A case study of a British secondary school revealed that teacher training did not prepare teachers to implement General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs); experienced teachers lacked confidence in GNVQ planning and assessment. Schools teaching GNVQs need to be proactive in mentoring teachers for successful implementation. (SK)

The further education (FE) teaching profession in Britain is unable to form a clear professional identity. Causes include the co-existence of multiple workplace cultures in FE and the lack of formal teaching requirements for FE faculty. (SK)

Analysis of communicative interactions of community residents using interviews, diaries, and tape recordings revealed how learning may occur incidentally in social organizations, chance meetings, and other community interactions. Such community learning serves to transmit skills, knowledge, and values. Community groups provide pathways to skilled…

Interviews with 10 men studying early childhood education and 8 women in motor-vehicle engineering, areas in which they were gender minorities, revealed intimidating behaviors and stereotypes preventing their full participation. Difficulties also arose in workshops and job placements. (SK)

Examination of a work-based learning module that included a partnership between employees and academic mentors indicated a need for agreement on learning outcomes and assessment criteria among employer, employee, and facilitator, on who should perform the assessment, and on whether/how work-based learning can be graded. (SK)

Interviews with 30 students aged 17-19 in health care, business, and engineering showed that primary constructs they used to evaluate teachers were related to the quality of interpersonal communication, results confirmed by comparison with larger-scale studies. Despite the finding, affective behavior is not usually the focus of teacher education.…

British nurses (n=275), many of whom had to upgrade skills for conversion to registered nursing, participated in an upskilling exercise. Participants and a comparison group of nonparticipants were categorized as either opportunity-takers or conscripts (those who viewed retraining as obligatory). (SK)

A literature review found that business spending on vocational education and training varied by size, specialty, and location. Business interest in return on investment differed from government goals for encouraging training investment and may not be aligned with long-term national goals for laborforce development. (SK)

Observations of two learning groups of young women studying office administration identified one group as middle-class Anglo-Celtic, the other as working class, varied ethnic groups. They had different cultural assumptions about the teacher's role in assisting student learning; one group recognized their own lack of familiarity with group work.…

A literature review was organized by three theories: career as life process, as individual agency, and as meaning-making. Although the objective career is a major component, subjective meaning-making plays a significant role in career development. Understanding of career development should integrate several perspectives. (SK)

The distinction between formal and informal education is unhelpful. A reconceptualized concept of apprenticeship should reconcile the polarization between learner-centered and transmission approaches to instruction. (SK)

Drawing on recent work extending Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and activity theory, the article proposes that apprenticeship be reconceptualized as a more inclusive social theory of learning. Suggests the need for new criteria for reflexive learning. (SK)

Post-Fordist notions of people as the most important organizational resource are congruent with teacher professionalism. However, government vocational education policies are dominated by technical rationalism, which treats teachers as technicians to be controlled. (SK)

Examines whether Britain's Training and Enterprise Councils are the best way to forge consensus on Modern Apprenticeship. Concludes with the need for a greater role for industry-based organizations and dialog about what training policy should be. (SK)

Examines British policy for work-based learning in areas: (1) pre-1994 implementation of a national framework of qualifications; (2) the review of National Vocational Qualifications by Dearing and Beaumont; and (3) debate over work-based learning policy in the election campaign of 1996-97. (SK)