This article argues that China's education system is facing unprecedented pressures to provide appropriately skilled individuals to meet the demands of the rapidly growing economy. In China this is a uniquely complex situation owing to the coexistence of a diminishing command and control economy and a growing market economy. Within this context we…

This article is based upon research which examined the youth labour market in Cumbria, a predominantly rural labour market located in north-west England. It argues that individual and structural considerations must be extended to incorporate employer behaviour and attitudes towards young men and women. Employers' assessment of young people's…

This article examines the claim that the Irish educational system was one cause of Ireland's rapid economic growth in the 1990s. For decades Irish economic policy has assumed that economic growth depended on foreign direct investment (FDI). During the 1990s, Irish exports largely comprised high-technology manufacturing products; foreign-owned…

Using secondary data and new survey evidence from local LSC's, this article assesses the progress of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). It does so with particular reference to three current policy priorities: to ensure national coherence but with sensitivity to the local context, to increase the demand-led element of education and training,…

Experience of entry into the workforce varies across societies (each offering a particular set of social conditions), and across social groups within a society. This article examines how urban Japanese working-class girls made sense of their first permanent full-time employment and conceived the transition to adulthood over the period 1989-92.…