Rapid economic change and innovation have led to a new reality in which education and work are no longer separate and sequential activities; instead, a majority of workers now see gaining new skills as important to their career success and well being. In recent years, ACT Center for Equity in Learning, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, and others have placed a spotlight on working learners – individuals engaged simultaneously in both education and work – and documented the challenges and opportunities that working learners face in navigating educational pathways and career transitions. Yet, wider dynamics related to equity for working learners in the context of the U.S. workforce remain largely unexplored.
