This book is a result of a major research project in Switzerland that brings together the fields of Education and Socio-Cultural Psychology. It is focused on how culture is involved in very concrete educational practices. The reader is invited to follow the research group in a Swiss technical college that trains young people in precision mechanics during a period of major technological change: the arrival of automated manufacturing systems. This transition in the trade is an opportunity to explore the educational and psychological challenges of vocational training from a perspective inspired by activity theory and the consideration of social interactions and semiotic or other technical mediations as crucial to the formation of professional identities and competencies. What are the most appropriate settings for learning? There is no simple answer to this question. What can lead a pupil to become engaged, even if this is within a school, with all the seriousness of a future professional? Under which conditions is an internship in a company genuinely formative? Is it necessary to possess the most recent technologies in order to offer high quality training? What do we know about the relation between doing and knowing in the construction of new competences? How can it be planned and informed to become an object of reflection and make sense in the eyes of the learner? Dealing with such qustions, this study explores new working hypotheses on the manner in which the young experience their training and on the significant role for them of professional specialization.

In this examination of the apprentice system in colonial America, W.J. Rorabaugh has woven an intriguing collection of case histories into a narrative that examines the varied experiences of individual apprentices and documents the massive changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.

In this volume, leading modern economic historians show how analysis of past experiences contributes to a better understanding of present-day economic conditions; they offer important insights into major challenges that will occupy the attention of policy makers in the coming decades. The seventeen essays are organised around three major themes, the first of which is the changing constellation of forces sustaining long-run economic growth in market economies. The second major theme concerns the contemporary challenges posed by transitions in economic and political regimes, and by ideologies that represent legacies from past economic conditions that still affect policy responses to new 'crises'. The third theme is modern economic growth's diverse implications for human economic welfare - in terms of economic security, nutritional and health status, and old age support - and the institutional mechanisms communities have developed to cope with the risks that individuals are exposed to by the concomitants of rising prosperity.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.