Career Education and Work Experience Education: Can We Join Together?

Overview & Synopsis

Career education and work experience education are discussed in terms of the common goal of education as preparation for work, and three basic common values: (1) The importance of work to both individuals in society and to society itself, (2) the need for and potential of experiential learning, and (3) the need to involve the formal education system and the business-labor-industry-professional community in a collaborative relationship in ways that will expand student learning opportunities. Basic career education concepts are compared with work experience concepts. The concept of work, as a humanizing term, is discussed, along with implications for change in the role and function of work experience educators. The goal of this paper is to provide work experience educators with some basis for determining their own directions for professional change growing out of the career education concept. One point noted is that the career education concept considers work experience, in addition to that found in classrooms per se, to be an important opportunity to be made available to all students. (TA)