Industry–school partnerships: boundary crossing to enable school to work transitions

Abstract

Industry–school partnerships (ISPs) are increasingly being recognised as a new way of providing vocational education opportunities particularly in industries where there are skills shortages. However, there is limited research investigating their impact on school to work transitions. This paper reports on a government-led ISP, the Gateway to Industry Schools Program, established in Queensland, Australia. Central to this initiative is the Resources Academy, a lead organisation for 28 schools and 17 multinational sponsor companies. This research adopted a qualitative case study methodology and draws upon boundary crossing theory as means to understand a Minerals and Energy ISP. We distinguish four types of boundary crossing mechanisms, which partners navigate in ISPs. The main findings were that boundary crossing mechanisms assist ISPs to develop industry-based contextualised curriculum and to prepare school students for employment. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Keywords

Author Keywords

industry boundary crossing School-to-work transition Partnership

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Office of Education Research, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

School of Cultural and Professional Learning, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

School of Curriculum, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Funding & Acknowledgements

Australian Research Council, ARC

Grant: LP100200052

This research was supported under Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects funding scheme (project number LP100200052: Industry-school partnerships project: A strategy to enhance education and training opportunities). Support was also provided by the Queensland Department of Education and Training, and Independent Schools Queensland.

Australian Research Council, ARC

This research was supported under Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects funding scheme (project number LP100200052: Industry-school partnerships project: A strategy to enhance education and training opportunities). Support was also provided by the Queensland Department of Education and Training, and Independent Schools Queensland.

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Industry–school partnerships: boundary crossing to enable school to work transitions

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