Search Results for
"Vocational education"

This paper discusses how Bernsteinian concepts (‘pedagogic rights’, ‘discursive gaps’ and ‘pedagogic code’) from the field of sociology of education can be used as didactic tools to illuminate how different ways of organising teaching in VET has implications for citizenship preparation. The paper is based on results from a five-year research project investigating the extent and nature of learning processes that can be characterised as civic education in Swedish VET. Results from the project show how VET often contributes to social reproduction through provision of class-, gender-, and ethnicity-based access to knowledge with different powers to students. However, we also identified many variations in the VET-contexts studied. In the paper at hand, examples of when and how students got access to different types of knowledge through different ways of organising teaching, and how different ways of teaching prevented or promoted different types of questions with implications for the kind of citizenship preparation the students were offered, is discussed. Our hope is that these discussions contribute to a conversation on how to make a language accessible to VET-teachers that is helpful to problematise and plan their teaching to offer greater access to an active citizenship for students in vocational programmes. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Contrary to common assumptions, the vast majority of the world’s refugees reside in neighbouring countries in the Global South. This paper explores the complex interaction of global vocational education policies with the local realities of five communities within the under-researched yet highly relevant refugee context of India, across three major cities. It examines whether the stated policy purpose of VET addresses the practical requirements and aspirations of refugees. Drawing on interviews, focus groups, and participatory drawing with 66 respondents from Afghan, Rohingya, Somali, Chin, and Tibetan communities, and staff members from refugee organisations, this paper argues for a move away from the unidimensional goal of economic self-reliance for refugees. By bridging the capabilities approach with intersectionality, the paper calls attention to, and draws policy suggestions for, increment and diversification of VET opportunities to address multiple facets of refugees’ lives, and their inclusion in national VET institutions. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

When women enter occupations that have historically and traditionally been the realm of men, they face a multitude of barriers that make their experience difficult and that contribute to a gender-segregated workforce. vocational education and Training (VET) is the entryway to employment in the skilled trades, and VET providers have a role in introducing students to the industry, in the formation of occupational identity and occupational behaviours, establishing workplace cultures and standards of professionalism. Furthermore, VET has a moral and legal obligation to provide a safe classroom for all students. This paper reflects on the role of VET in perpetuating gender segregation in the skilled trades in Australia. We report on a qualitative research project with tradeswomen, apprentices, industry and government representatives that found that significant barriers confront tradeswomen apprentices in VET institutions. The study found that VET has the capacity to normalise the tokenism of women and contribute to gender harassment. We argue that a VET classroom environment where gender inequalities and harassment are normalised, and a gender biased apprenticeship system, contribute to gender segregation in the skilled trades. © 2022 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

Dual vocational education and training (VET) has recently been introduced in Catalonia, as in the whole of Spain, and it should be the only VET system in the near future. However, Dual VET still coexists with traditional VET. The former has much more on-the-job training, companies are more involved in curricula design and training management, and trainees receive a salary or a scholarship. This study analysed the effect of Dual VET on students’ grades and degree completion. We use the whole population of Catalan students during four academic years (from 2015–2016 to 2018–2019) that completed their degree. We employ an instrumental variable approach to explain grades at completion. Results show that Dual VET had a positive effect on grades irrespective of the method and outcome used (standardised or non-standardised grades). In fact, our instrumental variables estimation showed a greater impact than the ordinary least squares results. In addition, Dual VET also increased the probability of graduation. Thus, the transformation of the Catalan VET into a Dual VET may have positive effects, since the latter improves course completion and grades. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

A significant challenge of skill development in the Global South is providing meaningful opportunities for practical learning. While previous studies have explored this as a pedagogical challenge, in this paper, I take a geographical perspective, arguing the barriers to practical learning extend beyond pedagogy and often relate to socio-economic conditions. I draw on a study of a new agricultural skill development scheme in the states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh in north India. Trainees enrolled in the scheme expressed strong desires for opportunities to ‘learn by hand’ (hāth se sīkhna), which training rarely provided and which were often availed in informal settings. The extent to which trainees found useful practical learning opportunities varied based on gender, caste and locality. Drawing on theories of communities of practice, I argue that the desired practical learning was marred not only by the inability or unwillingness of trainers to provide practical classes, but also by regionally specific factors, such as administrative constraints, local agrarian structure and regional patriarchies. This suggests that coordinating effective forms of practical learning requires regional-level strategies that are attentive to social and economic context. © 2022 Global South Ltd.

As technical and vocational education and training (TVET) continue to occupy a prominent position in Africa’s development, addressing the growing concerns about young women’s under-participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related TVET has become urgent. This paper draws on the critical capability approach of vocational education and training (CCA-VET) to critique the TVET policy discourse on the participation of girls and women in STEM-related TVET. The paper employed the practical argumentation approach, a critical discourse analysis approach to achieve the paper’s aims. The paper’s central thesis is that for education policies to transform young women’s under-participation in STEM-related TVET, it is urgent to move beyond human rights-based, and human capital approaches to adopt a comprehensive theoretical approach, such as the critical capabilities approach. The paper concludes that breaking this hegemony of human rights and human capital approaches to TVET policy can be achieved by re-conceptualising TVET policy discourses. The re-conceptualisation of TVET policy discourses can be achieved by admitting the critiques of these dominant theories that underpin most TVET policies and then adopting the CCA-VET as a better alternative approach to framing TVET policies. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

College and university remain the dominant academic pathways for graduating Canadian high school students. However, apprenticeships can provide alternative education pathways for a significant proportion of the population. Despite the push to undergraduate programming, some students end up in fields that don’t suit their interests. To pursue academic programming that better suits personal interests and academic aptitudes, students have the option of transferring schools. However, no study to-date has explored the transfer reasons and process of students moving between university and apprenticeships in Canada. To address this knowledge gap, we collected qualitative interview data from post-secondary administrators who work directly with transfer students. We also collected interview data from Ontario-based students who transferred to apprenticeships from university. Analysis of our interview data identifies mechanisms that influenced participants’ education pathway choices. © 2022 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

This article explores change possibilities towards status improvement in vocational education’s social construction. Following other researchers, it assumes that higher-status vocational education should give vocational learners perspectives that would accord with their identities and desires, broadly ranging between working in a particular company and further studies. The article proposes that change in this direction must concern the transmitter-acquirer-knowledge-relation and also curriculum, evaluation and the external relations of education. To think systematically about changes of these ‘adjusting screws’, this article proposes a realist approach with Bernstein’s conceptual language, and Moore's Bernstein-based model of education where vocational learners, plausibly, receive an orientation towards broad futures beyond narrow job roles. Moore's model implies fundamental changes of all these ‘adjusting screws’ and, importantly, of the principle underlying their realisation in schools. The case of company-based education in Germany’s ‘dual system’ is advanced as a real-life example for the highly theoretical model. Findings from a Bernsteinian analysis of the transmitter-acquirer-relation in regulated company transmission made sense, when the system was understood as realising the principles envisioned in Moore’s model. The model and its underlying principles, together with their realisation in the DS, open up a perspective towards education (instead of job training) in workplaces. © 2022 Federal Institute for vocational education and Training, Germany.

This study understands workplace learning as a social phenomenon and explores ways of how to successfully respond to industrial transformation out of a role-related perspective. The focus is on interactions of social actors in the process of structural change and economic adaptation. The goal of this inductive case study is to explore how 26 actors involved in workplace learning of one of the largest Swiss retailers, perceive, negotiate, and enact their social (and professional) roles vis a vis their company’s and industry’s new expectations. The narrations revealed several role-related themes in research about teaching and learning in VET. The study applies the process of role negotiation to a VET context by focusing attention on various aspects that emerged from the narratives as well as from theories of different academic fields and argues that role negotiation in the context of workplace learning might be in large parts moderated and supported by a company’s learning culture. © 2022 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

This paper aims to demonstrate the analytical potential of initial vocational education and training (iVET) in the debate on the costs of social mobility. It is based on extensive qualitative fieldwork with over 250 young people in Romania’s iVET (around 20% of whom were Roma). Central to the discourses of young Roma are the experiences of discrimination, the absence of a ‘vocational habitus’ and an awareness of credential inflation, despite the social and economic costs of attending iVET. The research calls for a recalibration of the narrative on social mobility, in an economic context where work is becoming increasingly precarious. © 2022 British Association for International and Comparative education.