This book provides analyses and evaluations of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) program, a federal government demonstration project that is targeted at providing career opportunities in the health care field for individuals in low-wage populations.
This book disrupts the false dichotomy of college versus career by showing how young people and the programs created to serve them integrate the worlds of college and career readiness as students work to learn against the odds and strive toward lives that matter to them. Work-based learning at each stage of the K–college experience is crucial to the development of young people. Through analysis of national policies on college readiness and work-based learning, as well as through illustrative case studies of young people in work-based learning programs, the authors highlight the programs, voices, and experiences of young people from middle school through college. Through interviews, participating students share their views, aspirations, and preparation for both college and career.
Practical solutions for improving higher education opportunities for disadvantaged students Too many disadvantaged college students in America do not complete their coursework or receive any college credential, while others earn degrees or certificates with little labor market value. Large numbers of these students also struggle to pay for college, and some incur debts that they have difficulty repaying. The authors provide a new review of the causes of these problems and offer promising policy solutions. The circumstances affecting disadvantaged students stem both from issues on the individual side, such as weak academic preparation and financial pressures, and from institutional failures. Low-income students disproportionately attend schools that are underfunded and have weak performance incentives, contributing to unsatisfactory outcomes for many students. Some solutions, including better financial aid or academic supports, target individual students. Other solutions, such as stronger linkages between coursework and the labor market and more structured paths through the curriculum, are aimed at institutional reforms. All students, and particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, also need better and varied pathways both to college and directly to the job market, beginning in high school. We can improve college outcomes, but must also acknowledge that we must make hard choices and face difficult tradeoffs in the process. While no single policy is guaranteed to greatly improve college and career outcomes, implementing a number of evidence-based policies and programs together has the potential to improve these outcomes substantially.
This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of ‘doing what you love’ continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US and the UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways. Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
"Major changes have occurred in the workplace during the last several decades that have transformed the nature of work, and our preparation for work. In recent years, we have seen the globalization of thousands of companies and most industries, organizational downsizing and restructuring, greater use of information technology at work, changes in work contracts, and the growth of various alternative education and work strategies and schedules"--
Career Pathways in Action offers a detailed exploration of the Pathways to Prosperity Network's efforts at state, regional, and local levels through five case studies across the United States. The cases include efforts to scale up strategic partnerships; balance state policies with particular regional needs and circumstances; and ensure postsecondary success. While the programs vary significantly from one another, they all involve cooperation between political, business, and educational institutions. The cases provide practical models for partnerships that can best serve young people and the industries in which they hope to find rewarding work. "Career Pathways in Action takes the goal of collaboration across K-12, higher education, and industry to the next level. The case studies detail how states and regions unpack the challenges of developing pathways with real value in the marketplace. Career pathways succeed as they reinforce the relevance of course studies and skills for success in the world of work." --Maura Banta, former chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education "As technology disrupts the working world, consensus grows that employers must engage more deeply in education: better aligning skills supply and demand and making learning richer and more relevant. This valuable collection looks across the US, exploring how to achieve such strategic collaboration. Assessing what underpins success, this book will be an aid to all those seeking to ensure education in the twenty-first century truly serves all learners." --Anthony Mann, Head of Vocational Education and Training, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Robert B. Schwartz is a professor emeritus of practice in educational policy and administration at Harvard Graduate School of Education and a cofounder of the Pathways to Prosperity Network as well as coeditor for the Work and Learning Series. Amy Loyd is vice president of Building Educational Pathways for Youth at Jobs for the Future and leads the Pathways to Prosperity and college and career pathways work. Nancy Hoffman is a senior advisor at Jobs for the Future and a cofounder of the Pathways to Prosperity Network as well as coeditor for the Work and Learning Series.
As environmental problems grow larger and more pressing, conservation work has increasingly emphasized broad approaches to combat global-scale crises of biodiversity loss, invasive species, and climate change. Pathways to Success is a modern guide to building large-scale transformative conservation programs capable of tackling the complex issues we now face. In this strikingly illustrated volume, coauthors Nick Salafsky and Richard Margoluis walk readers through fundamental concepts of effective program-level design, helping them to think strategically about project coordination, funding, and stakeholder input. Pathways to Success is the definitive guide for conservation program managers and funders who want to increase the effectiveness of their work combating climate change, species extinctions, and the many challenges we face to keep our planet livable.
Taking a new and innovative angle on social work, this book seeks to remedy the lack of holistic perspectives currently used in Western social work practice by exploring Indigenous and other culturally diverse understandings and experiences of healing. This book examines six core areas of healing through a holistic lens that is grounded in a decolonizing perspective. Situating integrative healing within social work education and theory, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from social memory and historical trauma, contemplative traditions, storytelling, healing literatures, integrative health, and the traditional environmental knowledge of Indigenous Peoples. In exploring issues of water, creative expression, movement, contemplation, animals, and the natural world in relation to social work practice, the book will appeal to all scholars, practitioners, and community members interested in decolonization and Indigenous studies.
In The Color of Opportunity, Haya Stier and Marta Tienda ask: How do race and ethnicity limit opportunity in post-civil rights Chicago? In the 1960s, Chicago was a focal point of civil rights activities. But in the 1980s it served as the laboratory for ideas about the emergence and social consequences of concentrated urban poverty; many experts such as William J. Wilson downplayed the significance of race as a cause of concentrated poverty, emphasizing instead structural causes that called for change in employment policy. But in this new study, Stier and Tienda ask about the pervasive poverty, unemployment, and reliance on welfare among blacks and Hispanics in Chicago, wondering if and how the inner city poor differ from the poor in general. The culmination of a six-year collaboration analyzing the Urban Poverty and Family Life Survey of Chicago, The Color of Opportunity is the first major work to compare Chicago's inner city minorities with national populations of like race and ethnicity from a life course perspective. The authors find that blacks, whites, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans living in poor neighborhoods differ in their experiences with early material deprivation and the lifetime disadvantages that accumulate—but they do not differ much from the urban poor in their family formation, welfare participation, or labor force attachment. Stier and Tienda find little evidence for ghetto-specific behavior, but they document the myriad ways color still restricts economic opportunity. The Color of Opportunity stands as a much-needed corrective to increasingly negative views of poor people of color, especially the poor who live in deprived neighborhoods. It makes a key and lasting contribution to ongoing debates about the origins and nature of urban poverty.
Most of the content in the Career Pathways Handbook is based on a series of career profiles - each one packed with four pages of valuable information, including the latest U.S. employment statistics and wage information, career dialogues with "real people" who work in the occupations, and extensive information for identifying and comparing related occupations. Each profile uses a consistent format to allow for easy reading and useful comparisons between occupations. While this book is based on a foundation of 154 different occupations, it also includes valuable information on several hundred occupations via the career path and related occupations tables. It is important to me that the information in this book will not only be useful to readers, but also be as current and reliable as possible. Therefore I have included the most recent information from reliable Government sources, as well as my own proprietary information from 20 years of extensive occupational research. The Government sources are U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) programs. For example, I have incorporated information from DOL's new O*NET Database, which includes the occupation titles and definitions, common job tasks, key skills and abilities, and related occupations. I have added the most recent employment statistics and wage information from DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Finally, from our own research, I have added career path and "real people" career dialogue elements, and have enhanced and expanded the DOL information throughout. For example, the O*NET Related Occupations lists were significantly expanded and education/training information, along with growth and wage data, were added to make occupational comparisons more meaningful. The Job Tasks have been expanded to make them more useful. The education and training information is based on DOL's Typical Education Levels, but has also been expanded for this book. I have also written or rewritten many of the job outlook and analysis statements that are incorporated into the Employment Outlook sections. Finally, I have included a number of resource guides to help job seekers and career explorers reach their goals. Beginning on page 617, there are guides on Planning Your Career, Researching Occupations, Education & Training Options, Looking for a Job, Competing for a Job, Writing a Resume, Writing a Cover Letter, Completing the Application, Preparing for the Interview, and Common Interview Questions. There are countless numbers of books (both good and bad ones) on all of these subjects, so I've included a list of my favorite books on my website under Readers' Resources (see www.cassio.com). Also included on this website is an online guide to "State Training & Postsecondary Education Directories" and a list of my "Favorite Job Websites." Best regards, Jim Cassio www.cassio.com An absolutely essential career reference for finding comprehensive job information spanning a total of 150+ occupations. This is the all-inclusive guide to helping a job seeker go from planning a career to looking for a job. The career profiles offer extensive statistical research on employment and job skills for each career path. Highly recommended for all public and academic libraries. Regina Jimenez, Research Librarian, Folsom Lake College This book is a wonderful and powerful tool for guidance counselors and individuals who are looking to start, change, or enhance their careers. The Career Pathways Handbook provides useful and insightful job skills information in a clear and reasoned manner. The personal point-of-view provided by the career professionals in each career gives the user an inside perspective on making career decisions that is refreshing! David Owens, Retired Research Manager, California Employment Development Department “/p>