WP 5: Country LLL
Period:
October 2012 –
August 2015
Lead Researcher:
Researchers involved:
Objectives
The main objectives are:
- To identify how enterprises with strong business and lifelong learning track records engage with the public policy environment in relation to lifelong learning.
- To identify the elements of lifelong learning public policy environments which contribute to successful utilization of learning opportunities by enterprises and their employees.
- To explore in what ways public policy environments and public investments can be framed to encourage stronger investment in lifelong learning opportunities within or by the enterprise.
- To explore the relative roles of social partners (employers, trades unions, government agencies, training providers) at various levels in creating and sustaining strong and supportive workplace learning environments.
- To explore how public and enterprise policies and actors articulate and reconcile tensions between competing actors and interests within and in relation to the enterprise.
- To identify whether, and if so in what ways, these mechanisms privilege or exclude specific social groups (e.g., by occupational group, ethnicity, gender, language, location).
Methods applied
To address the objectives listed above and provide answers to the key question, this Work Package primarily applies the following methods:
- Analysis of Policy Trails: This will be done through the following methods
- Documentary analysis: This will involve examination of policy documentation from local, regional and national levels (including within the relevant industrial sector) relating to the 15 specific policy trails. Documentation on each will be prepared in a "trail fiche" (folder). For each policy trail case, an analysis of the relevant policy environment will be prepared. This will prove essential foundation for the interviews to be conducted in the interviews with policy actors for the next step.
- Interviews: For each of the policy trails, approximately five interviews will be conducted with key "actors" (public officials, enterprise managers, representatives of relevant public agencies such as colleges, social partners including trade union representatives. (There will be approx. 75 interviews in all.) The interviews will be conducted and catalogued in a standardized way.
Interim results
Research related to this Work Package is in an exploratory stage and shows that there is still the need for further data collection and analysis before moving on to drawing conclusions.