From Policy to Training: The Conundrum of Green Jobs.

This journal issue about green jobs resulted from a preconference held at the 2011 American Association for Adult and Continuing Education Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. We were interested in exploring the ways that green jobs training is being approached in the United States, and this preconference seemed like an excellent way to introduce two new special interest groups (SIGs), Labor/Workforce Education and Sustainability and Environmental Adult Education. We felt this important aspect of the adult education world needed to be explored more fully. What we found was, of course, more complex and complicated than what we hoped, so this issue continues the story. We expand the questions and issues raised at the preconference, and present a diverse array of programmatic types and approaches. Although this issue is the result of a close collaboration among the three coeditors, this reflection piece contains my views. Initially, we were interested in exploring the federal focus on green jobs and their role in the changing economy. Green jobs are jobs in green energy areas such as the manufacturing of solar panels or the equipment needed for wind farms, the large-scale adoption of renewable energy, and the building and retrofitting of weatherized buildings and homes. Broadly speaking, green jobs can also mean making factories or workplaces greener and more environmentally aware. However, this latter concern is not really a jobs initiative although it is discussed in the present issue of Adult Learning. Concern with the environment is not new. There have been periodic calls for adult educators to pay more attention to environmental concerns, sustainability, and greening. However, greening also includes a clearer integration of "environmental discourse into adult education" (Lange, 2010, p. 306). The current focus on green jobs is not really about an environmental discourse; rather, it focuses on careers, career paths, and job forecasting and improving the working conditions of low- to middle-skilled jobs. Thus, we need to look at a different literature base to understand this phenomenon. What we also see from these articles is the push for green jobs joins a long list of federal and state initiatives in adult education that combine good motives and objectives with a less clear delineation of what will actually work. There is a pattern to these efforts, and they seem to follow the educational fads of the moment. A recent example can be noted in the whole discussion of evidence-based practice. Borrowing from medicine, Slavin (2002) initially called for evidence-based practice, meaning the use of "rigorous clinical trials" (p. 16) and replication as the basis for adoption. Slavin was referring to the propensity of educators at all levels to adopt new practices and fads on a regular basis but with little rigorous research evidence to back up claims. For example, school systems had been known to adopt expensive curricula based on nothing more than publisher claims. Unfortunately, Slavin's call has taken on a life of its own. His calls for rigorous testing have devolved into claims and counter claims over experimental design and qualitative research. I do believe, however, his basic premise that educators are too prone to accept the latest fad is valid. Moving beyond Slavin, however, we can trace the evolution of green jobs initiatives to the best of all intentions, although these intentions have not been fully validated by research. The initiative for green jobs training was a result of a confluence of two major concerns. The first was the increasing loss of jobs among workers whose skills had become obsolete. For example, the downsizing and elimination of thousands of jobs within the steal industry left workers with few options. Going back to school was a possibility, but many of these workers had to figure out a way to gain new skills that built on what they currently knew. At the same time, increasing concern over environmental issues was leading to a growth of technological innovation in the energy field. …