As in many European countries, the majority of undergraduates in Canada work while studying. However, little research has examined how they juggle school and work. This book draws on original research to address this gap. It moves from students day-to-day survival strategies to engage larger questions including how students prepare for volatile labour markets and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Taylor draws on circus arts metaphors to argue that twenty-first century skills include the ability to juggle competing demands, to balance studies and various forms of work, and to learn boundaries and the limits of ones flexibility. Although students experiences are diverse, commonalities indicate areas where more attention and support are needed from policy-makers, educators, and scholars of education.
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1 Transitions Then and Now: A Biographic Perspective
1 Introduction
2 Investing in Education and More Education
3 Studying Working Students
4 Book Themes
5 Organization of the Book
2 Student as Consumer, Investor, and Juggler
1 Introduction
2 The Student as Consumer
3 The Student as Investor
4 Education as Gift, Self-Appreciation, and Creative Human Activity
5 The Student as Juggler
3 Working Students and the Paradoxes of Time
1 Introduction
2 Research on Work Intensity
3 Research on Work-Study Roles
4 Students and Lived Time
5 Concluding Comments
4 Student as Juggler
1 Introduction
2 Conceptual and Analytical Influences
3 The Juggling Rhythms of Eight Students
4 Discussion and Conclusion: Comparing Juggling Rhythms
5 Student as High-Wire Walker
1 Introduction
2 Conceptual and Analytical Influences
3 The High-Wire Walking of Nine Students
4 Comparing High-Wire Walking
6 Student as Contortionist and Sword Swallower
1 Introduction
2 Conceptual and Analytical Influences
3 How Ten Students Bend
4 Comparing Contortion and Sword Swallowing
7 Concluding Thoughts about Work, Studies, and Circus Arts
1 Learning to Labour and Labouring to Learn
2 Education as Gift (or, Beyond the Human Capital Ledger) and University as
Model Employer
Appendix A: Student Cases in
Chapters 4 to 6 (N = 27)
References
Index
Alison Taylor is a professor in Education at the University of British Columbia. She has published monographs, journal articles, and book chapters on students transitions to work and community-engaged learning, including Vocational Education in Canada (Oxford, 2016).
