This article explores cross-country patterns in how conditions relating to family background, education, and the labor market are related to literacy and numeracy skills. It seeks to assess whether these patterns are in agreement with models of skills formation as identified in the political economy literature. The novelty of this article resides…

Context: This research was conducted in the context of Finnish vocational education and training (VET) teacher training. The teacher training was work-based, meaning that each teacher trainee was already working as an unqualified VET teacher. Workplaces were comprehensively utilised as the learning environment, with teacher training support also…

Rapid changes in working life have raised awareness of the need for lifelong learning among personnel, and there is increasing concern regarding the sustainability of such learning, especially in growth companies, where learning can be seen as a prerequisite for many work practices. Hence, the aim of this study is to understand the sustainability…

This article shows the result of an international project from the European Commission, and it aimed to analyse 30 cases of effective European entities in the field of adult education, from Poland, Spain, Finland and Italy. The objective was to collect the best strategies that generate good employment and social inclusion results. The research…

This study explored drivers of participation in job-related lifelong learning (LLL) among low-educated mature-aged employees and compared them across four Nordic countries. Workplaces can be low-threshold, effective arenas for development of their skills in work and learning. The paper builds on the Bounded Agency Model and theories of learning…

This paper looks at the importance of mechanisms that give formal recognition to vocational skills acquired through work-based learning and how such mechanisms might be developed. It describes how skill recognition can benefit individuals, employers and society as a whole, and identifies in which contexts skill recognition has the highest…

The first of the four papers in this symposium, "Towards a Meaningful HRD [Human Resource Development] Function in the Post-Command Economies of Central and Eastern Europe" (Devi Jankowicz), examines the existing knowledge-base among managers who are to be trained as HRD practitioners and suggests that efforts may be constrained by…

Work and learning in microenterprises in the printing industries of four European Community (EC) countries were examined through 17 case studies of firms with 10 or fewer employees (5 firms in Finland and 4 each in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain). Structured interviews were conducted with each firm's owner and a total of 90 staff at the 17…