.20 1990s The United States Stw Movement Study

The transition from school to work is one of the basic issues in vocational and technical education. Since 1990s, clue to the ongoing increase of the youth unemployment rate, the change of labor market and the urgent need of industries for high quality staff, this issue is becoming the very focus of vocational education reform in the whole world. Actually, in USA, the catchphrase in education for the 1990s is rather the "school to work". Under the School-to-Work Opportunity Act (STWOA) of 1994, the STW movement was widely carried out in the whole America. And now the STW movement is going into another stage with the end of the funds under STWOA. It is in this background that this dissertation attempts to present and analyze this important movement in the educational history of America.The background of STW movement in America is explained in Chapter I. The evolvement of secondary vocational education in USA is taken as the start point for the background analysis, as STW is rather a part of this evolvement, where lie the latent drives for this movement. Then it comes to the four direct drives for STW strategy in America, including the impact of economy, politics and technological development, the worry about youth employment prospect, the dissatisfaction about the educational quality inside USA, and the reflection on international comparison of education. The researches and practices before STW movement is also concluded as one aspect of the background in the end of this chapter.Chapter II focuses on the legal supports and key components of STW movement. The relevant acts . for STW movement includes the Perkins Act II (1990), Goal 2000: Educate America Act (1994), School-to-Work Opportunities Act (1994), and the Perkins Act III (1998). Three components make up the STW system: school-based learning, work-based learning and connecting activities. And the STW curriculum is characterized by the integration of school-based learning with work-based learning, the academic learning with vocational learning, and the secondary education with post-secondary education. Four major grants for STW development and implementation are presented in the end of this chapter as well.The focus of Chapter III turns from the ideology to practice. The nation-wide practices and effects of STW movement are concluded in the beginning of this chapter; then case study is employed to analyze the STW building in three different levels of states, districts and schools; in the end, four typical STW programs, including Career Majors, Career Academies, Tech Prep and Youth Apprenticeship, are presented and evaluated.In Chapter IV, five key issues about STW movement are discussed; each followed by some meaningful conclusions, including WBL and STW, the target student population of STW, the policy goals and management of STW, the relationship between industries and STW, and the sustainability of STW.Based on all these presentations, analysis and discussions, the last chapter concludes ten key elements for STW building and the difference between STW and traditional vocational education. The potential research field of STW movement is also viewed in the end.