A Comparison of Training Options for Machine-Tool Workers

尽管美国把重点放在信息和服务行业作为经济增长的源泉，但机械加工和工具行业对国家的经济福祉仍然至关重要。由于缺乏训练有素的工人，这个行业处于某种程度上的危机之中。这项授予伊利诺伊大学的奖项将支持一位文化人类学家的研究，以评估和比较宾夕法尼亚州西部的五个机床技术教育项目。其中两个项目是创新的灵活尝试，旨在培训学生，三个项目是传统的公共和学徒项目。该项目将采访学生、家长、教师、辅导员和机床公司经理，了解他们对相关技能的定义以及作为他们观点基础的个人价值观。利用传统的人种学方法、实地试验和经验抽样，该项目将评估最流行的机床就业培训形式的优点和缺点。这项研究之所以重要，是因为当前社会对学徒和职业培训的兴趣，作为纯学术项目的替代方案，假设我们知道如何为熟练的蓝领工作培训人才。对人们在不同的教育和职业培训经历中表现出来的价值观的性质进行的这种基础研究，将对规划者评估如何提高这一经济基础部分的实力具有价值。

In spite of the focus on information and service industries as the source of economic growth in the US, the machining and tooling industries are still vitally important to the economic well-being of the nation. This industry is in somewhat of a crisis due to a shortage of trained workers. This award to the University of Illinois will support the research of a cultural anthropologist to assess and compare five educational programs in machine-tool technology in western Pennsylvania. Two of the programs are innovative flexible attempts to train students, and three are traditional public and apprenticeship programs. The project will interview students, parents, teachers, counselors and machine-tool company managers on their definitions of relevant skills and the personal values which underlie their opinions. Using traditional ethnographic methods, field experiments and experience sampling the project will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the most prevalent forms of training for machine-tooling employment. This research is important because the current societal interest in apprenticeship and vocational training as an alternative to purely academic programs assumes that we know how to train people for skilled blue-collar jobs. This sort of basic research on the nature of values people have which underlie their performance in diverse educational and vocational training experiences, will be valuable to planners in assessing how to improve the strength of this fundamental part of our economy.