Pathways Resource Library

This whitepaper resource by the American Student Assistance explains the importance of valuing students’ voices in conversations about their futures, and why families and communities must be OK with their plans including different forms of postsecondary education. Coverage includes the contextual differences of the college landscape "then vs. now", the pressures of decisionmaking and college attendence, policy recommendation, college students' aspirations, and how to guide them in times of uncertainty.

This resource includes a set of skills-based hiring toolkits that include a skills-based job-posting, interview questions, and onboarding plans. Each Skills-Based Hiring Toolkit is packed with valuable resources that will help you transform your hiring strategy.

Pathways Narrative is a cohort-based pilot project focused on the education and career pathways space. Each of the nine organizations in the cohort works with dedicated strategists from Wonder: Strategies for Good to develop a narrative change research project that aligns with and advances the organization’s goals. Get to know the cohort partners here, and explore the many possible approaches to narrative change.

A unified directory of organizations and employers offering work-based learning opportunities—such as internships, job shadows, and apprenticeships— to help decision-makers find, compare, and connect with providers.

This survey explores the perspectives and experiences of those in closest contact with the American education system—namely parents, current students, and recent graduates. In partnership with YouGov, American Compass surveyed representative American parents young adults about their views on the purpose of public education; their reflections on the way that the school system has performed; and their desire for reforms to both K–12 schools and higher education. They found that Americans want (1) a public education system less focused on college, more focused on preparing people to build decent lives in their communities, and (2) education reforms to emphasize non-college pathways.

This is a thought paper for school and community leaders. It takes an honest look at the reality of what was facing America students and its workforce in 2019 and what brought America to this reality. It also provides clarity and direction to bring greater effectiveness and scalability to Career Connected Learning practices.

This is a set of research about how young people form their occupational identities. From 2018-2019, Equitable Futures gathered key insights from qualitative and quantitative research with over 4,000 young people on how they see themselves and the opportunities and challenges they anticipate in pursuing their career and life goals.

The study supported by the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative proposes “public narrative” as a key form of leadership development in organizations and communities. ‍This report raises a set of 'Action Insights' on how to use public narrative to organize people through storytelling.

In 2023, SHRM Foundation commissioned Topos Foundation to investigate the effectiveness of various framing, language, and argumentation deployed in an ongoing effort, by SHRM Foundation and many other partners, to promote hiring that puts less emphasis on academic degrees and considers all the ways job candidates may be qualified for a position. This report contains valuable insights into effectively communicating the case for skills-first hiring with the broadest audience.