Multi- and interdisciplinary education is a major postulate in the Swiss school system and has considerable weight in educational programs and learning objectives, both in compulsory school and at the upper secondary school level. However, materializing this postulate still poses problems at the political and institutional level, where the…

Purpose: The use of e-portfolios in recognition of prior learning (RPL) processes in workplace and professional practice contexts has attracted little attention in the literature due to its emergent nature. This study seeks to explore the growing incidence of e-portfolio-based RPL (e-RPL) and professional recognition (e-PR) processes in Australia…

Although there is a tendency to develop policy plans on adult education at a European level, there are still large differences between the various EU countries. These national policy contexts depend on historical, cultural, economic and political factors and can have a profound impact on the way adult education is shaped and developed within a…

This book assembles over 50 papers from the 7th Triennial European Research Conference of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA), which was held from the 4th to the 7th of September 2013 at Humboldt-University in Berlin. The title of the conference was "Changing Configurations of Adult Education in Transitional…

Governments are currently mobilising their national workforces to compete effectively in a globalised economy where being export-effective and import-competitive are necessary to secure national economic and social goals. Australia is no exception here. Yet, in this country, as in others, similar mobilisations occurred in earlier times, most…

In this collected edition, globalization and its consequences on vocational education systems are described and, at the same time, combined with the question of whether new phenomena of inclusion but also of exclusion are produced. Inclusion and exclusion are differentiations that predominate in all kinds of (vocational education) systems,…

England is the oldest nation of industry revolution and the earliest industrialized country in the world. With the colonization system breakdown and economic giants, the United States, Germany, Japan, etc. rising, today England has already lost former days of elegant appearance. The disadvantageous vocational education is one of essential factor…

In this address, ACTER President Jack Elliot states that Career and Technical Education (CTE) is the premier educational delivery system in the world. It addresses all learning styles by employing pedagogical strategies that embrace all of the multiple intelligence areas and incorporate the current knowledge in brain-based research. He discusses…

In a special section of the "American Annals of the Deaf", Deaf education and the Deaf community in South Africa are discussed. The special section is organized into 7 segments: a historical overview to establish context, the educational context, educators and learners, postgraduate education and employment, perspectives of Deaf children…

A brief history of Chinese industry involvement in vocational education and training is presented, including discussion of emerging industry arrangements in the market oriented Chinese economy. Industry involvement in vocational education and training is then considered in more detail, including the role of industry associations and newly created…

In this information age, career and technical education (CTE) has become a multibillion dollar training enterprise. To make the students more competitive in the labor force and to make the nation economically strong and firms internationally competitive, everyone has to depend on CTE to train today's workers of various kinds. This book brings…

Partnership is a dominant theme in education policy and practice in England and in other western countries but remains relatively under-researched, especially with respect to what sustains a partnership. This article draws on a study of partnership working in the field of post-16 learning that revealed the role of dimensions of social capital in…

This paper examines theoretical issues arising from technical and further education and training reforms over the last few decades. It illustrates how these reforms have been dominated by particular knowledge concerns assumed to be central to specific areas of human activity. It then examines the reforms in terms of theoretical relationships among…

The purpose of this article has been to set the record straight as to the extent to which education of the mind and hands was prevalent in the United States prior to the 1880s. This effort is necessary since the proponents of the manual training curriculum that surfaced in the United States in the 1880s created a misperception that no prior form…

In 1957, 12 years after the end of World War II, the Ministry of Education issued Circular 323 to promote the development of an element of "liberal studies" in courses offered by technical and further education (FE) colleges in England. This was perceived to be in some ways a peculiar or uncharacteristic development. However, it lasted…