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Current calls for contextual education are a reaction to the passing of the factory age as the dominant form of work organization, and the recognition that the mind/hand split needed on assembly lines is no longer useful in new workplaces. The emergence of these workplaces (albeit in a minority of American companies), the declining competitiveness of the American economy, and the complaints of employers about the poor preparation of many youth for work have fueled the search for new and better ways to educate young people. A further stimulus is the concern that young people lack motivation either to complete high school or to put forth effort while in school, with the absence of a school-to-work transition system adding to the students' perception that school is irrelevant to employment.
Recent reports of such groups as SCANS and the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, as well as the l990 Amendments to the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act, call for "contextualizing" education as the solution to some of the problems described above. However, what contextual education means and how this is to be accomplished remains to be worked out in districts and schools around the country. Many approaches to integration have already emerged, ranging from simply adding some vocational content to academic classes or vice versa, to organizing entire high schools around occupational clusters in which all teachers collaborate to develop a curriculum that prepares students for a wide range of careers. The following descriptions are of the major approaches to contextual education which are included in this bibliography.
Functional Context Literacy: Based largely on the research of cognitive psychologist Thomas Sticht and the literacy and reading research of Larry Mikulecky, the functional context approach focuses on understanding the vastly different forms that learning takes in classrooms and in workplaces, and on bringing workplace materials and literacy tasks into the classroom. Mikulecky emphasizes that students will perform better in workplaces if the types of reading materials used in workplaces are also used in the classroom (Mikulecky and Drew, 1988). Sticht emphasizes that because people always bring what they already know to the learning process-- learning should be "contextualized" to build on their experiences (Sticht and Mikulecky, 1984). Both Sticht and Mikulecky base curriculum on literacy and problem-solving in specific jobs as they are currently practiced and as they are defined by employers and employees.
Workplace and Community Ethnography on Literacy: This research has revealed complex literacy practices that are not taught in school and that do not translate into academic performance, yet serve the community and workers well (Lave, 1986; Scribner and Sachs, 1991). Studies by Shirley Brice Heath determining local literacy practices (the use of language, reading and writing in the community, and the differences between school and community literacy practices) were used in conjunction with local teachers to build on the literacy practices of the children and their communities. Elliot Wigginton's Foxfire classrooms utilize a similar approach, stressing a student-centered pedagogy that turns the planning and the execution of projects over to the students, thus preparing them for the higher level literacy, thinking, and social skills required in workplaces of the future.
Defining and Teaching Generic or Thinking Skills: Cognitive psychologists have argued that what schools fail to teach and what is most required in high performance workplaces are thinking skills--primarily metacognitive skills, or the ability to regulate one's own thinking. They have argued that teaching thinking skills should be the basis of the contextualized curriculum and that there is sufficient evidence from research to claim that thinking skills can be transferred from one setting to another if certain conditions are present-- mainly a person's ability to recognize the similarity of situations (Adelman, 1989). One approach to teaching thinking skills is modeled on the components of traditional apprenticeship, where teachers model thinking skills by articulating how they think about various cognitive tasks (Berryman, 1989 and 1991). Gradually students are given more and more independence in executing similar tasks, until finally the entire task is turned over to them.
Motivation Theory: Most researchers acknowledge that one of the reasons for contextualizing education is to motivate students. Students form mental pictures of their futures from their knowledge and act accordingly. If employment is not part of that picture, or if the classroom seems unlikely to provide them with what they need to attain a job, then they are unlikely to have the motivation to participate actively in learning, or even to stay in school (Stasz, et al., 1990). Some researchers see the main purpose and benefit of contextualizing education as helping students who might otherwise be unmotivated to find reasons for learning. Classwork is linked to employment, and students can feel proud of the real products that they create.
Critical Pedagogy and Contextual Education: Another basis for contextual education is the preparation of students to participate in a democratic society. Within the literacy field, critical pedagogy draws on the work of Paulo Freire in Brazil, who taught literacy through scenarios--often drawings--of local conditions which revealed oppressive conditions in the lives of poor people (Freire, 1970). In learning the words to describe these situations, the people learned not only language skills, but how to read and therefore change the world. Glynda Hull demonstrates how the approach might be applied in a traditional vocational classroom in her ethnographic study of a vocational curriculum in a community college that prepared students for entry-level jobs in banking (Hull, 1991).
A Definition of Contextual Education
Is it possible to provide a definition of contextualized education from these varied theoretical roots and practices? There are elements that do cut across them, but there are also important differences which have implications for the missions of education, curriculum content, and pedagogy. The similarities might be summarized as follows: an agreement that people do not learn best through the present approach to curriculum and teaching characterized by the following: emphasis on decontextualized subject matter; teachers communicating knowledge to students through lectures, workbooks and review of texts; competition rather than cooperation among students; assumption that students must master simple subject matter before moving to more difficult topics; and the absence of tools in the classroom that facilitate work and problem-solving. Rather, the content of the curriculum as well as pedagogy should be changed to contextualize education, including:
The United States is not alone in its concern regarding the increasingly lengthy process that the transition from school to work has become. Many European countries are examining the "education-employment interface" and the problems faced by youth as a result of external economic forces (Reubens, 1988). One European educator, after observing both the American and European approaches to the transition, concluded that the U.S. and European countries have much to learn from each other and share a common need for better structures to link education, training, and businesses as well as new ways to articulate academic and vocational skills (Meijer, 1991).
The general consensus in the U.S., however, is that the European Community and Japan are far ahead of us in preparing their young people for the workplace and in helping them make the transition from school to work. They are credited in particular with providing better educational and employment opportunities for their disadvantaged youth. Public high schools in Japan, for example, enjoy an interlocking relationship with large private corporations and are much more involved in allocating students into the workforce than American high schools. In the Japanese system, students compete for jobs based on their grades, with their teachers making the initial selection, according to mutually agreed-upon standards (Pettersen, 1992; Rosenbaum, 1989). Such a system particularly helps students in the bottom half of their class, who are unlikely to enter postsecondary education.
The German dual apprenticeship system has long been proffered as a model for the United States, yet even its supporters caution that, for a variety of reasons, it is unlikely that an American version either would or should have great fidelity to the German model (Osterman, 1991). Adapting a form of the German apprenticeship system would provide the U.S. with a broader, more generic occupational training than traditional apprenticeship, combined with academic learning for all high school students. According to Hamilton (1987), the U.S. version would rely on supervised learning experiences in the workplace.
Another lesson provided by Germany, and more recently England, is the effort to maintain quality occupational training by testing and certification to meet national standards. This system is in contrast to the U.S., where certificates often certify only course completion and not necessarily the attainment of specific skill levels (U.S. GAO, 1990a). England and Australia's experiences in restructuring their youth education and training systems may offer models that are more instructive than Germany's for the United States. The British set up a system of employer-based training supported by employment subsidies, while the Australians focused on diversifying the upper secondary school curriculum, emphasizing improved teaching and assessment strategies without weakening the academic quality of the courses.
Of the two approaches, the British Youth Training Scheme was deemed unsuccessful, with little impact on the school curriculum and little coordination of credentials earned among employers and little articulation with the formal education system. The Australian effort, on the other hand, effected changes in the structure of basic education and increased high school graduation rates. It had the added benefit of generating new patterns of policy coordination among education, employment, and social security agencies and could serve as a model for U.S. state governments (Council of Chief State School Officers, 1991b; Vickers, 1991).
During the 1970s, apprenticeship programs for the trades were established in high schools in eight demonstration sites around the country--currently involving about 1,500 students. Upon completion of high school, these students become registered apprentices. The programs are considered successful; however, their numbers, like the numbers involved in trade apprenticeships nationally (only 300,000), are very limited and are concentrated in the building trades.
Apprenticeships have now reemerged as a means of improving education, particularly, but not exclusively, for those students who do not go on to postsecondary education. At its simplest, the new American-style youth apprenticeship is a systematic mix of academic instruction in secondary and post-secondary schools with employment-based training of students at a level of quality sufficient to certify their ability to perform entry-level tasks in skilled occupations capably and professionally (Nothdurft, 1991).
The U.S. Department of Labor recently proposed a two-tiered strategy for raising the skill level of the nation's workforce by strengthening and preserving the traditional apprenticeship system while encouraging the expansion of structured work-based learning which incorporates the successful features of apprenticeship (U.S. DOL, 1989c). Through its Apprenticeship initiative, the Department of Labor is currently funding a series of school-to- work demonstration projects designed to help change the way students learn basic workplace skills by applying the principles behind the German system, particularly the use of workplaces as learning environments and the meaningful interrelation of learning and work (Hamilton and Hamilton, 1992). Each project involves work-based learning strategies that combine work and classroom learning to better prepare students for high-skill careers. In an effort to address the outdated blue-collar image traditionally associated with the term "apprenticeship," the National Alliance of Business has developed a training model which comprises the elements of apprenticeship but goes by the new term of "job performance learning," thereby hoping to attract businesses to utilize these programs to ensure a highly-skilled workforce (Berry, 1991).
Other youth apprenticeship and work-based learning programs have been established in communities across the country, including statewide efforts such as those in Michigan (Michigan Council on Vocational Education, 1990). The majority of these programs provide paid work experiences for students that structure learning into the work experience and use curriculum materials and instructional strategies that build on the students' work experiences. The essential elements that comprise successful youth apprenticeships have been delineated by Jobs for the Future (1991), as has the issue of the costs of such programs and approaches to covering these costs (Roditi, 1991).
Work experience for students takes two forms: school-sponsored education-work programs and part-time work experience obtained by students on their own (in naturally occurring jobs) with no school involvement. The review thus far has addressed the former - structured student work experiences that involve direct and indirect linkages or formal relationships between the school and the workplace. The discussions under contextual education, international approaches to the transition, and apprenticeships all focused on establishing effective systemic links between schools and employers. It is well-known, however, and in some circles is a cause for concern, that most young people work in naturally occurring jobs that they find on their own while in high school (56 percent in 11th grade and 66 percent in 12th grade) (Charner and Fraser, 1987).
Many continue in these jobs after high school, generally in retail, food service, clerical, and unskilled manual work. Studies of youth employment suggest that while young people gain some skills from the jobs they hold while in high school and after graduation, these jobs are generally not tied to academic learning or to school programs, nor are they are linked to any career path. Despite the implication that there ought to be some way to more closely tie these work experiences in with their education, no one - not the schools, parents, or employers - is responsible for the massive movement of high school students into part-time employment which they arrange for themselves. As a result, many of these working students lack a sense of career direction and see work as successive short-term jobs, not in terms of careers (Charner and Fraser, 1987). The jobs that might have enormous potential for education-work experience, with advantages to both students and employers, are largely being wasted.
Stern and Nakata (1989) uncovered considerable variation in the qualitative jobs held by working students. Significantly, the degree to which the job gave the student the opportunity to use and develop valuable skills was positively associated with job market success for the three years after high school graduation. They also found that students with more complex jobs may develop a greater capacity for learning on the job, a skill that employers stress as critical in an ever-changing work environment. Whether this was due to the capacity of the particular student worker or the nature of the job, however, was not clear, and the implications for policy could not be ascertained. Barton (1989a) and Hotchkiss (1986) found no cause for concern regarding possible negative effects of working during high school.
Mortimer and Yamoor (1987) felt that most part-time jobs held by young people are "far from optimal" for adolescent development. Other studies have found a range of negative correlates of working long hours during the school year, including diminished attachment to and lowered performance in school, higher levels of drug and alcohol use, delinquency, and weakened parental authority (Steinberg and Dornbusch, 1991; Mortimer and Finch, 1986). Yasuda (1990) found a strong negative relationship between the number of hours worked during school and self-reported grades.
Until more complete, longitudinal data are available, the debate over the effects of young people working while in school will continue. The literature points out that whatever the effects, educators and employers must create mechanisms for jointly promoting the long- term economic benefits of education while encouraging productive, developmentally appropriate work by young people.
One highly publicized outgrowth of school reform efforts has been the proliferation of joint efforts between businesses and educational institutions. The National Alliance of Business and National Association of Partners in Education are two of the groups that are trying to track the hundreds--perhaps thousands--of collaborative ventures that are in place across the U.S. They range from relatively simple individual projects (e.g. donation of equipment) through the popular Adopt-A-School programs, to highly complex, multi-agency communitywide collaboratives like the Boston Compact, developed in 1975 and frequently referred to as the "mother" of all community collaboratives.
Using the Boston Compact as an illustrative case study, Grobe et al. (1990) define the nature and benefits of partnerships and lay out six categories of partnerships: special services, the classroom, teacher training and development, management, systemic educational improvement, and policy. Similarly, the National Alliance of Business (1989) identifies five components of educational restructuring in which business has a collaborative role, as well as the five functional areas in which business' knowledge and experience can assist educators: management analysis and improvement; advocacy; staff development; research and development; and the application of new technology. Bailey (1989) points to Chicago's Leadership for Quality Education as an example of a new breed of business partnerships in which companies combine philanthropy with hardball politics to seek school reform.
Although all of these types of partnerships are growing in number and sophistication, it is unclear how effective they are in the short run and what the long-term effects are likely to be, even with such well-known projects as the Boston Compact. CSR and Meridian Corporation (1991) provide specific examples of activities that develop and strengthen local partnerships and discuss the lessons that have been learned thus far about effective strategies for linking work and learning. Lacey and Kingsley (1988) offer guidelines for working partnerships based on the experiences of 21 Partnership Projects sponsored by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, which focus on increasing the employability of economically disadvantaged young people before they drop out of school. Inger (1990) reports on the rationale for a community-based strategic planning effort for the work-related education system in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, summarizes the lessons learned, and recommends actions to improve the functioning of such a system, including regional leadership, performance indicators, testing and counseling, and collaborative program development.
On the negative side, Miron and Wimpelberg (1989) reach the pessimistic conclusion that most of the investments made in the partnerships that they studied may merely compensate for meager tax bases in urban systems and therefore are not likely to lead to real innovation or reform in those systems that need the most change. Despite this bleak assessment, the literature points very specifically to business' interest in becoming more involved in education. As Doyle (1989) forthrightly states in a Business Week supplement devoted to business-education partnerships, business is interested today because long-term profitability depends on education as the foundation of America's ability to compete in a changing world economy.
The burgeoning literature on the issues and concerns relating to the school-to-work transition is an encouraging sign that serious attention is being paid to the need for development and coordination of strategies to help our young people find their way through the current maze of disconnected, uncoordinated transition services. Policymakers on the national, state, and local levels are recognizing that, while we generally do a good job of helping our young people who complete their postsecondary education or training directly after high school, we have been doing a poor job of educating and preparing those who do not. The unemployment rate for these young people remains discouragingly high, deeply rooted in converging social and economic trends noted in many of the annotations that follow, including reduced family support, slower economic growth, changes in the composition and organization of work, and a marketplace where global forces dictate direction.
The evidence increasingly supports the consensus that the United States has not kept pace with overseas competition at least in part because of our past failure to develop young people's capacities and help them make the critical transition from education to employment. The good news is that schools and employers, together with government and community agencies, are beginning to come together to develop effective school-to-work transition strategies. The documents contained in this annotated bibliography will hopefully serve as a sufficient base of information on the issues and topics related to school reform for youth transition to provide guidance and direction on the nature, quality, and impact of youth transition as a part of ongoing school reform.
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[Study Aims and Study Question]