Beyond College For All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half

Preface

xi Preface W e assume that we already know the basic processes by which American society operates. As participants, we have lived through it ourselves, and, as scholars, we have read many studies. Yet, although we do not realize it, we have blinders. Comparative research can help us see beyond our blinders, to see processes that we never imagined. This project began as a vague set of ideas and questions about whether school-to-work practices in Japan and Germany had any counterparts in the United States, and, if not, then how various actors perceived the process. In this inquiry, prior research on Japan and Germany raised questions about the United States which led us to discover unmet needs, unexplored resources, unconsidered options, and even promising initiatives, which do not work out because the other people do not understand and do not respond. Employers, students , and teachers take actions that all three find unsatisfactory because they do not see alternatives, or they do not realize how to make them work. Besides bringing some interesting ideas to the project, and convincing three foundations to provide support, my primary accomplishment was to interest some very talented graduate students into the enterprise. This book is very much a joint project. Graduate students have been involved in all phases of this project, and they have made important contributions. Several graduate students joined me in collecting and analyzing data and in joint authoring published papers from this project. These collaborative publications appeared in a diverse array of journals and books, and form the basis of several chapters in this volume. Related earlier publications are listed in the chapter notes at the end of the volume. As graduate students and collaborators, Amy Binder, Stefanie DeLuca , Stephanie A. Jones, Takehiko Kariya, Melinda Krei, Shazia R. Miller, and Karen Nelson were influential in helping develop the ideas that pervade this book. The task of extending and integrating xii Preface these diverse works and providing the missing pieces fell to me as my students went on to other projects. I hope that by updating the papers and integrating them with the other work in the project, this book shows the broader implications of each study and its relationships to the others. Special mention must be made of one of my former students. In 1984, Takehiko Kariya, a recent college graduate from the University of Tokyo, came to the United States on a Fulbright fellowship to complete graduate studies. He had read my first book and wanted to do similar work. Since that time, we have worked together, continuously, while he finished his Ph.D., and nearly every summer since then. We have both learned a great deal from each other. We have learned about each other’s nation, and we have learned to see our own nation ’s practices in new ways. This book is the result of that seventeen years of collaboration. I hope that it continues for many more. As former editor of the Rose Series, George Farkas provided enormous support and thoughtful criticism to the development of this book. Additional comments and suggestions were provided by Tom Bailey, John Bishop, Regina Deil, Greg Duncan, Mark Granovetter, Maureen Hallinan, Christopher Jencks, Felice Levine, Aaron Pallas, Anne Pille, Michael Schwartz, David Stern, Burton Weisbrod, and Chris Winship. Support for this work was provided by the Spencer Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. A new grant from the Sloan Foundation permitted me to extend some of the information in chapter eleven. I am especially indebted to Professors Fay Cook and Burton Weisbrod, directors of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, who provided the seed-money support that fostered this project when it was an unfunded idea and who maintained support for writing of this book after the grants ended. Finally, I am indebted to my wife Ginny and daughter Janet, who discussed these ideas, and provided the support that made this work possible. It is to them that I dedicate this book. ...