c39dc

3.2.2 Review of sources
A review of sources (extant literature and employer surveys on skills
issues) was undertaken to obtain an up to date view of existing
research, in particular in relation to RQ1, R2 and RQ4 –see Table
3.1- for which the study team undertook less intensive primary data
collection and for which there are a number of secondary sources
available. The literature review was undertaken through Boolean
searches 80 in educational databases and encompassed academic
publications and grey literature (in particular reports from
international and youth organisations). Literature written in English
and international surveys were reviewed, in order to keep the
literature review manageable. This created a certain bias towards the
experience of the UK and USA. The literature search, however, was
not circumscribed to a particular geographic focus and aimed to
gather data on the experience of other countries whenever available
in English language.
Regarding RQ1, related to the nature of the skills demanded by
employers, information on these from a comparative perspective
does not disaggregate information by level of education. Most
available information refers to skills demanded from graduates.
There is less information regarding other groups; however, available
information suggests that there is a certain degree of overlap
between the soft skills demanded by employers from graduates and
non-graduates, as detailed in the body of this report. For RQ1 a
number of major surveys on the skills demanded by employers were
reviewed. These are listed in Annex 1.
Regarding RQ2 it should be noted that there are very few studies
that focus systematically on skills development in the youth sector
and even fewer that particularly look at the development of soft skills
in this field. In this respect, it is interesting to note, for instance, that
the final external evaluation of the Youth in Action programme 2000-
2006 (ECORYS 2007 81 ) focused only on the citizenship
competences acquired by young people through their participation in
the programme (and its impact on their attitudes, skills and
knowledge in that respect) and not on the development of soft skills.
Several studies have provided important insights on the relationship
between youth work and education/ learning. Ord discusses
curriculum aspects (2004 82 ) and experiential learning (2009 83 ) in
youth work, Giroux (2005 84 ) analyses ‘youth work as a border
80These are searches which enable combination of words through the use of Boolean operators such as ‘and’, ‘or’,
‘not’ when searching by keywords or sentences, which enable more targeted searches to be performed.
81 ECORYS (2007) Final external evaluation of the Youth Community Action programme 2000-2006. Final report.
ECORYS Nl, Rotterdam.
82 Ord, J. (2004) ‘The Youth Curriculum as a process, not as outcome and output to aid accountability’ Youth and
Policy, num.85, pp.53-69.
83 Ord, J. (2009) ‘Experiential learning in youth work in the UK: a return to Dewey’ International Journal of Lifelong
Education, vol.28(4), pp. 493-511.
84 Giroux, H. (2005) Border crossing. Oxon, Routledge.
30