Ewart Keep
Biographic Data
| ID | 362949 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ewart Keep |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ewart |
| FAMILY NAME | Keep |
| SIGNATURE | KEEP E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warwick |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5687-7993 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Employability skills in mainstream education: Innovations in schooling and institutional isomorphism
In England, the Studio Schools model, focused on developing employability skills in young people, represents a disruptive attempt at educational innovation. Through a documentary analysis of foundational documents, interviews with the model’s architects and case studies of five Studio Schools, we map the tensions between theoretical conceptualisations of the model and the messy realities of implementing it. We found that the schools faced a wide …
Employers, the ghost at the feast
The question addressed in this paper is why expanding Higher Education (HE) has become the default policy position in England. One answer concerns the reluctance by employers to train. The paper adopts an historical perspective on the policy reviews into this issue which have displayed a remarkable policy amnesia, employers have not been engaged. Consequently, successive governments have fallen back on expanding the HE sector as the main way to b…
The case against education: Why the education system is a waste of time and money
Reviewed by Ewart Keep, Anna Vignoles and Hugh LauderBryan Caplan is an American academic economist and libertarian. The arguments The Case Against Education seeks to construct can be distilled fro
Opportunity Knocks? The Possibilities and Levers for Improving Job Quality
This article focuses on demands and interventions to improve or maintain job quality. There is a need for better understanding of what can be done, by whom, and with what impacts. The article provides a framework for reflection focused on interventions within and outwith the workplace. Drawing on secondary data, it outlines the renewed policy and academic interest in job quality, examines the multilevel reasons for intervention and the factors th…
A Bermuda triangle of policy? ‘Bad jobs’, skills policy and incentives to learn at the bottom end of the labour market
A focus of Government policy has been the need to ensure that those at the lower end of the labour market invest in their human capital through re-engaging with learning, which has been assumed to enable progress into better-paid employment. This article explores the problems created by ‘bad jobs’ and the evidence for the existence of a set of mutually reinforcing factors that reduces the incentives acting on individuals in such work, and in many…
Where next for vocational education
by Alison Wolf, London, Department for Education, 2011, 196 pp. £38.50 (paperback), ISBN 9780108510380 The author of this review begins with a declaration of interest – more than a decade and a hal
Moving beyond skills as a social and economic panacea
This article examines two inter-related issues. First, the tendency for UK skills policies to act as a substitute for other social and economic measures. Second, the problem of current conceptualisations of skills policy creating narrowly-drawn, technicist interventions that are frequently incommensurate with the scale of the problems which they purpor t to tackle. The ar ticle suggests that current policy formation processes, particularly in Eng…
Reflections on the curious absence of employers, labour market incentives and labour market regulation in English 14–19 policy: First signs of a change in direction
This article explores the previously quite marked absence from English policy debates on 14–19 education of issues that, in other developed countries, would be seen as key elements in the policy landscape. These are: the role of employers as providers of learning; the structure of employers’demand for skills, their recruitment and selection practices and the incentives this creates; the impact of labour market regulation on patterns of post‐compu…
Re-visiting the Nordic approaches to work re-organization and job redesign: Lessons for UK skills policy
The paper considers the lessons that UK policy makers might draw from Scandinavian programmes in the area of work re-organisation and job redesign. It takes as its point of departure the recent publication of the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit’s report on workforce development which signalled the need to develop a new ‘demand-led’ approach to tackling Britain’s ‘skills problem’. Building on the PIU analysis, the paper asks how UK …
Industrial restructuring and EU-wide social measures: Broader lessons of the ECSC experience
This article examines the lessons from the experience of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) with regard to debates about managing the social consequences of industrial restructuring within the European Union (EU). In particular it looks at the implications for moves from sectoral to regional forms of intervention, and from short-term social palliatives to a long-term proactive approach. It suggests that these developments may produce ne…
Evaluating the assumptions that underlie training policy
This chapter discusses the assumptions underlying official training policy in the UK. It is argued that UK training policy ignores the fact that Britain's vocational education and training problem is one of lack of employer demand for skills rather than one of lack of supply.Particular attention is focused on the presumption that employers will require ever more highly trained workers at all levels, that training is crucial to their economic succ…
Towards a learning society — Definition and measurement
This article focusses on the fashionable concept of the learning society. It outlines the origins of the idea of a learning society; underscoring the different definitions of the concept that have resulted from two strands of thought ‐ economists and training experts, who have advanced the economic imperative for a more highly educated and skilled national workforce, and educationalists, who have often sought to construct a broader social and pol…
Moving beyond skills as a social and economic panacea
This article examines two inter-related issues. First, the tendency for UK skills policies to act as a substitute for other social and economic measures. Second, the problem of current conceptualisations of skills policy creating narrowly-drawn, technicist interventions that are frequently incommensurate with the scale of the problems which they purpor t to tackle. The ar ticle suggests that current policy formation processes, particularly in Eng…
Opportunity Knocks? The Possibilities and Levers for Improving Job Quality
This article focuses on demands and interventions to improve or maintain job quality. There is a need for better understanding of what can be done, by whom, and with what impacts. The article provides a framework for reflection focused on interventions within and outwith the workplace. Drawing on secondary data, it outlines the renewed policy and academic interest in job quality, examines the multilevel reasons for intervention and the factors th…
Reflections on the curious absence of employers, labour market incentives and labour market regulation in English 14–19 policy: First signs of a change in direction
This article explores the previously quite marked absence from English policy debates on 14–19 education of issues that, in other developed countries, would be seen as key elements in the policy landscape. These are: the role of employers as providers of learning; the structure of employers’demand for skills, their recruitment and selection practices and the incentives this creates; the impact of labour market regulation on patterns of post‐compu…
A Bermuda triangle of policy? ‘Bad jobs’, skills policy and incentives to learn at the bottom end of the labour market
A focus of Government policy has been the need to ensure that those at the lower end of the labour market invest in their human capital through re-engaging with learning, which has been assumed to enable progress into better-paid employment. This article explores the problems created by ‘bad jobs’ and the evidence for the existence of a set of mutually reinforcing factors that reduces the incentives acting on individuals in such work, and in many…
Re-visiting the Nordic approaches to work re-organization and job redesign: Lessons for UK skills policy
The paper considers the lessons that UK policy makers might draw from Scandinavian programmes in the area of work re-organisation and job redesign. It takes as its point of departure the recent publication of the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit’s report on workforce development which signalled the need to develop a new ‘demand-led’ approach to tackling Britain’s ‘skills problem’. Building on the PIU analysis, the paper asks how UK …
Industrial restructuring and EU-wide social measures: Broader lessons of the ECSC experience
This article examines the lessons from the experience of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) with regard to debates about managing the social consequences of industrial restructuring within the European Union (EU). In particular it looks at the implications for moves from sectoral to regional forms of intervention, and from short-term social palliatives to a long-term proactive approach. It suggests that these developments may produce ne…
Towards a learning society — Definition and measurement
This article focusses on the fashionable concept of the learning society. It outlines the origins of the idea of a learning society; underscoring the different definitions of the concept that have resulted from two strands of thought ‐ economists and training experts, who have advanced the economic imperative for a more highly educated and skilled national workforce, and educationalists, who have often sought to construct a broader social and pol…
Evaluating the assumptions that underlie training policy
This chapter discusses the assumptions underlying official training policy in the UK. It is argued that UK training policy ignores the fact that Britain's vocational education and training problem is one of lack of employer demand for skills rather than one of lack of supply.Particular attention is focused on the presumption that employers will require ever more highly trained workers at all levels, that training is crucial to their economic succ…
Towards a learning society — Definition and measurement
This article focusses on the fashionable concept of the learning society. It outlines the origins of the idea of a learning society; underscoring the different definitions of the concept that have resulted from two strands of thought ‐ economists and training experts, who have advanced the economic imperative for a more highly educated and skilled national workforce, and educationalists, who have often sought to construct a broader social and pol…
Industrial restructuring and EU-wide social measures: Broader lessons of the ECSC experience
This article examines the lessons from the experience of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) with regard to debates about managing the social consequences of industrial restructuring within the European Union (EU). In particular it looks at the implications for moves from sectoral to regional forms of intervention, and from short-term social palliatives to a long-term proactive approach. It suggests that these developments may produce ne…
Re-visiting the Nordic approaches to work re-organization and job redesign: Lessons for UK skills policy
The paper considers the lessons that UK policy makers might draw from Scandinavian programmes in the area of work re-organisation and job redesign. It takes as its point of departure the recent publication of the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit’s report on workforce development which signalled the need to develop a new ‘demand-led’ approach to tackling Britain’s ‘skills problem’. Building on the PIU analysis, the paper asks how UK …
Reflections on the curious absence of employers, labour market incentives and labour market regulation in English 14–19 policy: First signs of a change in direction
This article explores the previously quite marked absence from English policy debates on 14–19 education of issues that, in other developed countries, would be seen as key elements in the policy landscape. These are: the role of employers as providers of learning; the structure of employers’demand for skills, their recruitment and selection practices and the incentives this creates; the impact of labour market regulation on patterns of post‐compu…
Moving beyond skills as a social and economic panacea
This article examines two inter-related issues. First, the tendency for UK skills policies to act as a substitute for other social and economic measures. Second, the problem of current conceptualisations of skills policy creating narrowly-drawn, technicist interventions that are frequently incommensurate with the scale of the problems which they purpor t to tackle. The ar ticle suggests that current policy formation processes, particularly in Eng…
A Bermuda triangle of policy? ‘Bad jobs’, skills policy and incentives to learn at the bottom end of the labour market
A focus of Government policy has been the need to ensure that those at the lower end of the labour market invest in their human capital through re-engaging with learning, which has been assumed to enable progress into better-paid employment. This article explores the problems created by ‘bad jobs’ and the evidence for the existence of a set of mutually reinforcing factors that reduces the incentives acting on individuals in such work, and in many…
Where next for vocational education
by Alison Wolf, London, Department for Education, 2011, 196 pp. £38.50 (paperback), ISBN 9780108510380 The author of this review begins with a declaration of interest – more than a decade and a hal
Opportunity Knocks? The Possibilities and Levers for Improving Job Quality
This article focuses on demands and interventions to improve or maintain job quality. There is a need for better understanding of what can be done, by whom, and with what impacts. The article provides a framework for reflection focused on interventions within and outwith the workplace. Drawing on secondary data, it outlines the renewed policy and academic interest in job quality, examines the multilevel reasons for intervention and the factors th…
The case against education: Why the education system is a waste of time and money
Reviewed by Ewart Keep, Anna Vignoles and Hugh LauderBryan Caplan is an American academic economist and libertarian. The arguments The Case Against Education seeks to construct can be distilled fro
Employers, the ghost at the feast
The question addressed in this paper is why expanding Higher Education (HE) has become the default policy position in England. One answer concerns the reluctance by employers to train. The paper adopts an historical perspective on the policy reviews into this issue which have displayed a remarkable policy amnesia, employers have not been engaged. Consequently, successive governments have fallen back on expanding the HE sector as the main way to b…
Employability skills in mainstream education: Innovations in schooling and institutional isomorphism
In England, the Studio Schools model, focused on developing employability skills in young people, represents a disruptive attempt at educational innovation. Through a documentary analysis of foundational documents, interviews with the model’s architects and case studies of five Studio Schools, we map the tensions between theoretical conceptualisations of the model and the messy realities of implementing it. We found that the schools faced a wide …
Economics (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Economic growth (8 works) · Public relations (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Education Systems and Policy (4 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (4 works) · Higher education (4 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (4 works) · Vocational education (4 works)