated with designing and building a robot for competition. How active of a role did mentors play on their competition-based robotics team? How did mentors and students together handle the challenges they faced? The mentor-student interactions detailed in the research revealed an apprenticeship model where mentors played leadership roles reluctant to move beyond modeling tasks to students. The mentors' roles bring into question if they were granting their students the full opportunities to develop skills associated with working on a robot. Despite these developmental concerns, the students on the team gradually took up simple tasks working side-by-side mentors, saw expert engineers model professional habits, and expressed being inspired while contributing to a winning team.
... professional identity through this relationship and by building a rich patient caseload. 10,11 Clerkship directors in this survey reported that compared to TTS, students on DCHS had exposure to a more limited set of faculty while often seeing a greater number of patients, mirroring some salient themes of apprenticeship. ...
... Work-based learning programmes promote students' reflective skills development (Ainley & Rainbird, 2014). This can always be a great challenge for students, particularly for those who may have been out of the education environment for a long time. ...
This study investigated the experiences of undergraduate learning communities in a UK Higher Education Institution and the causes that may lead to low retention rates amongst first year undergraduate computing students. Using learning communities as a lens, the author examined students’ perception of teamwork experiences, academic and social integration issues, and knowledge and characteristics that might help students to be successful. Four research questions guided the current study: (1) How do first year undergraduate computing students perceive their university experience? (2) To what depth and breadth does learning community participation affect social and/or academic integration? (3) What are the identified barriers/limitations to improve retention? (4) What learning characteristics or knowledge do students maintain and how are they accomplished? The study applied a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research methods using a concurrent triangulation. Firstly, a quantitative data analysis was performed including first year undergraduate students from various departments of the examined UK Higher Education Institution. Tinto’s model of student retention connects to behavioural patterns. Behavioural patterns were therefore identified using data collected from students in order to map factors as predictors for low student retention. The data collection was driven by the information collected when students enrol at the university, as well as Pascarella and Terenzini’s questionnaire (integration scales). The data was analysed using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique which offers the opportunity to test various theoretical models, such as Tinto’s, through understanding of how sets of variables characterise constructs, and in what ways these constructs are associated to one another. The quantitative data analysis results suggested that the theory of Tinto proved to be beneficial in analysing retention in first year undergraduate students. Not at its maximum potential, though, because the model variables accounted for only a modest amount of variance in retention. Nevertheless, the data analysis discovered important relationships amongst student’s initial and later academic goals and commitments. In particular, the results revealed that academic and social integration constructs can have a significant influence on student retention processes. It is recommended that when all or some of these relationships are operating towards students’ benefit, it may be necessary to promote them with appropriate services or programmes, such as student support systems. Secondly, after the quantitative approach was applied to the aforementioned large-scale comparative study within the institution, a qualitative approach was used to further explore student needs. Specifically, during the quantitative phase data from all first year students of the institution studied was collected in order to offer the opportunity for a comparison amongst students from different course divisions, and investigate any major similarities and/or differences regarding factors affecting retention. As this phase identified similar factors amongst all students, the qualitative phase was employed in order to narrow down the research focus. Therefore, the qualitative approach offered the opportunity for a thorough exploration of the first year computing students’ reasons for dropping out of university through the use of the ‘unfolding matrix’. The matrix was completed during group interviews, in which students were invited, and had the opportunity to read and comment on previous students’ experiences. The findings of the qualitative data analysis offered further insights, which were then mixed with the quantitative results and interpreted as one. The final results, which were an interpretation of both quantitative and qualitative findings, revealed that learning communities critically affect students’ academic and social integration. Specifically, the importance of student support and guidance from academic staff were considered important factors which could enhance students’ motivation to continue their education. Their relationships with fellow students and academic staff were reported as vital elements in order to become academically and socially integrated. In addition, developing a sense of personal awareness and the need to develop an effective academic skill-set in order to succeed was identified as critical.
... Apprenticeship and Unemployment Apprenticeship remains one of the most commonly used means of capacity building, knowledge transfer and training in most informal sector settings (Haan, 2006; Ainley and Rainbird, 2014). This informal mode of training has been used to pass down business skills, secrets and empowerment from one generation to the next generation. ...
The fuzzy boundaries and intertwined nature of informal and formal sectors in Nigeria has varied impact on the economy. In this paper, we investigate the informal sector from apprenticeship, educational institutions and unemployment perspectives using surveys from national manpower stock and employment generation survey. Our findings indicate an interwoven relationship between the three variables. The lopsided nature of educational curriculum used in higher institutions coupled with imbalances in the formal economy is major causes of unemployment. The study highlights the effectiveness of the apprenticeship model in reducing unemployment. Policy and decision makers should continuously revise the educational curriculum; establish specialized training centers to provide more practical training to the youth.
... Internationally, apprenticeships and vocational education and training have been approached extensively from a descriptive point of view and supplemented by international comparative analyses (Rauner and Smith 2010, p1). In educational research, apprenticeships have been approached from a variety of perspectives (see Ainley and Rainbird 1999), and different theories in this regard have been formulated. These include developmental and social learning theory approaches to career counseling that focus on the process of career choice (Hackett 2002). ...
A hypothetical descriptive behavioral model extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was examined for subjective perceived control beliefs as antecedents of the apprenticeship orientation for vocational-educational training (VET). Attributes of self-regulation and self-regulatory systems in belief formation, and affective evaluation, were expected to vary with student choice of apprenticeship in an educational path.
A research question concerning initiative, independence, and self-guidance, hypothesized to be proximal antecedents of part-time job willingness and apprenticeship willingness was answered. A survey of ninth-grade students in Finnish comprehensive school was conducted after implementation of a work-orientation program. At the local school system level, 649 subjects of the mean ages of 16.0 years participated in a web-based survey in two school districts in the south-west of Finland in 2010. The observed variables were inserted for Path Analysis conducted in IBM Analysis of Moment Structures. Factor Analysis was used as a preliminary step for Path Analysis.
The variables formed a fitting belief-based path model for the interaction of initiative, independence, and self-guidance in apprenticeship conation. Part-time Job willingness served as a mediating variable. Independence interest belief and the mediating variable part-time willingness correlated negatively. Initiative showing interest and self-guidance want contributed positively to apprenticeship conation.
The findings gave tentative evidence of subjective antecedent beliefs linking Self-Direction and Apprenticeship willingness.
... Professional and vocational education has traditionally involved a strong focus on work-based learning, such as in apprenticeships and on-the-job training (Ainley & Rainbird, 1999). It is different from other forms of education in that it is practically oriented to aim at equipping students with the necessary skills for work and for direct application of what was learned to the workplace in specific industries or professional contexts. ...
... In addition to the changes in academic education, a new apprenticeship initiative called 'Modern Apprenticeships' was established in order to enhance the technical and vocational skills of young workers (Saunders et al. 1997;Ainley and Rainbird 1999). Young people were now eligible for new, nationally recognised, vocational qualifications (Smithers 1999). ...
Sociologists of youth are generally in agreement that the background against which young people grew up in the closing decades of the twentieth century was transformed, and is now radically different from earlier decades. We label this the 'changing times consensus'. It is now widely agreed that the 'normal' school-to-work transition that characterised the 'traditional' rite of passage from youth to adult status has been disrupted (Irwin 1995). Sociologists have deployed a series of adjectives such as 'long', 'broken', 'fractured' and 'uneasy', in order to describe the changing pattern of youth transitions (Craine 1997). Within the 'changing times consensus', authors agree that the transformation was driven by a series of interrelated social and economic changes.
... In addition to the changes in academic education, a new apprenticeship initiative called 'Modern Apprenticeships' was established in order to enhance the technical and vocational skills of young workers (Saunders et al. 1997;Ainley and Rainbird 1999). Young people were now eligible for new, nationally recognised, vocational qualifications (Smithers 1999). ...
In the closing decades of the twentieth century there were dramatic changes in the landscape against which British young people grew up. In the UK, in the decades immediately after World War II the majority of young people left education at the earliest opportunity. In more recent decades an increasing proportion of young people remained in education beyond the minimum school leaving age. In the early 1980s there was a radical restructuring of the youth labour market. There was a dramatic decline in the number of suitable jobs for those leaving education at the minimum school leaving age and a sharp fall in the number of apprenticeships available. This was partly a consequence of the decline in the manufacturing sector in Britain. Policy responses directed toward problems in youth employment led to the widespread introduction of training schemes. At the same time young people's entitlements to welfare benefits contracted. Provision in further education and later university education expanded. Such changes in the economy and in education and training lead us to suspect that the umbrella of social and economic conditions under which young people grew up during the 1990s were sufficiently different from those a decade before to justify exploration. Historically there has been little survey data available on young people growing up in the 1990s in the UK (there was a gap in collecting birth cohort data and no new large-scale birth cohort data was collected between 1970 and the Millennium). In this paper we demonstrate that the BHPS has the potential to plug the gap in youth data resources. In the paper we construct a series of synthetic cohorts of 'rising 16s'. These are young people in BHPS households that were interviewed in the adult BHPS survey in the year when they first became eligible to leave compulsory school (usually at age 16). We illustrate how these cohorts can usefully be used to explore educational and employment experiences. We attempt to exploit the structure of the BHPS data and link the young person's data with relevant parental data and wider family and household information. The synthetic 'rising 16s' cohorts are small samples and not necessarily nationally representative. Therefore we also use supplementary data from the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales to compare and contrast results.
... However, traditional apprenticeships, which were largely confined to engineering and artisan trades, have become unpopular with school leavers. Despite the British Government's attempts to revive the traditional mode of instruction in the workplace (Aldrich 1999) through Modern Apprenticeships (MA) (Saunders et al. 1997) only 15% of full-time students even considered doing an apprenticeship. Within even that small, interested group, many did not take up an MA because they wanted to stay in full-time education to keep their options more flexible (Saunders et al. 1997). ...
An evaluation is made of the impact of work-based experience during a placement year on the academic achievement of Information Systems students. The importance of practice in generating competence and confidence in students on placement has been understood for a long time. However, there has been little evidence that placement makes an important contribution to the primary indicator of achievement at degree level – the degree grade. In this paper we report on a longitudinal study on the relationship between placement and student achievement. Overall, 497 students from three Information Systems study programmes were included in the analysis, two thirds of which had completed a placement. Analysis through parallel lines ordinal logistic regression showed a substantially greater probability of graduating with a first class honours or second class (upper division) for students completing a placement against those who chose not to go on placement. In the large, highly competitive, modern graduate recruitment market, degree grade and recognised employability characteristics may prove vital for graduates pursuing IS careers. Knowledge gained by graduates locally while on placement, combined with transferable skills and a widely recognised, highly valued, certificated degree may give graduates and their employers' critical advantages in the local and global market. Placement student and graduate knowledge is situated in communities of professional practice in IS which may have social consequences in forming a firmer foundation for the intellectual life of a region.
This article describes apprenticeship as an ethnographic field method, exploring the forms ethnographic apprenticeship takes, the working knowledge passed through situated practice, and the impacts that working as a craft apprentice has on the work of anthropology. I draw on my experience as an apprentice luthier in West Virginia with two musical instrument makers to show how apprenticeship is a relational process contingent on context, its efficacy in communicating affective and embodied practices essential to understanding the meaning of craft labor to practitioners, and the implications for collaboration, reciprocity, learning, and documentation within ethnographic fieldwork and the discipline of anthropology.
Creative stars make disproportionately influential contributions to their fields. Yet we know little about how an innovator's creative performance is affected by collaborating with stars. This paper studies the creative aspects of interpersonal collaboration from a distinct perspective: the quality of the collaborator. Both star and nonstar collaborators provide different benefits to a focal innovator. The innovator benefits from collaborating with nonstars because they may provide access to diverse information improving the outcome of the creative task at hand. In contrast, the focal innovator benefits from collaborating with stars because the focal innovator can also experience and learn from the star's superior set of creative synthesis skills (which integrate diverse, sometimes contradictory ideas into new coherent and holistic solutions) and, thus, build lasting creative capabilities. Building on theoretical arguments about those two different collaboration purposes, we first examine how a star collaboration (versus a nonstar collaboration) affects a comprehensive measure of an innovator's creativity: the likelihood of emerging as a star. Second, we examine how the different creative benefits of engaging with a star versus a nonstar collaborator affect the effect of two widely studied aspects of interpersonal collaboration on star emergence: social network cohesion and expertise similarity. In contrast to collaborations with nonstars, for which social cohesion and expertise similarity limit access to diverse information, negatively affecting star emergence, social network cohesion and expertise similarity have a decidedly positive effect on star collaborations by improving the transfer of the star's set of creative skills. Our empirical setting consists of designers who have been granted design patents in the United States from 1975 through 2010.
Taking the distinction between the Institution of Apprenticeship, that is, the social partnership arrangements which underpin its organisation, and Apprenticeship as a Social Model of Learning, in other words, he configuration of pedagogic and occupational etc. dimensions which constitute the model, as its starting point the paper: (i) argues the emergence of de-centred, distributed and discontinuous conditions associated with project-work present challenges for extant ideas about apprenticeship as a social model of learning; (ii) explores this claim in relation to Fuller and Unwin’s four inter-connected dimensions of apprenticeship as a social model of learning by considering a case study of apprenticeship designed to prepare apprentices to work in the above conditions; (iii) relates issues arising from the case study to research on project work from the fields of Organisational and Cultural Studies; and (iv) based on this evidence base introduces a typology of ‘Apprenticeship for Liquid Life’.
It is commonly argued that young people’s transitions from school to work in the UK have changed radically since the middle 1970s, with the result that the experience of cohorts today differs markedly from the generations growing up in the 1950s and 1960s (see for example, Nagel and Wallace, 1997; Roberts, 1984; Bynner, 1991; Furlong and Cartmel, 1997; and for a moderating view Vickerstaff, 2003). In particular, the fact that most young people in the earlier period left education after the compulsory school leaving age (15 and then 16 in 1972), and went into a labour market where jobs were relatively plentiful, contrasts sharply with the 86 per cent of 16-year-olds who now stay on in some form of education or training (DfES, 2002). It has been an aim of successive governments to encourage the numbers staying on in education and training after the school leaving age, and this has been combined since the late 1970s with the argument that compulsory schooling has been failing to provide young people with the key skills needed to make them employable. As a recent government document asserted:
Employers have consistently said that too many young people are not properly prepared for the world of work … In particular, they may lack skills such as communication and teamwork, and attributes such as self-confidence and willingness to learn that are of growing importance across a range of jobs. (DfES, 2003, p. 78)
This chapter will discuss the contemporary ‘renaissance’ of apprenticeship on the backdrop of realities in transition countries. Learning organised as apprenticeship depends historically and culturally on a self-regulated social organisation. The chapter tries to identify the valuable ‘core’ of apprenticeship learning and then analyses how these core elements could be shaped to fit into the realities of countries in transition by pointing out guidelines for a new, creative VET reform strategy. On the basis of a critical analysis of the lack of substance in national qualifications frameworks, it is argued that learning processes must be given much more attention. New concepts like the learning landscape, pathways of learning and widening of the didactical ‘room’ are used to illuminate the design of such innovative reform steps. The chapter sums up the notion of the ‘renaissance’ of innovative apprenticeships and sketches the potential for positive implications on VET system ‘learning’ and ‘transmission’ (in particular school-to-work transition). An outline of a new European VET research field is finally presented.
There are multiple ways of performing patient-centred medicine. Conceptual clarification of the term ‘patient-centredness’ reveals a number of approaches, here represented as a taxonomy. Conceptualizing patient-centredness is important because it helps to address what kind of care may be appropriate for context. For example, a blanket ‘patient choice’ approach may wrongly displace the value of specialized patient care under expert knowledge.
Twelve models of patient-centredness are presented and discussed—two of these are ‘dysfunctional’ yet are not uncommon—first, lingering paternalism, and, second, collaboration that degenerates to a dysfunctional, abusive, or collusive relationship. Models of patient-centred care must now also include virtual communities where doctors are absent, except as patients themselves, and where patients provide collaborative online support within specialist illness groups such as persons with blood cancers.
Community Practice and Urban Youth is for graduate level students in fields that offer youth studies and community practice courses. Practitioners in these fields, too, will find the book particularly useful in furthering the integration of social justice as a conceptual and philosophical foundation. The use of food, environmental justice, and immigrant-rights and the book’s focus on service-learning and civic engagement involving these three topics offers an innovative approach for courses.
A new theory of school effectiveness and improvement is outlined, based on the master concepts of intellectual capital, social capital and leverage, linked with the conventional concept of institutional outputs. Each master concept is defined in terms of two subsidiary concepts. Twelve specifically educational concepts are set within this framework to provide the theory. It is proposed that, through a simplified model, the range and fertility of the theory can be exemplified and tested in three specific cases—the changing nature of school effectiveness and improvement in knowledge economies, citizenship education and teacher effectiveness.
While conventional wisdom has long held that skill is transmitted through modelling and practical example, the traditional "master"-apprentice relationship represents a mode of pedagogy that is no longer deemed viable in modern workplaces where continuous change is the norm. The paper reports on data obtained from observation of formal apprenticeships in cabinet making, an old traditional craft. Following Michael Polanyi and Basil Bernstein, the structure of craft knowledge is examined in order to understand why tacit pedagogic transmission constitutes the essence of apprenticeship and how the asymmetrical relation between master and apprentice provides the basis of tacit pedagogy.
In the light of a shared discourse around the pursuit of a high-skill, knowledge-driven economy, this article compares the different policy approaches towards the curriculum (and more broadly education) across two national contexts, namely Norway and England and Wales. An attempt is then made to weigh the relative discrepancy between high-flown policy rhetoric and curriculum reality by asking which approach might be said to be more consistent with the professed 'high skills' policy vision. Three central areas of difference are highlighted: (1) the vision of education and its degree of subordination to economic priorities; (2) conceptions of what it means to create a skilled 'worker-citizen'; and (3) the level of trust vested in the teaching profession as genuine co-partners in a national project of curriculum reform and modernisation. The article concludes by asking what UK policy makers might conceivably 'learn' from the Norwegian example.
This paper poses Bernstein's depiction of craft as a 'horizontal knowledge structure within vertical discourse' as a puzzle and investigates this positioning through the development of a conceptual framework that follows Abbott's argument for self-similarity in fractal division. It draws on historical- empirical material as well as on some of the findings of an ethnographic study of cabinetmaker apprentices. It concludes that craft as knowledge form and its related transmission-acquisition practices constitute a restricted orientation which cannot yield a resolution to the 'theory-practice' conundrum, yet they have much to offer those tasked with reform in vocational education and training.
The concepts of mutuality, learning and change are embedded in the ideas surrounding employee led development (ELD) schemes. This paper explores the extent to which these concepts are an accurate reflection of the way such schemes are organised in practice. The article is based on qualitative research carried out in two small to medium sized enterprises in the north of England. We will show that while ELD can be beneficial to employees, attempts to apply the concepts of mutuality, learning and change require caution.
This article presents an analysis of gender identity within the context of lifelong learning. Constructed specifically around individual experiences of occupational apprenticeship in English professional football, it draws on a re‐reading of data collected in the early 1990s to depict the way in which a group of young men were socialised into their new‐found occupational culture and how their identities were shaped by the heavily gendered routines of workplace practice. Framing apprenticeship as a holistic ‘learning’ experience, the article looks at how the legitimate peripheral participation of trainees in an established community of practice facilitated their adaptation to and assimilation of various skills, procedures and institutional norms via informal learning processes. Set against the historical development of apprenticeship in England, the article uses qualitative research findings to determine the extent to which apprenticeship within professional sport might facilitate the reproduction of stereotypical gender norms and values.
This article argues that once apprenticeship is conceptualised as a social model of learning, then it no longer follows that apprenticeship is an age- or phase-specific model of vocational formation. The article explores this claim through drawing on a case study of the design of a Foundation Degree (FD) in aircraft engineering, which was explicitly designed to support the formation of ‘new entrants’ and the reformation of ‘career switchers’ vocational practice. Using the concept of recontextualisation the article highlights how: (1) the company (KLM) and the college (Kingston) FDs designed the teaching and learning curriculum to facilitate the above goals; and (2) learners used the opportunities provided by these curricula to develop their vocational practice. The article concludes with a number of observations about the conceptual and policy implications of its analysis.
The article aims at the question if performance advantages of experts do relate to certain properties of their implicit and explicit knowledge. An overview on features of explicit and implicit knowledge shows divergent results from different research perspectives. Moreover, current research paradigms do not allow a direct comparison of explicit and implicit knowl-edge in a real world domain. A new approach to facilitate such a comparison is presented. A sample of fifteen nurses completed an interview on explicit professional knowledge. These nurses had to act in a critical nursing situation and their action-guiding implicit knowledge was explicated. Groups of successful and unsuccessful performers were established. Results from the professional knowledge test and the method for explication were compared by means of the Formal Concept Analysis regarding content and structure of explicit and im-plicit knowledge in the two performance groups. Several differences between good and poor performers were found. For example, poor performers revealed more emotional contents in their explicit knowledge than good performers meanwhile good performers had more flexible implicit knowledge than poor performers. The results are discussed in relation to methodo-logical issues and practical consequences for knowledge management.
This paper examines a high school apprenticeship program with a focus on the opportunities for 'expansive' learning within three different contexts: schools, the training centre and worksites. The authors assume that while young people differ in the degree to which they engage in learning within different sites, the institutional arrangements and features of different learning environments signif-icantly influence their experiences and the quality of their apprenticeships. The authors' analysis of interviews with students and instructors involved in a carpentry program suggests that these sites exhibit several features associated with expansive approaches to workforce development. However, restrictions on learning occurred in schools partly because of the academic/vocational divide in curriculum. In the learning centre, the failure to address tensions rooted in power relations in the workplace limited students' learning. Similarly, students were confronted with the need to make trade-offs in the workplace that restricted their learning. The authors argue that taking steps to address these issues would enhance workplace practices and learning environments for apprentices.
This chapter examines values learning through vocational education and training. Changes in the values emphasized in vocational education and training practice and research are seen as expressions of broader cultural value shifts. In recent years, the most dramatic changes in the values emphasized in vocational education and training may be understood as expressions of the heightened valuing of performance, ownership, and contingency. The valuing of performance is expressed, for example, in the growth of outcomes-based (especially competence-based) approaches to education, in educational credentialism (including educational creep), and in the vocationalization of general education. The valuing of ownership is expressed particularly in the privatization of education and learning outcomes and the valuing of contingency is expressed most notably in the importance of flexibility, responsiveness to changed circumstances, and the management of risk. All of this is in increased attention to the context of learning and learning assessment, and in a focus on more immediate or proximate learning imperatives.
This article analyses the importance of apprenticeship systems in the current contexts of the UK and Germany. It discusses
the policy and practice of apprenticeship in connection with skills formation and vocational learning. It argues that despite
its declining popularity, apprenticeship continues to play a role in contemporary education policy with possibilities for
progress and improvement. However, its practicality and feasibility is dependent on policies which are influenced by the different
national socio-political, economic and educational contexts. Indeed, the reason why the UK’s attempts to revitalise its apprenticeship
system has not been successful is not because apprenticeship is becoming irrelevant, but rather because policy objectives
are not consistent with national capacities. If an apprenticeship system is based on strong institutional arrangements and
is adaptable to the labour market and its evolving demands, it has enormous potential to produce different types of intermediate-level
skills.
Incl. tables, graphs, abstract, bib. The paper provides an analysis of the take-up of modern apprenticeships in Scotland for the period 1999-2001. The methodology includes secondary data sources and a case study. The findings indicate that, although the numbers participating in the MA scheme have increased, there remain major concerns both with completion rates and the quality of the programme. The authors also question the relevance of using pedagogically driven theoretical models to understand the complex and dynamic nature of work-based employment practices.
The paper explore the ways in which complex global issues are reduced to simple educational solutions, in particular through discourses and policies of lifelong learning. It argues for an approach to lifelong learning based upon fallibility and conditionality.
The pre-registration house officer (PRHO) year can be seen as a formal apprenticeship into the profession of medicine, and as central to the identity construction of the doctor. The year characteristically involves rotation between specialties, including attachment to ward-based 'firms', where consultants teach PRHOs.
Teaching and learning in ward-based environments is under-researched, and the current literature displays a bias towards a psychological model of pedagogy that focuses upon transmission of knowledge and skills from one individual to another. Such a model offers a necessary, but not sufficient, explanation of how work-based learning occurs. Understanding the PRHO apprenticeship year should include reference to cultural dimensions to learning, especially socialisation into the profession. This constitutes an 'extended' (or 'hidden') curriculum model that may be theorised through contemporary ideas of activity learning within a 'new apprenticeship' framework.
The dominant psychological model can lead to an expectation for a uniform method of teaching and learning in ward round contexts that (a) ignores important differences in educational climate between established communities of practice, and (b) orients both teachers and learners to one-to-one transmission and reception, rather than sensitising to how knowledge may be held across members of a working group. The latter shifts emphasis away from reception to issues of active access. PRHOs, as novices, are not relegated to passive learning roles, but may actively co-construct knowledge with experts, offering potential transformation of the practices of ward groups.
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