Although the current Labour government is committed to developing the UK as a high skills society, there is much confusion as what such a society might look like and from where it might draw its inspiration. Some academic commentators have also expressed the need for a clearer vision of the kind of society to which the UK might choose to head for…

Many developing countries have tried, with varying results, to adopt the German Dual System of apprenticeship plus vocational training. Country-specific cultural, economic, and social factors affect success. Promoting apprenticeship and adapting the dual system to local structures such as micro-enterprises may present an alternative to vocational…

Examination of best practices for training and school-to-work transition in Germany, Sweden, Japan, and Singapore revealed commonalities: national full-employment policies; commitment to high-skill, high-wage economy through investment in education and training; continual upgrading of worker skills; and diffusion of costs across the public and…

In this introduction to the special journal issue on stress and coping, stress and coping theory is reviewed. Notes that issue is devoted to coping with stressors during transition of adolescence; age and gender differences in stress and coping; influence of close relationship as stress buffer; relationship between coping and adaption; and…

Despite its high unemployment level, Germany is experiencing a shortage of specialists and managers. Germany's need for highly qualified information technology (IT) workers and engineers is particularly great. Approximately 10,000 posts for computer scientists and IT specialists remained vacant in 1998. Because of the shortage of such specialists,…

In engineering education, creativity and communication processes have become necessary in complex structures such as technological networks and virtual reality. A new sociotechnical approach describes the engineering profession in aspects other than technology such as tasks, views, organization structures, and cooperation. Describes a…

As in many other industrialized countries, advances in computer technology are transforming Germany's industrial society into an information and services society. Increasingly fewer jobs are available in traditional industries and in the public sector. In the 1990s, Germany's trade unions and employers' associations have experienced steady…