The People's Republic of China has dedicated itself to the achievement of the Four Modernizations--science and technology, agriculture, industry, and national defense--which will move the nation to the high levels of technology found in the advanced nations of the world. (JOW)

Examines Canadian historians' treatment of social class and the working class. Working class studies can be classified into three types--the academic, governmental, and political--and three periods--the 1880s to 1929, 1929 to the end of World War II, and the Cold War. A renaissance in working class studies characterizes the 1960s. (Author/KC)

Refutes arguments against professional certification for human resource development, such as lack of common knowledge base, restriction of labor supply, and administrative/regulatory issues. Presents positive implications of certification for individuals, organizations, and the field. (SK)

The balance of power in the United States has begun to shift from youth to older age and will not soon return to a more familiar proportion. Human resource development professionals need to help their companies respond to the needs of older workers and older customers. (JOW)

A leader in human resource development reminisces about the people, places, and programs that made the field what it is today. (JOW)

In education and the workplace, people are the most valuable resource. Developing human capital can produce competitive advantages for employers and employees. (SK)

Describes Alberta's registered apprenticeship plan (RAP), a three-year program in which students spend part of their time in school and part in industry as a registered apprenticeship. Compares RAP to the federal youth apprenticeship proposed in the United States and the European model. (JOW)

Robert B. Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Daniel Goleman, researcher and author, debate the pros and cons of trends revealed by American Society for Training and Development's 1999 State of the Industry Report. (Author/JOW)

To keep pace with dramatic changes in workforce requirements, the two-year college should not only focus on teaching, but also on the instruction of relevant and contemporary subjects. (Author)

Announces the decision of the first year the committee of the National Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award has accepted applications from the education and health care fields. Details how companies and associations are working with educational institutions to produce a more literate, technologically skilled work force. (JOW)

Summarizes the theoretical and practical issues related to the under-estimation of women's work in the labor force and national accounting statistics. Responds to the continuing criticism that women's efforts make no useful impact, unpaid work should not be treated the same as paid work, and efforts are misguided. (JOW)

In 2003, we wrote a critical reply to Frank Coffield's reflections in this journal on the significance of the Performance and Innovation Unit's project on workforce development for the future direction of skills policy in England. As Coffield made clear in a rejoinder, underpinning our arguments are fundamental disagreements about what would be…

This article argues that discourse analysis can be utilized in conjunction with other forms of analysis to develop a more critical teaching and research agenda for Human Resource Development (HRD); in particular this article suggests that the introduction of a discourse analysis perspective can support and facilitate the development of critically…

The "rhetoric of skill requirements" is a way of describing work by decomposing the human contribution into distinct components. Three important characteristics of this rhetoric are especially germane to an understanding of work. The first characteristic is that jobs and their incumbents can be fully analyzed by breaking them down into skills.…

The principal aim of community work-education councils is to make the transition between the worlds of education and work more rational through a deliberative, collaborative process of public and private interests and initiatives. A cross section of the community must work together as peers in a flexible give and take spirit. Councils should avoid…