This research focused on participation in work experience and workplace learning programmes; the characteristics of pupils who participated in such programmes; and perceptions of the value of work experience programmes compared to part-time jobs. It found that pupils value part-time jobs more highly than work experience in terms of gaining employability skills; and that workplace learning programmes, which are extended work experience placements and usually involve a qualification element, are successful in opening up opportunities to pupils with academic or social disadvantage.

The findings suggest that workplace learning programmes can open doors for pupils who struggle with aspects of the secondary curriculum and do not aspire to university education. This is an especially important finding in relation to youth unemployment for the less academically able.

This article focuses on the job seeking methods of a group of eleven poorly qualified male school leavers and their fathers. One reason the fathers in the study had been confident about their labour market prospects was because their social networks provided reliable information about vacancies, and helped them obtain apprenticeships.

Social networks gave them access to a cultural tradition which facilitated school-to-work transitions, but also reproduced social class divisions by exposing the fathers to the cultures of the families’ work places. Strong demand in the labour market for poorly qualified school leavers, together with social networks that were well formed and embedded within the social infrastructure meant that school-to-work transitions were completed with ease. The sons in the study experienced a very different world, where it was much more difficult for poorly qualified school leavers to obtain ‘real work’.

This research analyses how work activities undertaken by Australian students while at school affect their post-school pathways into work and between work and study. It finds that work experience does help open young people’s eyes to career possibilities; that young people who had undertaken school-based New Apprenticeships had smoother school-to-work transitions than those who had not; and that part time jobs at school remained important after leaving school.

Those who participated in the New Apprenticeship programme seemed to have the most knowledge and understanding about their careers and choice of industry. This was because they received on the ground experience as well as training for a qualification. Overall, work experience seemed to be very important to pupils in the decision-making process of choosing careers.

This report describes research into the ways social capital is generated and maintained within Employee Volunteering (EV) schemes, situating their observations within broader debates about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The authors frame their findings using models of the operations and dimensions of social capital drawn from management theory. They draw attention to ‘networks’, ‘trust’ and ‘norms’ in facilitating the ‘goodwill’ that can emerge from the structure and content of relationships between actors in an EV setting, and the consequent information, influence and solidarity it makes available to them. Social capital, then, is seen through the lens of the motivation and opportunities of actors to build social relationships and co-operate.