Transitions to Middle-Skill Jobs: Pathways Into the New Racio-Economic Structure of the 21st Century.

College and Career Pathwaysis an educational policy initiative widely acclaimed as a commonsensical and effective measure to ease students’ transitions between secondary and postsecondary education and into the middle-skill jobs. This article investigates the internal dynamics of thePathways’curricular model as well as its underpinning assumptions and implications. First, it situates this development within the broader context of school-to-work reform efforts and explores its connections to the neoliberal ideological thinking. Drawing on Leonardo's (2012) criticalraceclasstheory of education as a conceptual lens, and with close attention to the new order of job categories, it then examines the rise ofPathwaysin light of the realities of class, race, and the asymmetrical power relations that characterize the modern nation state. The article concludes thatpathwaysis best understood when situated within the dynamics of production and reproduction of a new class of workers for the new racio-economic structure of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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