Skill and Work Experience in the European Knowledge Economy

The article analyses the link between work experience, skill development and the knowledge economy. It locates these issues in an overview and interpretation of the debate about the knowledge economy. It illustrate the difficulties associated with the development of generic skill through work experience by introducing a typology which distinguishes between: (i) those conceptions of generic skill which view it as though it were the property of an individual, and those which view it in terms of a relationship between an individual and the context in which they are working; and (ii) the generic skills called for when working in routine as opposed to novel work contexts. The article re-thinks relationship between work experience, its curriculum context and the development of generic skill by using the concept of consequential transition (Beach, forthcoming); connective spectausution) (Young, 1999); and resituation (Griffiths & Guile, 1999).