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Weekly UpdatesThis suggests that classroom learning can be structured in many ways, involving different community partners each contributing to specific outcomes, with varying degrees of student-teacher exchange about project design or reflective learning. Nonetheless, the teacher is still the key figure in the class and it becomes what she/he makes it. So while the delivery of knowledge can assume different forms, and involve participants in various ways, the centrality of the teacher as a guiding figure remains.
A POLICY CONUNDRUM: SCHOOL AND WORK IN THE 21ST CENTURY
As noted earlier, the global economic re-structuring that has taken place over the past 30 years has created an environment that contrasts sharply with that of earlier periods. For the 'boomer' generation, born in the years following the Second World War, the transition from school to work typically took the form of a discrete stage in the pathway from childhood to adulthood. Young people were expected to attend school and while they were studying they mostly did not have 'adult' responsibilities. At a certain point, they left full-time schooling and entered the adult workforce. This progression is what Beck (1992) called the 'standard biography'. It assumed a linear progression from childhood dependency through youth to adulthood, which was associated with independence, full employment, and family formation. The standard biography now belongs to a bygone era, to a past characterised by full employment and rapid industrial development. Instead of completing school then starting work, today's young people begin to combine work with school from the earliest legal age. Many of them continue to juggle study with part time employment for at least a decade. Combinations of study and work are now 'the norm' for high school students as well as university and polytechnic students.
The bygone era of the standard biography was associated with a long economic boom which began shortly after Second World War and continued unabated for almost 30 years in most OCED countries. It started to sputter during the 1970s, as the oil-price shocks exacerbated the effects of weaknesses in the global economy (Brenner 1998) with less and less certainty ever since. The end of the boom ushered in a series of structural adjustments, sometimes described as a shift from industrial to post-industrial production, but also described more loosely as economic globalization. Economic competition began to take on different forms. Large, secure production organizations, such as the typical manufacturing plant, began to give way to small firms operating as niche suppliers in a web of activity that did not include stable professional hierarchies.
As noted earlier, these economic shifts led to sharp declines in the youth labour market in Australia and in other developed economies. As the OECD (2000) noted in its summary report on youth transitions, demand for unskilled work fell in most OECD member countries during the 1980s, while employment opportunities in service industries and in technical and professional occupations rose. Thus, during the 1980s and 1990s there were substantial increases in the proportions of young people participating in extended forms of education and training across the OECD group of countries. In some countries there was also a simultaneous increase in the proportions choosing general education pathways over vocational pathways (OECD 2000).
The 'standard biography' referred to above, with its clear separation of student life from adult life, no longer describes the typical experiences of most teenagers today. In reality the progression from school to work was never as simple and secure as the standard biography implied, and it was not universal. Rural students have always been expected to work on the family farm. Combining study and work is no novelty in the bush. Nevertheless, the myth of an idealised standard biography persisted until at least the mid-1970s. Over the past 20 years, these taken-for-granted patterns have become less dominant and the transition to adulthood has become much less predictable, blurring the boundaries between school and work.
One aspect of the blurring of boundaries between school and work that has important policy implications for innovative cities is the increase in the proportions of young people who combine study and work during their high school years. The proportion of teenagers who are in part-time employment while studying full-time in high school has increased rapidly over the past two decades. In 1990 it was estimated to be a little over 20 percent and by 2000 more than one in three high school students were working. Recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures indicate that 67 percent of 15--19 year olds are in part-time jobs and that 79 percent of these are studying full time: taking these figures together, it seems likely that half of Australia's high school students are part-time workers. This is not solely an Australian phenomenon; data published by the US Department of Labour suggest that in Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK, more than 50 percent of 15--19 year olds are in the workforce, and many of these are combining study and work. It is time that we recognized this trend.
In exploring the implications of this development, some interesting contradictions emerge. First, part-time student employment with a length of more than ten hours per week tends to lead students to drop out (Marsh & Kleitman 2002; Vickers, Lamb & Hinkley 2003). There is ample evidence that those who drop out rather than completing school suffer high risks of being unemployed or underemployed for years to come (Long 2005). Other studies indicate that students who have been employed during high school are more likely to get a job when they leave school (Carr, Wright & Brody, 1996; Vickers, Lamb & Hinkley 2003). Studies conducted in employment settings also suggest that the workplace is an important site for adolescent career development (Mortimer 2003; Smith & Green 2001).
These findings present a policy conundrum. For teenagers who are planning to make a transition directly from school to work (rather then from school to further study), both school achievement and part-time employment make a difference. In terms of scale, the problem is significant. While 42 percent of young Australians go from school to full-time study at a University, TAFE College, or other institution, current ABS data indicate that 38 percent of school leavers enter full-time or part-time employment directly, without enrolling in further study or training.
There are several implications for policy, involving schools, parents, employers, and students. Recognizing this and providing flexible educational programs for senior secondary students would be an appropriate innovative step. For example, the South Australian education system provides re-entry high schools where young adults can complete their senior studies over three or four years, rather than over one of two. Schools might also engage students in projects where they research questions like 'who works in our school, what happens at work, and how can student employees improve their working conditions?' Employers need to fulfil their side of this new bargain. They should not instruct students to be at work during school hours, they should not push students to work more than 10 hours per week, and they need to offer students a way of applying for roster changes when their exams are coming up. Young people need to learn how to balance their work and study commitments, plan ahead, and communicate their needs to employers and teachers. Above all, there is a need for a series of innovative social compacts at the local level so that schools, families and employers work together to create safe and respectful environments for young people whose lives increasingly involve combinations of study and work.
EXCLUSION AND DIVERSITY: IMMIGRANTS, MIGRANTS, REFUGEES AND THE POOR
One effect of global economic re-structuring is the sheer scale of the inequalities that have been created. 'The world's richest 500 individuals have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 416 million. Beyond these extremes, the 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day--40 percent of the world's population--account for 5 percent of global income. The richest 10 percent, almost all of whom live in high income countries, account for 54 percent of global income.' (UNDP Human Development Report 2005: 18). From this disparity have come increasing inequalities and the exclusion of the poor within countries, and vast numbers of migrants sweeping across regions looking for the security and peace unobtainable at home (UNHCR 2008).
The concept of exclusion of segments of a population from the mainstream of society is used to portray the differentiation occurring within countries. Exclusion refers to the processes whereby certain groups are denied economic, social and political participation and are marginalized in ways that deny them access to secure employment, good education, and the ability to influence political decision-making (Castells and Miller 2003: 197). Forces of exclusion marginalize the poor within countries, including sectors of the population such as the low-income elderly, the unemployed, single-headed households, and disabled people. In addition, forces of exclusion operate as both a stimulus to migration, and as a barrier to successful adaptation for migrants in new settings. Historically, migrations of people are not new occurrences. What is different in the current period, however, is the sheer numbers involved in this displacement, the variety and types of migrants, and the creation of transnational migratory patterns. Undoubtedly, with the ravages of climate change, the number of refugees will only increase. It is time that Western cities adapted their urban policies and the educational provisions to match these new needs. Social inclusion policies demand new and innovative education policies.
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