While enjoying the respect and prestige in some countries, in others, despite being a significant educational sector, vocational education continues to suffer from low status and negative societal sentiments. Vocational education in China has been positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, absorbing the 'left-over' students with 'less…

Recognising that many workers worldwide often face poverty and exploitation, the International Labour Organisation aims to promote decent and productive work opportunities for all. We conducted a scoping review to get an overall view of current academic literature on decent work and precarious work for samples of blue-collar workers. The studies…

'Continuous meritocracy' was introduced in Singapore to redefine the concepts of talent and ability in Singapore society. This expanded meaning of meritocracy serves as another way to further support the SkillsFuture Singapore movement (Skillsfuture Singapore, 2023b), which was launched in 2016. 'Continuous meritocracy' complements Work-Integrated…

This study explores the well-being (engagement) and work fulfilment of 628 blue-collar workers as outcomes of decent work, based on the Psychology of Working Theory and its target group. It takes a positive preventative approach and demonstrates the motivational role of work engagement and psychological ownership in contributing to the work…

In the Reform Era, the Chinese Government has placed great emphasis on the role of education in ensuring the economic success of individuals and of the country as a whole. While vocational and academic post-secondary qualifications are officially set at the same level, vocational education is positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy…

The origin story of school janitors in the United States has the potential to provide new perspectives and implications for educational historians to contemplate. Janitors initially entered US schools in the midst of the Progressive Era, primarily as protectors of both student health and new and expanding school buildings. Scholars and school…

The main objective of this study was the design and validation of a mobile learning environment (ML) based on Augmented Reality (AR) visualization with the purpose of developing skilled trades in the field of carpentry in indigenous populations. A pedagogical model focused on lifelong learning was used, in order to promote the acquisition of…

2020 will forever be remembered as the year of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. The graduating class of 2020 will face a difficult job market, and the adversities will follow them for years. New graduates facing these types of jobs numbers will be subject to "scarring"--reduced lifetime incomes caused by entering…

The article investigates mechanisms of class reproduction by looking at school-to-work transitions of young blue-collar workers from Austria. The study adopts a Bourdieusian explanatory framework to show how working-class kids are guided towards picking up apprenticeship training instead of pursuing further education. Two classed dispositions are…

Blue-collar employment growth increases schooling opportunities by raising incomes, but also reduces incentives for some students to advance beyond compulsory education. These contradictory influences may help to explain relatively slow and uneven growth of progression to upper-secondary schooling in Vietnam, which has experienced a foreign…

We investigated informal workplace learning (IWL) within an under-researched target group: blue-collar workers. IWL is particularly important for these workers because of learning barriers to participation in formal training. Based on meta-analytical conceptualizations and findings, we developed a conceptual framework of antecedents, processes,…

Rural America has long been perceived as "left behind" by policies that leave it struggling while benefiting bustling urban cities and suburbs. That narrative holds some truth: rural America has a declining population, along with lower educational attainment and lower workforce participation than urban America. But while rural America…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how an academic graduate from the cross field between the humanities and the social sciences and blue-collar workers learns to scaffold knowing in a small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME). Design/methodology/approach: A case study was conducted in an SME that employed the first academic graduate among the…

This qualitative, phenomenological study situated in grounded theory aimed to identify the forces that impede or support white working-class males in pursuing, adapting to, and remaining in higher education and making meaningful progress in their educational goals. Utilizing a feminist ecological perspective, the researcher was able to outline and…

Livelihood participation among members of indigenous communities necessitates redefining of gender roles in indigenous communities. Utilising participatory rural appraisal (PRA) anchored on the principles of Social Identity Theory and Critical Race Theory (CRT), this article draws on a study about adult Aeta women, one of the largest indigenous…