The United States should provide all young people entering the work force with opportunities to develop productive careers. Despite that fact, the nation's schools fail to equip many young people with appropriate skills, the job market often fails to link them to long-term advancement-oriented employment, and their communities often provide few role models of adult employment success. These problems are particularly acute in the nation's inner cities. The following are among the actions that communities, schools, and employers can take to create a more favorable environment and employment in inner cities: provide prenatal/postnatal health care, parenting education, developmentally oriented preschool programs, and health/social services for students and their families; initiate gun and drug control measures; establish higher educational standards; improve teacher quality; increase schools' use of information technology; strengthen school-based management; expand charter schools and public school choice; increase employee recruiting through inner city schools and other community-based sources of job referrals; provide student internships for inner city job seekers; use school transcripts and teacher recommendations when making hiring decisions; and expand "diversity management" initiatives to enhance the retention and productivity of employees from diverse demographic backgrounds; and redesign career ladders to provide workers with initial access at younger ages. (MN)

Across education, out-of-school-time programming, and workforce development, researchers and practitioners are seeking ways to bolster the career readiness of our nation’s youth, particularly low-income youth. This issue brings together information from a variety of disciplines and fields to help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers understand what we know and need to learn to provide youth with effective, engaging career-related programming. The articles highlight key findings about how youth learn about careers and develop a vocational identity, whether adolescent employment is beneficial for youth, and how to align our various systems to promote positive youth development. Models of career programming from education, afterschool, and workforce development are highlighted, as are strategies for collaborating with businesses. The volume emphasizes the practical implications of research findings, keeping the focus on how to develop evidence-based practices to support career development for youth. This is the 134th volume of New Directions for Youth Development, the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series dedicated to bringing together everyone concerned with helping young people, including scholars, practitioners, and people from different disciplines and professions.

What role should older workers play in our future work force, when the retirement of the baby boomers, starting about 2010, will make tight labor markets commonplace. This unprecedented demographic shift calls for a fundamental rethinking about the work force of the future. Employer attitudes and policies must change if older workers are to remain in the work force longer. This report recommends a "pro-work" agenda for employers, policymakers, and olders in 6 areas: getting the financial incentives right; replacing stereotypes about older workers; the training imperative; rethinking the org. of work; getting older workers into new jobs: and a strong and flexible safety net.

Practical guide and theoretical manifesto, New Frontiers for Youth Development is a vital roadmap to the problems and prospects of youth development programs today and in the future. In response to an unprecedented array of challenges, policy makers and care providers in the field of youth dvevelopment have begun to expand the field both practically and conceptually. This expansion has thus far outstripped comprehensive analysis of the issues it raises, among them the important matter of establishing common standards of legitimacy and competence for practitioners. New Frontiers for Youth Development is an overview of the field designed to foster a better understanding of the multifaceted aspects and inherent tensions of youth development. Melvin Delgado outlines the broad social forces that affect youth, particularly at-risk or marginalized youth, and the programs designed to address their needs. He stresses the importance of a contextualized approach that avoids rigid standardization and is attuned to the many factors that shape a child's development: cognitive, emotional, physical, moral, social, and spiritual. The key characteristic of youth development in the twenty-first century, Delgado suggests, is the participation of young people as practitioners themselves. Youth must be seen as assets as well as clients, incorporated into the educational process in ways that build character, maturity, and self-confidence.