Lifting the barriers? Workplace education and training, women and job progression

While workplace education and training may increase women's access to qualifications, their advancement in the workplace may remain impeded. This article draws on material from seven case studies in the National Health Service in England to understand the conditions under which workplace education and training has the most potential to facilitate women's job progression. It illustrates how workforce crises at a local level prompted workforce managers to create different career pathways to areas of workforce shortage while line managers encouraged women's participation along these pathways through workplace education and training. Certain aspects of the government's workforce modernization agenda facilitate these activities but it is the presence of enthusiastic local actors at four points (corporate, workforce development managers, line management and external) that drives and manages these activities. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.