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This article seeks to locate the body and embodiment more centrally among the concerns of actor-network theory by exploring working bodies. Using a newly introduced national system of vocational training as an exemplary case, it explores the tension between representations of skilled human bodies - 'competencies' - as given to trainers and the ways in which these representations are incorporated into their everyday practice. Vocational training has had a long struggle with the apparent separability of subject and object - between what can be felt and experienced as distinct from what can be stated, measured, and expressed in words. The argument is made that paying attention to bodies in vocational training can shed light on this struggle. Paying attention to bodies in networks can also strengthen network analyses. Like texts and other forms of materiality, 'the body' is not singular but multiple. Furthermore, body politics constitutes an important actor-network theme.

This article examines the link between labour market regulation, in particular in relation to employment security, and the development and maintenance of an adequate skill base. The implications of the different institutional and regulatory contexts within France and the UK are addressed through a comparative study of the civil aerospace sector. The evidence indicates that the institutional framework can have a profound effect on levels of employment security and, therefore, on training and skill development; and thus that labour market flexibility in the UK is a major barrier to the development and maintenance of skills.

Health education graduate students were surveyed to assess perceptions of their professional responsibility to be role models of healthy behaviors, characteristics of a professional role model, and related socializing experiences during professional preparation. A total of 233 randomly selected health education graduate students participated in this study nationwide. Significant inverse associations were found between students’ year in graduate school and sense of excellence as a role model, graduate program satisfaction, and professional commitment (all ps < 0.05). Students'sense of professional marketability and competence to role model were statistically significant in predicting their perception that role modeling healthy behaviors is a professional responsibility, F(2, 215) = 110.25, p = 0.00001. Positive associations also were found between students’ desire to improve fitness behavior, nutrition, and weight and/or body fat ratio with self-ratings as role models (all ps< 0.05). Implications for the profession and preparation are provided. © 1999, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.

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Geographic clusters of high-technology companies are an increasingly important source of wealth and job creation in the advanced industrial countries. This article provides a framework for understanding the conditions that give rise to these self-sustaining high-skill ecosystems (HSEs) that is based on the cases of the highly successful biomedical and computer hardware and software firms clustered in Northern and Southern California. The framework identifies four requirements that HSEs share in common with natural ecosystems: a catalyst to trigger the start of their development, on-going nourishment, a supportive host environment, and a high degree of interdependence among the actors in the system. The framework is then applied to the UK, identifying those policy options that are necessary for gaining greater returns from the UK's strong research base.

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Is the celebrated German skills system in peril? Western German employers have cut apprenticeship places since the 1980s, while the institutional supports of the 'high-skill equilibrium' (HSE) analysed by Finegold and Soskice (Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 4(3) 1988) are threatened: the globalization of equity markets menaces the 'patient capital' on which German companies depend; lean production techniques have rendered strategies of incremental innovation vulnerable on international markets; and German employers and labour face mounting organizational difficulties. This article derives implications from the HSE-model to assess these challenges against existing evidence. In fact, only the declining capacity of employers' associations and unions constitutes an empirically verifiable threat to the German apprenticeship system, the magnitude of which depends on questionable assumptions of the HSE-model. Of potential future salience, though, is the growing importance of service-sector jobs and the further training system in Germany, which may eventually undo the political compromise on which the HSE has historically rested.

This article examines the development of the Higher National Certificate (HNC) in Occupational Therapy Support against the background of recent reforms and changes in health, social and educational arenas. Learning theories relevant to educational initiatives are addressed briefly and a rationale for liberal humanism is proposed. The significance of role clarification, task analysis and skill mixing is highlighted within the context of the drive for effectiveness and efficiency of services. Eternal shortages of occupational therapists necessitate an increasing use of support staff. It is suggested that their role is now, more than ever, important in terms of client care and raising the profile of the profession, and that support staff may be empowered to become more flexible and reflective practitioners. Employers demand a trained and responsive workforce. Competence-based vocational education, such as the HNC, employs experiential learning programmes to encourage the link between theory and practice, thus encouraging staff to develop and update their knowledge continually.

Following the theme of 'educating for uncertainty in a changing world', this article delves into some of the issues that emerge for remote area indigenous Australians when change, cultural maintenance and an uncertain future collide. As a minority culture living alongside a Western colonizing culture, indigenous Australians confront a range of issues. This is particularly the case, as this paper argues, in the field of vocational education and training (VET). By discussing the establishment of the current VET system developed for a 'mainstream' context, and contrasting this to the remote area context, the article highlights the differences between the two and provides a basis for understanding the issues that arise. A discussion of the current social and political milieu furthers an understanding of these issues, which coalesce around the notion of control and access. It is apparent that these key notions remain pivotal if remote indigenous Australians are to educate for uncertainty in a changing world.