the application or use) of something that has been acquired elsewhere. A transition of
this form involves a notion of progress and is best understood as a developmental
process. Such transitions may involve changes in identity, as well as changes in
knowledge and skill, thus, they are processes that involve the full person not just
learned attributes or techniques.
The notion of consequential transition and the distinction between the process of
‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ development have implications for the design of work
experience in vocational or general education (Guile and Griffiths 2001). In the past it
made sense to associate classroom learning with the acquisition of subject knowledge
and workplace learning as something taking place incidentally during activities
designed for other purposes. However, as the learning demands first, on educational
institutions are beginning to change because of the exhortation from policymakers to
create a lifelong learning culture; and second, on workplaces through their desire to
become ‘knowledge-creating’ organisations, the old distinction between different sites
of learning is becoming obsolete. Making either of the above forms of ‘learning’ a
priority involves developing new learning relationships between education and work
and within education and work. The challenge, therefore, is to recognises the
contribution that different forms of learning can make to one another. A central
requirement for such a curriculum will be to find a way to support young people to
relate their ‘vertical’ and horizontal’ development and to develop new knowledge and
skill.
Work experience, employability and a ‘curriculum of the future.
Some promising suggestions for re-thinking the relationship between ‘vertical’ and
horizontal’ development have been put forward by Young (1999(a)) and Guile and
Young (forthcoming). Young has argued that any attempt to relate different types of
knowledge and different processes of learning involves addressing the issue of
curriculum specialisation, since it is subject specialisation that lies at the heart of the
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