Co-Opting School Students’ Experience of Paid Part-Time Work

Abstract

The study reported here used high school students' paid part-time work experiences to assist them reflect upon work, working life and post-school pathways. Because many high school students engage in paid part-time work, in any Australian senior school classroom there is a range of experience that can be used to assist students consider working life and post-school pathways. These experiences are more readily available and authentic than those provided through school organised work experience programs. In order to understand how the students' experience of paid work might be best engaged, students and teachers in six schools in Victoria and Queensland participated in processes of reflecting on these experiences. Consistently, across all cohorts of students, authentic workplace experiences were identified as assisting a range of educational purposes associated with students' consideration of learning about work, the world of work and to consider post-school options and pathways. Key variables in the likely success of this initiative were the facilitative capacity of teachers, their knowledge and valuing of working life outside schools; students' capacities and readiness to engage in reflection of their paid work and the resourcing and privileging within the school of VET provisions.