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A study adopted a sociocultural perspective to examine work-based learning (WBL) in different types of programs in Los Angeles that served similar populations of mostly minority students. The programs were a transportation career academy, a medical magnet high school, and a school-based enterprise. To understand workplaces as learning environments, the study attended to the social context for learning and working and examined certain characteristics of WBL. First, it focused on the social means by which tasks are initiated, accomplished, and processed, for this is when the process of education is set in motion. Second, it examined students' relationship to the existing community of practice in the work setting that is often responsible for learning and establishes important norms of behavior and performance standards in the workplace. Third, it studied the organization's own philosophy toward learning and training that can influence the types of learning opportunities provided to students. Fourth, it studied the connections between school and work that are meant to enhance students' learning. Analysis of workplaces as learning environments showed the social context varied markedly across the programs studied. Findings indicated the following: understanding the social context of work was important; schooling may undermine learning at work; WBL sites varied with respect to teaching strategies and expertise; and school and work were often only loosely connected and any connection was difficult to establish. (YLB)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert