STC: The Trend Of American VTE In The 21～(st) Century

After the sunset of the School-to-Work Initiative, School-to-Career becomes the dominant guidance of current American VTE. The connotation of STC can ascend to the former century, which came down in one continuous line with Deweyism on vocational education, Career Education in the 1970's, and New Vocationalism in the 1990's. The new trends of economy, society and policy in the 21st century add some new character to STC. School-to-Career focuses the offering of various choices about 'future' for all students, setting a foundation for life-long development, and successful transition from school to career.The ideaistic evolution of STC is analysed in Chapter I. The retrospect of the ideaistic evolution and development focuses on the background, main components, and challenges faced of the Deweyism on vocational education, Career Education, and New Vocationalism.The background of STC is explained in Chapter II. The economy characterized by knowledge-based and innovative advanced the requirement to vocational education. The public educational choice set a new target for VTE to fulfill. The components of STW movement need another form to sustain. The current policies build a favorable environment for STC.Chapter III focuses on the ideaistic analysis of STC. The core ideas involved in STC include life-long VTE, VTE for all students, attention to the individual career development, cooperation between VTE and industry and community, and curriculum integration. Through the comparison between STC and Cooperative Education, Career Education, and components of STW movement, the new developments of STC are figured out.The influence of STC on the practice of VTE are focused in Chapter IV. The practical research begins with the general situation of the national VTE; then, the STC movement in the state level; in the end, the case study about the Career Academy Program in the school level.In Chapter V, the soul of STC is discussed. Based on all these analysis and research on American STC, the self-examination about domestic strategy of VTE is carried out. The comparative research can give different angle of view on domestic issues.