Finding and Building the Joinable Society

Abstract

We report the results of research that examined the ways in which a computer simulation of a banking workplace influenced high school students general knowledge and understanding about the world of work. The stance taken is that the society must be seen as joinable and permeable if students are to positively and successfully enter the world of work. Using a semi-structured interview that was built around a conceptual framework of the work-world, students who used the simulation were compared with non-use students. The framework included three core constructs: general job awareness (job list); worksense (pathways in, typical days, and types of skills); and trade-offs (choices, complexity of reasoning, current efforts). Results indicated that students who used the simulation had a broader sense of work and had more subtle understandings of current trade-offs than did the non-use students.