JVER v25n1 - Editor's Notes

Volume 25, Number 1
2000


Editor's Notes

James R. Stone, III

University of Minnesota

This issue begins my tenure as editor of the JVER. It is an inauspicious beginning to be sure as this issue is tardy in its arrival. The cause of the delay lies squarely with this editor. It is my hope to have us caught up by year's end. John Schell continues as managing editor, a welcomed support. The previous editor, Jay Rojewski has been most supportive in this transition and for his support, I am also appreciative.

Several years ago, my colleague and former JVER editor Professor Theodore Lewis (1995) , wrote in this column that a journal of vocational education ought to be the place where we resolve the most interesting questions of the field. I would simply add that a journal of vocational education ought to be the place where change agents interested in vocational education go first for new knowledge.

Professor Lewis was right then and he is right today. This journal ought to be a place where we address perennial issues and problems of vocational education. What then, are the most interesting questions, the perennial issues of the field?

In 1995, Professor Lewis discussed the need to understand how workers are coping in the face of technology. He suggested that the correlation of social class and curriculum, the problem of integrating academic and vocational education, the transitions from school to work were all problems of an enduring nature.

More recently, my predecessor, Jay Rojewski, in his final comments as editor, observed what he characterized as an amazing range of topics addressed during his tenure. His list of topics included transition from school to work, environmental ethics, student skill assessment, career development and decision making, community service, and teacher stress ( Rojewski, 1999 ).

The new National Research Center for Career and Technical Education built its proposal around questions derived from the recent Perkins III legislation. They proposed projects that asked questions about curriculum integration, accountability, professional development, educational technology and distance learning, and academic/vocational skills needed for employment and continued education. These topics mirrored the Congressional vocational education agenda.

To this growing list, I add my own thoughts.

  • We know that there has been a general decline in the number of students enrolled in secondary vocational education and a decline in the number of vocational courses taken by students ( Levesque, Lauen, Teitelbaum, Alt, & MPR Associates, 2000 ). While traditional vocational education is in decline, we see growth in career academies, career-based charter schools, career magnets and other forms of non-traditional, or at least non-reported vocational education. What are the causes and consequences of such trends? Are they a good or bad thing?
  • The U.S. Department of Education, under Congressional mandate, is pushing hard for states to create accountability systems. What do we know about the impact on practice of such efforts? How will such efforts affect curricular and programmatic direction?
  • Many of us have sensed there is confusion over the role and purpose of vocational education in our schools. How should public education address the economic and occupational development of its future citizens? Or do we leave all this to television?
  • The U.S. Department of Education is crafting and promoting a framework of occupational clusters. How will these or how have other pathway schemes affected the education and career decision making of young people?
  • Schools and colleges are rushing to spend huge sums on educational technology. Which technologies improve which aspects of the teaching learning process in vocational education?
  • More than 70% of adolescents work, a third of them more than 20 hours a week ( Stone and Mortimer, 1998 ). Yet we find fewer than 11 percent of them connect that work to school through cooperative vocational education, apprenticeships or internships ( Delci & Stern, 1999 ). What do we know about the effect of this disconnected learning on student achievement in high schools and transition to post high school education and training?
  • Why do so few women pursue and persist in information technology careers?
  • Tech Prep, curriculum integration, and contextualized learning have become part of the vocational educational landscape. What do we know about their effect on learning? Private vendors of occupational certification (e.g., Cisco and Novell) are penetrating our schools with "vocational education." What is the effect of such activities on the young people who participate? What is the impact on the nature of vocational education of such initiatives?
  • Why aren't the thousands of articulation agreements created in the past dozen years showing up on our two-year college campuses?
  • Whither school to work?
Are these the most interesting or important questions? Or are they questions of a transient nature leaving deeper, perhaps more important questions unaddressed? What are today's interesting questions?

So we turn to our scholars in this issue of the JVER and ask what they are asking. In this issue, we begin with the Presidential Address where Hollie Thomas asks what direction the professional association, AVERA, needs to follow. Marcelle Hardy asks questions of the school to work process in Canada. Bettye Smith, Helen Hall, and Constance Wollcock-Henry ask questions about high school teachers and Attributional Style. Finally, Wanda Stitt-Gohdes, Judy Lambrecht, and Donna Redman ask questions of the critical incident methodology as a strategy for understanding the work world.

In future issues, we will examine tech prep with Debra Bragg as a guest editor. Later this year we will assemble the thoughts of many of our leading thinkers on the nature and purpose of vocational education in a changed and changing world.

But for now, I ask that you consider what you believe to be the important questions and set about answering them. When you have done this, share your new knowledge with your colleagues in the JVER. .

References

Delci, M. & Stern, D. (1999). Who participates in new vocational programs: A preliminary analysis of student data from the NLSY97. Berkeley, CA: The National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California, Berkeley.

Lewis, T. (1995). Transition: What are the questions? Journal of Vocational Education Research. 20(1), pp. 3-6.

Levesque, K., Lauen, D., Teitelbaum, P., Alt, M. Librera, S. & MPR Associates. (2000). Vocational Education in the United States:Toward the Year 2000. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (doc. no. NCES 2000-29).

Rojweski, J.W. (1999). Editorial: Articles published in the Journal For Vocational Education Research from 1997-1999. Journal Of Vocational Education Research, 24(4), 161-163.

Stone, J.R. III & Mortimer, J.T. (1998). The effect of adolescent employment on vocational development: Public and educational policy implications. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 53, 184-214.