‘Re‐culturing’ students and selling futures: school‐to‐work policy in Ontario

Abstract

This paper situates recent school‐to‐work transition policy in Ontario, Canada, within the historical context of secondary school reform in the past 50 years. This understanding informs our analysis of interviews with representatives from government, business, organised labour, education and partnership brokers. Data suggest tensions between the rhetoric of corporatism and the reality of a market model, the rhetoric of enhancing opportunities for all students and the reality of lower graduation rates associated with new curriculum. We argue that these tensions reflect historical and continuing struggles around education and training and the adoption of neo‐liberal policy approaches that decrease rather than enhance opportunities for non‐college‐bound students.

Acknowledgements

This work is the first phase of a case study that is part of the ‘Work and Lifelong Learning’ project. I appreciate the funding provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the help of research assistant Andrea Spevak. Comments from Cheryl Freeman, David Livingstone, Harry Smaller and Brenda Spencer and an anonymous reviewer on an earlier draft of this paper are also gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1. We use the term ‘non‐college‐bound’ to refer to students not destined for college or university education.

2. The term ‘broker’ is used to describe organisations designed to liaise between key players, usually high school educators and employers. The Conservative Party was defeated by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals shortly following data collection, in fall 2003.

3. According to Gidney (1999), 278 new vocational or composite schools were built and 55 additions completed between 1961 and 1966.

4. Workplace preparation courses are said to be ‘challenging, but in a different way from University and College preparation courses. They emphasize hands‐on experience and skills application rather than theoretical learning’ (Government of Ontario, 2003, p. 81).

5. In effect, locally developed courses have been used as an additional stream of courses for students requiring remedial attention.

6. Decreased public funding to Ontario’s community colleges in recent decades and government funding for private training has encouraged them to privilege their role in preparing young people for employment (Dennison & Levin, 1996; McWilliam, 1996). Therefore, although this paper focuses on secondary school policy, changes in the college system are also very pertinent to discussion of SWT.