Professor Alan Felstead and Dr Nick Jewson

 In 2008 the UK entered the deepest recession since at least the Second World War and arguably since the 1930s.  Output has fallen more quickly and has reached far lower levels than in more recent recessions.  This has resulted in unemployment rising (albeit slower than expected), total working hours declining, part-time working rising and earnings stagnating.  However, relatively little is known about how workplace training and learning activity have fared.  This seminar will present preliminary findings from an ESRC/UKCES funded project which aims to update and extend previous research in the light of the current economic downturn.    The aim of the session will be to promote discussion about a timely and significant aspect of the labour market which has received little coverage in either the academic or policy-making literatures.

Alan Felstead is Research Professor at Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University.  His research focuses on: the quality of work; training, skills and learning; non-standard employment; and the spaces and places of work.  He has completed over 30 funded research projects (including eight funded by the ESRC), produced six books, and written over 150 journal articles, book chapters and research reports.  His recent books include: Improving Working as Learning (with Alison Fuller, Nick Jewson and Lorna Unwin), London: Routledge, 2009; and Changing Places of Work (with Nick Jewson and Sally Walters), London: Routledge, 2005.  He is currently a Visiting Professor at LLAKES.

Nick Jewson is a Senior Research Fellow at Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. 

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

 Speaker: Professor Anne Edwards, Director, Department of Education, University of Oxford

Discussant: Professor Allison Fuller, University of Southampton

Chair: Dr David Guile, Institute of Education

 Anne will discuss her recent work on the ‘relational turn’ in expertise, outlining notions of relational agency, relational expertise and the mediating role of common knowledge in working across practice boundaries in children’s services. Her research uses a cultural /historical approach to connect knowledge with motives in identifying what matters for practitioners. In the seminar she will focus on the dangers of ignoring knowledge in school practices aimed at preventing the social exclusion of vulnerable young people.

 2 November 2010 – 3pm

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

 The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

Professor Green will be presenting the main findings from his report and Grahame Smith (General Secretary, STUC) will be giving a presentation on the skills utilisation agenda that the Scottish Government has been taking forward with the support of the STUC.  It is also anticipated that an official from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills will be providing an update on the range of research and development initiatives that it has been leading on in this particular area.  Tom Wilson, the Director of unionlearn, will be chairing the seminar.

Details of the seminar are as follows:

 Unionlearn Learning and Skills Policy Network Seminar

Unions and Skills Utilisation – a new unionlearn research report by Professor Francis Green

Monday 8^th November, 3-5pm (followed by a drinks reception)

TUC, Congress House, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3LS

If you wish to attend the seminar, can you please register by emailing Zoe Molyneaux, zmolyneaux@tuc.org.uk

The success of an economy is often thought to be related to the ways in which vocational education and training (VET) is conducted. The German dual system structure, but also German pedagogical traditions in VET, have been and still are of interest to many countries and often portrayed as the ‘gold standard’ for VET systems. German experts consult and teach abroad about the development of VET structures, programmes and curricula. Drawing on theories about policy transfer, Antje Barabasch will analyze and characterize these activities. Her presentation will be illustrated by a study of a particular policy transfer initiative between Germany and China and will also include reference to other countries.

 There has been a long history in the UK of judging the country’s vocational education and training  system against those of others in continental Europe and finding it lacking.  Policymakers have been keen to identify areas of ‘good practice’ and ‘learn lessons’ from other countries, a concern repeated in the current call for evidence for the Wolf Review of 14-19 Vocational Education.  The second presentation, from David Guile and Lorna Unwin, will examine the pros and cons of these attempts to ‘policy borrow’ and to take practice out of context. The presenters will argue that the UK needs to undertake a much more fundamental review of the way it conceives and structures vocational and professional education and training and to situate such a review within a broader strategy for economic growth and a resurgence of a much more balanced economy.

Contributors:
Dr Antje Barabasch, University of Magdeburg, Germany
Professor Lorna Unwin, LLAKES Centre, Institute of Education, University of London
Dr David Guile, Institute of Education, University of London

Chaired by Professor Karen Evans, Institute of Education, University of London

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London
The event is free but booking is required. Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk

Education and skills acquisition have become a mantra for policy makers and academics writing on labour markets and economic competitiveness.  The rise of earnings inequality is most commonly attributed to a failure of the labour force to increase its level of education fast enough to keep up with the rising demand for it.  However, the relationship between school and work remains poorly understood.  Notably little is known about the academic and other skills people actually use on their jobs.  Based on a unique survey of American workers, this talk will examine the meaning of job education requirements, school-related and other skills used in the workplace, and discuss their implications.

Michael J. Handel is an associate professor of Sociology at Northeastern University in Boston.  He studies labour markets, organizations, and inequality.  He is working on a cross-national comparative study of job skill demands this year at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 18 November 2010 – 3pm

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

 The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

This presentation explores everyday experiences of work-life conflict by female and male IT workers in two high tech regional economies (Dublin and

Cambridge) and the role of work-life conflict and uneven work-life ‘balance’ provision by employers in shaping workers’ participation (and

non-participation) in the relational networks and communities of practice that enable learning and innovation.

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

www.llakes.org

Thursday 16 December
15.00-17.00
Committee Room 1

What happens to young people in developed countries who are regarded as lower attainers, having learning difficulties, or special educational needs, in education systems that have expanded to educate all young people?

Policies directed at these overlapping groups, calculated at various times and in various countries at between 20%-40%, treat them as economically problematic,- either as non or partial participants in economies becoming more ‘knowledge intensive’, as social problems and/or as consumers of scarce resources. This paper draws on a small study discussing the issues with Head Teachers,College Principals, Administrators, and others, in England, (Gloucester and Birmingham), The USA ( Los Angeles and New York) Germany (North-Rhine Westphalia) and Malta, to try to understand the  expansion of education and training systems for these young people, and the preparation of  lower school achievers for work or  unemployment in competitive global economies.

Sally Tomlinson  is Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths College London University, and a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Education, University of Oxford. She is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Wolverhampton, and a Leverhulme Research Fellow. She has taught, researched and published for over thirty years in the areas of educational policy, special education, race, ethnicity and education and effective schooling.  (www.stomlinson.net)

All events take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London

The event is free but booking is required.  Please email LLAKES – llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk to confirm your place.

www.llakes.org