"The Postindustrial Workplace and Challenges to Education" By Kai-ming Cheng Cheng (cited by Suárez-Orozco, 2007, p.175) begins this chapter talking about the educational systems reform and how it transcends into the workplace. He was led into this research by his curiosity and uneasiness regarding his daughter being hired by a leading investment bank when she had no prior knowledge or schooling regarding finance and accounting. His observations stunned him when he discovered that the organizations that the educational system was preparing the students for were disappearing. This prompted him to discover that not only the structures of the workplace are changing, but the social institutions of education today are not preparing our young people for the future.
Jobs are disappearing today at an alarming rate as the result of changes in the organization of the workplace. Cheng’s major purpose is to present an anthropological description of the contemporary workplace. He states “That he is not advocating improvements in education in order to suit or fuel the economy” (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 176). Instead, his observations led to the conclusion that vocational education belongs to the fading industrial era and is now being challenged in our new society. Cheng argues that education should return to its original premise of broadly preparing young people for their future.
In order to fundamentally change the work force people must start with the organizational structures. As change happens in the workplace organizations at all levels are becoming smaller, flatter, and looser. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2003, 97.7 percent of businesses had fewer than one hundred employees, and 86 percent had fewer then twenty (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 176). The change in the average company size is related to the transference from large scale production to a system to promote customized products and services. Due to the increase of customized products the variety of products has increased. In relation, the demand for mass produced products has decreased. Similarly, Organizational services in today’s environment are more customized and mass producing large organizations of yesterday are obsolete. Cheng goes on giving examples of manufacturing, food catering, retail banking, and the insurance business. Manufactures are now employing fewer front line workers, diversifying their outputs, and working through organized teams. This new transition is having an ill effect on the need for blue collar workers. The Food catering and insurance companies now operate on customization of products and resources. Retail banking is replacing cashier counters with ATM’s. And many other examples can illustrate the changes in traditional production of goods and services.
Former working environments operate through pre-designed procedures and follow strict rules and regulations that connect the entire team in a coordinated effort. This has been called top-down management structure, which includes middle management and the division of mass laborers. Today, all types of organizations are banishing this type of middle management structure by creating and organizing smaller task forces or working groups. These groups are designed to create ideal services for particular individuals. Because of this change, organizations must increase the need for designers and decrease the need for frontline laborers. Thus pursuing and requiring laborers to advance their skills, training, and capacity. These workers must be diversely trained to contribute to the organization’s different talents, expertise, and experiences.
Employees of companies are not just implementers in today’s society they also have abide by strict job descriptions, elaborate procedures, and detail rules and regulations. Workers must bear the responsibility for all products. In today’s workforce individuals are increasing the number of independently employed people or free lancers. These changes in the workplace have an enormous impact or implications for individuals. Not only is our entire management system different, but individuals today are required to face different challenges then the challenges that were faced in the previous era. Some examples are listed below (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 179-180):
Room for “unskilled workers” is shrinking. Workers now need the capacity of decision making, problem solving, and critical thinking.
Teamwork and integration are becoming very common. People are expected to work beyond any narrow special knowledge and expertise.
People need to work with others collaboratively by demonstrating flexibility in dealing with personal conflicts and maintain a positive relationship with colleagues.
All types of workplace activities must include high competencies in communication skills.
New structures in work have caused employee’s to face dilemmas and decisions regarding ethics, emotions, values, and principles.
Workplace units have become unstable. Organizational loyalty, job security, and guaranteed income are fading away.
Because of the rapidly changing environments, individuals constantly face adjustments in teammates, partners, and social groups at work over time. This increases the need for socializing and networking.
Individuals are expected to be able to move between occupations and across specializations.
Tasks, jobs, and even careers are frequently shifting. Individuals must continue to pursue life long learning opportunities.
Weakening organizational bonds result in higher expectations of an individual’s capacity for self-management, self-confidence, and self-reflection.
Changes in the workplace will ultimately result in fewer available jobs. However, this will increase the opportunity for individuals to freelance or become an entrepreneur.
Adjustments have already been made in the workplace. However, the real changes have just begun. Cheng must ask the fundamental question, “If this is the society into which our students are entering upon graduation, are we adequately preparing them for successful integration?” (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 180). Education is being challenged fundamentally. The prevailing paradigms of industrial-era educational systems must also be examined and reformed accordingly.
The author talks about how educational systems are almost a screening for individuals to enter society. It talks about how when people graduate they all acquire different credentials that typically determine and justify their position in the social hierarchy. As a result of this, education is seen as function in society to screen and select individuals to fall into different positions in this social structure.
There are a few assumptions related to this. The first assumption is: that there are smart kids and dumb kids. The second assumption is: that a student’s intelligence is measured by knowledge, often in terms of amount of knowledge. The third assumption is: that the qualification pyramid in education exactly matches the manpower pyramid in society.
These assumptions can be challenged in several ways. Society has progressed and more individuals need post and secondary training or education. Employers that usually employ poorer performing students are becoming less prevalent. In Hong Kong, people in their forties and fifties are losing their jobs because their credentials no longer match what is needed to perform in the work environment. The schooling they had 20 or 30 years ago has not prepared them for the new requirements of the work place. Lastly community colleges appear to providing a real alternative route for students who have been failed by the conventional school systems.
There is a widely accepted belief in the value of specialization in education. These beliefs are based on several assumptions. One assumption is that human beings should be classified, and such classification is reflected in people's occupational identities. The next assumption is that knowledge is divided, and people who possess such knowledge are divided accordingly. The next is that the degree of specialization also indicates a person's intellectual level.
The book then talks about how a change in society can change the need for specialization. In today's society there is a need for specialized task but not for specialized people. Employees are now more required to move across disciplines and knowledge domains. Occupational identity does not have a lifelong meaning anymore, in more contemporary society people are more likely to pass through several careers.
Today it is quite common for individuals to vary in their training and profession. Schools are changing to keep up with this change. Many schools are now lowering their major requirements and are delaying specialization until the later years of schooling. This is to give students a broader range of learning to aid them to be more flexible and adaptable in today’s changing society.
Because of movements toward school effectiveness and measures to ensure school quality, standardized tests are the way to assess student performance and school quality. In this country it is believed that schools need to educate students in the classroom because activities outside of the classroom are not as effective or are not a real form of learning. In addition to the belief that students cannot learn much outside of the classroom, numerous school systems do not have the support needed for these kinds of activities.
There are a few assumptions that people hold about academic study (education in the classroom). The first assumption is the purpose of education is to get formal qualifications and it is ok if other types of learning take a backseat. The second assumption is students who excel academically automatically succeed in most other areas in life. Therefore, academic performance is directly linked to human ability. The last assumption is exams are the only reliable way to measure academics. If something is difficult to measure it simply is not measured.
Working well with all varieties of people is a necessary skill, and it cannot be developed through academic study alone. The society we live in now places a higher value on individual personalities and expectations of self (self-management, self-confidence, self-restraint, self-respect, and self-reflection). The expectations of self are usually developed during the school age. If academic study is the only focus of education, students lose valuable chances to develop these traits. Instead of sole academic study, schools can change to provide more and a larger variety of learning opportunities to build the character of students.
Schools are similar to the production lines of the past. There are three assumptions that form theories of how schools function. The first assumption is only schools can provide education. The second assumption is all students learn in identical ways. The third assumption is that structured activities are necessary for learning to take place (think about age grouped classes and classed divided by subject matter). Students who attend schools holding the assumptions listed above generally do not get the education that will help them thrive in society. Their education is rather limited.
However, recent ideas have been changing the focus of schools. There is more of a push toward problem solving, interdisciplinary approaches, multiage classrooms, new forms of student assessment, collaboration, and programs providing students with real life experience. Schools need to adapt to the changes in society so students are prepared in every way for living in the global era.
Edited by Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco. (2007). Learning in the Global Era: International Perspectives on Globalization and Education, University of California Press.
By Kai-ming Cheng
Cheng (cited by Suárez-Orozco, 2007, p.175) begins this chapter talking about the educational systems reform and how it transcends into the workplace. He was led into this research by his curiosity and uneasiness regarding his daughter being hired by a leading investment bank when she had no prior knowledge or schooling regarding finance and accounting. His observations stunned him when he discovered that the organizations that the educational system was preparing the students for were disappearing. This prompted him to discover that not only the structures of the workplace are changing, but the social institutions of education today are not preparing our young people for the future.
Jobs are disappearing today at an alarming rate as the result of changes in the organization of the workplace. Cheng’s major purpose is to present an anthropological description of the contemporary workplace. He states “That he is not advocating improvements in education in order to suit or fuel the economy” (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 176). Instead, his observations led to the conclusion that vocational education belongs to the fading industrial era and is now being challenged in our new society. Cheng argues that education should return to its original premise of broadly preparing young people for their future.
In order to fundamentally change the work force people must start with the organizational structures. As change happens in the workplace organizations at all levels are becoming smaller, flatter, and looser. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2003, 97.7 percent of businesses had fewer than one hundred employees, and 86 percent had fewer then twenty (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 176). The change in the average company size is related to the transference from large scale production to a system to promote customized products and services. Due to the increase of customized products the variety of products has increased. In relation, the demand for mass produced products has decreased. Similarly, Organizational services in today’s environment are more customized and mass producing large organizations of yesterday are obsolete. Cheng goes on giving examples of manufacturing, food catering, retail banking, and the insurance business. Manufactures are now employing fewer front line workers, diversifying their outputs, and working through organized teams. This new transition is having an ill effect on the need for blue collar workers. The Food catering and insurance companies now operate on customization of products and resources. Retail banking is replacing cashier counters with ATM’s. And many other examples can illustrate the changes in traditional production of goods and services.
Former working environments operate through pre-designed procedures and follow strict rules and regulations that connect the entire team in a coordinated effort. This has been called top-down management structure, which includes middle management and the division of mass laborers. Today, all types of organizations are banishing this type of middle management structure by creating and organizing smaller task forces or working groups. These groups are designed to create ideal services for particular individuals. Because of this change, organizations must increase the need for designers and decrease the need for frontline laborers. Thus pursuing and requiring laborers to advance their skills, training, and capacity. These workers must be diversely trained to contribute to the organization’s different talents, expertise, and experiences.
Employees of companies are not just implementers in today’s society they also have abide by strict job descriptions, elaborate procedures, and detail rules and regulations. Workers must bear the responsibility for all products. In today’s workforce individuals are increasing the number of independently employed people or free lancers. These changes in the workplace have an enormous impact or implications for individuals. Not only is our entire management system different, but individuals today are required to face different challenges then the challenges that were faced in the previous era. Some examples are listed below (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 179-180):
Adjustments have already been made in the workplace. However, the real changes have just begun. Cheng must ask the fundamental question, “If this is the society into which our students are entering upon graduation, are we adequately preparing them for successful integration?” (cited by Suárez-Orozco, p. 180). Education is being challenged fundamentally. The prevailing paradigms of industrial-era educational systems must also be examined and reformed accordingly.
The author talks about how educational systems are almost a screening for individuals to enter society. It talks about how when people graduate they all acquire different credentials that typically determine and justify their position in the social hierarchy. As a result of this, education is seen as function in society to screen and select individuals to fall into different positions in this social structure.
There are a few assumptions related to this. The first assumption is: that there are smart kids and dumb kids. The second assumption is: that a student’s intelligence is measured by knowledge, often in terms of amount of knowledge. The third assumption is: that the qualification pyramid in education exactly matches the manpower pyramid in society.
These assumptions can be challenged in several ways. Society has progressed and more individuals need post and secondary training or education. Employers that usually employ poorer performing students are becoming less prevalent. In Hong Kong, people in their forties and fifties are losing their jobs because their credentials no longer match what is needed to perform in the work environment. The schooling they had 20 or 30 years ago has not prepared them for the new requirements of the work place. Lastly community colleges appear to providing a real alternative route for students who have been failed by the conventional school systems.
There is a widely accepted belief in the value of specialization in education. These beliefs are based on several assumptions. One assumption is that human beings should be classified, and such classification is reflected in people's occupational identities. The next assumption is that knowledge is divided, and people who possess such knowledge are divided accordingly. The next is that the degree of specialization also indicates a person's intellectual level.
The book then talks about how a change in society can change the need for specialization. In today's society there is a need for specialized task but not for specialized people. Employees are now more required to move across disciplines and knowledge domains. Occupational identity does not have a lifelong meaning anymore, in more contemporary society people are more likely to pass through several careers.
Today it is quite common for individuals to vary in their training and profession. Schools are changing to keep up with this change. Many schools are now lowering their major requirements and are delaying specialization until the later years of schooling. This is to give students a broader range of learning to aid them to be more flexible and adaptable in today’s changing society.
Because of movements toward school effectiveness and measures to ensure school quality, standardized tests are the way to assess student performance and school quality. In this country it is believed that schools need to educate students in the classroom because activities outside of the classroom are not as effective or are not a real form of learning. In addition to the belief that students cannot learn much outside of the classroom, numerous school systems do not have the support needed for these kinds of activities.
There are a few assumptions that people hold about academic study (education in the classroom). The first assumption is the purpose of education is to get formal qualifications and it is ok if other types of learning take a backseat. The second assumption is students who excel academically automatically succeed in most other areas in life. Therefore, academic performance is directly linked to human ability. The last assumption is exams are the only reliable way to measure academics. If something is difficult to measure it simply is not measured.
Working well with all varieties of people is a necessary skill, and it cannot be developed through academic study alone. The society we live in now places a higher value on individual personalities and expectations of self (self-management, self-confidence, self-restraint, self-respect, and self-reflection). The expectations of self are usually developed during the school age. If academic study is the only focus of education, students lose valuable chances to develop these traits. Instead of sole academic study, schools can change to provide more and a larger variety of learning opportunities to build the character of students.
Schools are similar to the production lines of the past. There are three assumptions that form theories of how schools function. The first assumption is only schools can provide education. The second assumption is all students learn in identical ways. The third assumption is that structured activities are necessary for learning to take place (think about age grouped classes and classed divided by subject matter). Students who attend schools holding the assumptions listed above generally do not get the education that will help them thrive in society. Their education is rather limited.
However, recent ideas have been changing the focus of schools. There is more of a push toward problem solving, interdisciplinary approaches, multiage classrooms, new forms of student assessment, collaboration, and programs providing students with real life experience. Schools need to adapt to the changes in society so students are prepared in every way for living in the global era.
Edited by Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco. (2007). Learning in the Global Era: International Perspectives on Globalization and Education, University of California Press.