This article summarizes findings from a recent study of 451 Career Technical Education (CTE) and non-CTE students as drawn from seven high schools supported by an area career technical center. One aspect of this study examined each group's academic standing and their socioeconomic status, including the household living arrangements and the family…

Career and Technical Education (CTE) in America continues to evolve at both the secondary and postsecondary levels. This evolution of CTE is demonstrated by changing policies and practices that are driven from new legislation and educational reform initiatives. Policies and practices should be based on accepted principles that are derived from a…

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of occupational education officers concerning the instructional skills professional development needs for part-time faculty members within the community colleges in the U.S. The types of instructional help part-time faculty members were perceived to need most were concentrated in the…

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 (Perkins III) has been reauthorized in the first session of the 109th Congress, but not without strong opposition from the Bush Administration and allied neoconservative school reformers. This paper will detail four neoconservative rationales--modernization, competition, alignment,…

The purpose of this study was to determine how selected career and technical education teachers (CTE) in West Virginia perceived the impact of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. A convenience sample was used to select thirty-seven (N = 37) career and technical education teachers from five Southern West Virginia career and technical schools. The…

Women have increasingly become more involved in the workforce following World War II. Paid employment of women has shifted from primarily traditional female-oriented jobs to more non-traditional, and previously male-oriented careers. Women's participation in the workforce has lead to the study of career aspirations of women. Career aspirations are…

In this article, the authors report the results of two studies examining the participation rates of Latino students in postsecondary technical education (CTE) programs in community colleges and two-year proprietary institutions in the United States in 1994 and 2000. It is believed that the quality of the future U.S. Labor market will depend, to a…

Propensity score matching was used to evaluate the effectiveness of Mexico's College of Professional Technical Education system with data from 5,574 graduates and a control group. Although controls found jobs faster, graduates have jobs more congruent with their training and earn 20-28% more. Cost-benefit analysis also supports program…

Relates Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development to the range of development in Lave and Wenger's communities of practice model in terms of the roles and stages of cognitive apprenticeship. Discusses applications in adult vocational education and on-the-job training. Contains 32 references. (SK)

Characteristics of students in 15 Pennsylvania community colleges (n=704) and 16 two-year proprietary colleges (n=317) were compared. In both groups, technical students were overwhelmingly white; the community colleges' population was 69.5% male, 30.5% female; in proprietary schools, 43.2% male, 56.8% female. Females had higher grade point…

Community college mechanics students in a competency-based program were compared with those in a cohort-based program. The cohort group perceived a split between theory and practice. The competency-based group was less affected by literacy and language difficulties. They felt success depended on motivation, initiative, and maturity; the cohort…