MISSION STATEMENT

NCRVE's mission is to strengthen education to prepare all individuals for lasting and rewarding employment and lifelong learning.

The National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) is the nation's largest center for research, development, dissemination, and outreach in work-related education. Headquartered at the University of California at Berkeley since 1988, NCRVE is presently an eight-member consortium, with Berkeley assisted in its efforts by the University of Illinois; MPR Associates, Inc.; the University of Minnesota; RAND; Teachers College, Columbia University; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; and the University of Wisconsin. The presence of NCRVE or one of its members in nearly every region of the country places NCRVE in contact with the enormous diversity of educational institutions and labor markets in the United States. It also connects the Center with practitioners in each geographic region of the country.

NCRVE has played a key role in developing and disseminating a new concept of vocational education as it works towards fulfilling its mission of strengthening education.

NCRVE believes such education

• offers every student the option of a high-quality, career-related course of study.
• integrates curricula, maintaining an emphasis on learning through applied problem-solving--a strong feature of traditional vocational education--while including a rigorous course of academic study.
• simultaneously prepares students for immediate employment, further education, and lifelong learning.

We envision the NCRVE as serving in the role of a change agent, rather than as simply in the role of an analyst of current patterns, a service agency, or an advocate.

Effective change must do more than transfer research knowledge to user communities. It also must do more than transfer working knowledge to other practitioners and back to researchers. Beyond transfer of knowledge is the creation of collaborative knowledge. Through development, dissemination, and outreach activities, NCRVE serves as a change agent in helping schools to create answers themselves for the dilemmas they face.

NCRVE strives to integrate its research, development, dissemination, and outreach with practice from the outset, to the extent possible, through a collaborative change process that recognizes that the individuals involved in the production, transfer, and use of new knowledge must participate throughout the entire process.

This strategy involves implementing four principles:

1. Change depends on building and maintaining networks that support and expand the collaborative development and sharing of working knowledge, as well as research knowledge.
2. Change requires continuous communication among all vocational education actors who produce and use knowledge.
3. Change is developmental, initially helping people to commit to change and then assisting them to implement policies and practices that accomplish the desired change.
4. Change uses multiple, simultaneous strategies to reach a wide range of audiences, recognizing persons and the groups to which they belong change at different rates, times, ways, and so on.

Attention to these principles ensures that NCRVE is not simply dispersing information but is making significant contributions to the improvement of both research and practice.

The Organization of NCRVE's Agenda

NCRVE organizes its activities around two functions: (1) Research and Development and (2) Dissemination and Training. Research and Development is comprised of six substantive areas and Dissemination and Training is comprised of three programs.

Research and Development Areas

Area I: The Economic Context of Vocational Education

Area II: Institutions, "System," Governance, and Policy

Area III: Curriculum and Pedagogy: Innovative and Effective Practices in Vocational Education

Area IV: Students in Vocational Education

Area V: Personnel in Vocational Education

Area VI: Accountability and Assessment

Dissemination and Training Programs

Dissemination

Professional Outreach

Student Services

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