Vocational Education

Alison Fuller, Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK

2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

In a period of historically high youth unemployment the availability and quality of vocational education takes on particular
importance. It is seen by policy-makers and researchers as essential for supporting transitions from education to work, but
concepts and purposes of vocational education vary. This article draws on international comparisons to explore the extent to
which vocational programs are designed to prepare young people for broad vocational areas and citizenship or more
narrowly for specic jobs. It identies the societal approach as a major way of helping to theorize and explain differences in,
and similarities between, national vocational education systems.

Introduction as workers and citizens. The content of vocational provision

Any scheme for vocational education which takes its point of
departure from the industrial regime that now exists, is likely to
assume and to perpetuate its divisions and weaknesses, and thus to
become an instrument in accomplishing the feudal dogma of social
predestination.
Dewey, 2010: 214215
While written nearly a century ago, Deweys concern about
the concept of vocational education and its relationship to
work remains highly relevant. In the context of contemporary
social and economic imperatives, policy-makers and
researchers are questioning the extent to which vocational
education pathways should prepare young people for specic
jobs; more broadly for a changing, dynamic, and global labor
market; and/or for active citizenship in twenty-rst century
democracies (e.g., OECD, 2010; Pring, 2007). Deweys obser-
vation cogently highlights the persistent tensions that run
through national and international debates on the purpose(s)
of vocational education, who it is for, what it is, and what it is
supposed to achieve and for whom. The importance of voca-
tional education takes on added importance in light of
historically high levels of youth unemployment in Europe, the
US, and other parts of the world, and the known scarring effect
(e.g., Morrell et al., 1994) this has on young people.
Improving education and training is clearly only part of the
answer to problems that in scale and scope go far beyond this
area of public policy. Nonetheless, national and supranational
policy-makers are attempting to create and sustain vocational
education systems that can support and facilitate youth tran-
sitions from education to work and adulthood in a period of
economic hardship and intense global competition for the
available jobs. One indicator of this has been the recent inter-
national revival of interest in apprenticeship, the development
of national policies to support the evolution and expansion of
programs, and the means of evaluating their quality (e.g., in
terms of their expansive and restrictive features) (Fuller and
Unwin, 2012).
The purpose of vocational education can then be viewed on
a spectrum with training for specic, narrowly dened jobs at
one end and, at the other, a more general preparation designed
to help young people leads productive and fullling adult lives
will vary according to the underpinning aim. A range of key
indicators, including the relationship between general and
vocational education, assessment and certication, can be
identied that offer evidence about the goal and nature of
programs. For example, are participants required to pursue
academic subjects such as native and foreign languages, science,
mathematics, and humanities alongside their vocational
studies; or is their education and training focused primarily on
the specics of the vocational area with minimal curriculum
extension and enrichment? There are major differences in the
concept and scope of general education within the vocational
route. In the UK, it is narrowly dened as primarily English and
Mathematics, and has previously been referred to as core or
key skills model. Andy Green (1998) has provided a compre-
hensive critique of this approach, its assumptions, and impli-
cations. By contrast in other parts of Europe (e.g., Germany,
Austria, and Switzerland), it includes a wider range of academic
subjects and civic education (Clarke and Winch, 2007).
There are also related questions about the settings in which
learning in the vocational route takes place: Are participants
primarily located in the workplace with little off-the-job or
classroom provision; is it the other way round with full-time
attendance in vocational school or college and little opportu-
nity for workplace experience, or is it a structured combination
of participation in both workplace and classroom? Moreover,
to what extent is the program designed in terms of the teaching
and learning of vocational knowledge, including the relevant
underpinning scientic, technical, and social theories, or
around a list of occupational competences and standards that
participants need to show they have met.
Issues of assessment and certication are relevant here too.
The purpose and nature of the program will be reected in how
participants are assessed. This may include whether they sit
formal written examinations and are examined separately on
the general educational element of their program. If so, does
this enable them to achieve dual certication for their academic
and vocational achievements which facilitates movement
between different kinds of programs, or is assessment conned
to accrediting the acquisition of vocational competence and
occupational expertise, for example, through observations in
the workplace? Beyond this, what is the currency of the
qualications participants achieve for progression to higher

232 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 25 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.92091-9

education (HE) and entry to Bachelor degrees, or for entry to
the skilled labor market? In concerning itself with questions
such as these, this article provides an overview of some of the
key debates and theories permeating discussions about voca-
tional education, what it consists of and how it is positioned in
wider educational and employment landscapes.
Vocational education and training (VET) can, of course, also
be used as a route back into employment (e.g., for unemployed
adults or women returning to the labor market after raising
children), or to more highly skilled work and jobs for those
already in employment, but the focus of this article is on initial
vocational education for young people.
Why Is Vocational Education Important?
There are various reasons why vocational education matters. At
one level the answer is all around us. Building the infrastructure
that supports modern life, curing the sick, maintaining and
repairing machinery and equipment, providing hospitality and
leisure services, technological innovations in telecommunica-
tions and more, are only enabled by the availability of people
with occupational knowledge, skills, and expertise. The need
for vocational education for instrumental reasons, then, is
obvious. However, going beyond this and getting to the heart
of John Deweys concern is a call for a holistic and humanistic
concept of vocational education that recognizes the inherent
and intrinsic values associated with learning for occupational
expertise and practice of skilled work, for the individual and
wider society (Sennett, 2008). Lorna Unwin has suggested that
this broader understanding of vocational education should be
reected in all education (2009).
Most debates about the importance of vocational education
and, in particular, the need for its reform, do not start with such
philosophical concerns. For the most part, commentators
invoke two main and often conicting discourses. Firstly, in
policy terms vocational education has increasingly been asso-
ciated with economic competitiveness (OECD, 2010; EU,
2002). In the Lisbon Agreement, the European Union (EU)
explicitly stated its goal (by 2010) to become the most
competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the
world (Council, 2000: 3) later identifying the crucial
contribution from education and training as factors of
economic growth, innovation, sustainable employability and
social cohesion (Council, 2002: 5 both cited in Ertl, 2006).
The argument underpinning this and other competitiveness
policies is based on the assumption that improving the quality
of VET has a positive effect on competitive advantage through
generating greater productivity and facilitating innovation.
Studies by Sig Prais and colleagues in the 1980s compared the
productivity of matched plants in Germany and the UK,
concluding that the better performance of German rms could
be explained at least in part by the superior vocational prepa-
ration of their workers (e.g., Prais et al., 1989). Subsequently,
this idea has been developed to suggest that the availability of
a skilled workforce allows more productive forms of work
organization where employees have more discretion and
involvement in the decision making, and the development of
higher value-added products and services (Finlay et al., 1998,
see also Keep et al., 2006 for a critique of these assumptions). It
Vocational Education 233
follows that countries with highly developed and effective VET
systems are likely to be more successful in the global economic
competition, Germany is probably the country most often
given as an example here.
Secondly, vocational education is viewed as a pathway to
stable employment for school-leavers who do not progress to
HE. In other words, it can be conceived as a transition system
for part of the cohort (Raffe, 2008). In some countries the
vocational route is also seen as a vehicle for reengaging disaf-
fected young people and social inclusion (Preston and Green,
2008; EU, 2010).
The existence of academic and vocational educational
pathways raises the issue of comparative status between the
two routes. The dualistic nature of much of the discourse
around vocational education (Clarke and Winch, 2007; Pring,
2007; Young, 2004) represented by the academicvocational,
theorypractice, mentalmanual, education-training binaries is
unhelpful. A point also picked up by the American philosopher
Richard Sennett in his recent book The Craftsman:
History has drawn fault lines dividing practice and theory; technique
and expression; craftsman and artist; maker and user; modern society
suffers from this historical inheritance. But the past life of craft and
craftsmen also suggests ways of using tools, organizing bodily
movements, thinking about materials that remain alternative, viable
proposals about how to conduct life with skills.
Sennett, 2008: 11
Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch highlight how
language provides a window on the contrasting values and
meanings attributed to vocational education. For example,
the German language has three terms that signify three
different conceptions of the English word training rst, in
the sense of to train an animal . [where German] uses the
verb abrichten ., second, to train someone to carry out
a specic job or activity . anlernen; and, nally, the sense of
education for an occupation like medicine or carpentry, where
German uses ausbilden (2007: 7). The language point is
signicant because it highlights cultural distinctions in the
way VET is conceptualized and understood, and suggests that
transferring the characteristics of vocational education from
one country to another is far from straightforward. Different
ways of conceptualizing and characterizing approaches to
vocational education and their consequences for convergence
and divergence between systems will be discussed in the
next section.
Why Do Different Models of Vocational Education
Exist in Different Countries?
There are various ways of organizing and providing vocational
education. This can be seen in the diverse models of vocational
education that exist in different countries. Given the national
and international policy interest in the link between VET and
economic competitiveness, researchers have examined the
characteristics of systems and ways of grouping countries with
similar institutional arrangements. In the main, international
comparative research over the past 25 or so years has drawn on
original empirical and theoretical work undertaken by French
234 Vocational Education
scholars Maurice et al. (1986) who developed the societal
approach.
The societal approach emphasises the holistic interrelationships
among different social and economic institutions, including educa-
tion and training, the labour market and industrial relations systems,
the production system, family structures and cultures, and so on.
Raffe, 2008: 278
Maurice et al. (1986) analyzed the relationship between
education, the labor market, and other civic and social insti-
tutions in Germany and France. They identied that the nature
of this societal relationship was distinctive in each country.
Given strong evidence from the cross-national research litera-
ture, including some of the most extensive studies of country
differences in the logics that underpin their vocational educa-
tion systems (e.g., Hannan et al., 1997; OECD, 2010), it is not
surprising that the extent to which countries converge or
diverge has been a key area of debate (Mller and Shavit, 1998;
Raffe, 2008).
A number of country typologies deriving in the main from
the comparison of national data sets and cross-national surveys
have been developed, drawing on dimensions and concepts
that help classify countries into types. A review of the
comparative literature suggests that three of these are particu-
larly important and tend to be interrelated, logics and link-
ages, standardization, and stratication. Firstly, as Ianelli
and Raffe (2007) suggest the strength of the links between
vocational education and the labor market varies from country
to country depending on their industrial histories, civic and
democratic culture, and the associated institutions and
arrangements that have grown up in the relevant country
context. They suggest that countries where the linkages between
vocational education and employment are weak (e.g., Sweden)
operate in line with an education logic, whereas those where
linkages are strong can be viewed as having an employment
logic. The nature of the labor market and particularly how it is
regulated is a relevant factor here. The employment logic is
strong in countries (e.g., Denmark and Germany) where entry
to skilled occupations is regulated and restricted to those who
have completed an agreed (according to existing institutional
arrangements) vocational program (usually in the form of an
apprenticeship) and achieved the required qualications. It is
less strong in countries such as the UK and the US which
traditionally have been viewed as having more exible and
open labor markets, with access to occupations being less
heavily regulated.
Secondly, the concept of standardization refers to the
content of vocational curricula and the processes by which
they are followed and assessed. The extent to which a voca-
tional pathway is standardized in terms of the curriculum,
assessment regime, and qualication(s) has an impact on how
well employers understand and recognize the learning and
achievements of those who have successfully completed it.
Standardization makes it easier for employers to recognize the
currency, and to trust the use value of the qualications
(extent to which they can be taken as a reliable proxy for the
knowledge and competence award holders) achieved by
participants. Allmendinger (1989) identied the importance
of standardization, suggesting that young people experience
much more straightforward transitions into work in systems
with uniform standards. Given the role of standardization in
supporting education work transitions, it follows that
countries whose approach to vocational education is charac-
terized by employment logic are also likely to have stan-
dardized provision.
Thirdly, stratication refers to the proportion of young
people staying in school for as long as the system allows
(Allmendinger, 1989). Put another way, if a countrys
compulsory education system requires students to remain in
school until the age of 16 but a further 2 or 3 years of upper
secondary schooling are available, then what proportion of the
cohort are able or choose to stay on? The more highly stratied
the system, the smaller the participation rate in the nal post-
compulsory years of school and the higher the participation
rate in other pathways, for example, apprenticeship. A further
consequence of a highly stratied system is the smaller
proportion of young people progressing to university. Hence
countries with mass participation in HE such as Korea, Japan,
and Canada tend to have smaller and weaker apprenticeship
systems than countries with lower rates of participation in
university such as Germany. The OECD Education at a Glance
(2012) gures show that approximately 65% of Koreans aged
2534 years have attained a higher level qualication
compared with 25% of Germans in the same age group.
The identication of country typologies suggests that there
is a relationship between logics and linkages, standardization
and stratication. For example, Kerckhoff (2000) has proposed
two types. Type 1 societies (e.g., Germany) can be distin-
guished by their strong standardization, stratication, and
linkages between vocational education and the labor market. In
contrast, Type 2 societies (e.g., USA) have been characterized by
nonstandardized programs, less stratication, and looser link-
ages between vocational education and employment. Some
countries such as the UK and France are harder to classify and
so have been viewed as falling between the two types. This
suggests that the dimensions could be usefully perceived as
continua, rather than either/or categories. Other typologies
have focused primarily on patterns of participation. For
example, Andy Green et al. (1999) identify national appren-
ticeship systems as high, low, or medium participation.
A key factor in the distinctiveness of a countrys approach to
and organization of vocational education is the role the state
plays in the conguration of institutional and societal rela-
tionships that underpin its vocational education system.
Understanding the role of the state in creating and supporting
education work pathways and transitions shed light on the
strength of its interest and involvement in this area of policy
(Green, 1990). Drawing on ideas from political economy,
David Ashton (2004: 21) argues that in addition to the societal
approach (outlined above) VET policy is also conditioned by
the state structures and the ability of the state to administer
a central policy initiative. From this starting point he develops
a typology of national systems that includes three models.
Firstly, the free market model (including the US, the UK, and
Canada) is based on a long tradition of the states laissez-faire,
voluntaristic approach to intervention in the relationship
between capital and labor. In this model, the role of the state is
to provide a legal framework that supports the workings of

market forces and underpins the dominance of capital over
labor (Ashton, 2004: 23). It follows that the main contribution
of the state, here, has been to create and maintain an education
system that provides citizens with basic general education and
orientation to work. Thereafter the responsibility for building
on this foundation lies with individuals and employers. VET
provision can be bought from providers or supplied directly by
companies, for example, in the form of on-the-job training.
Secondly and by contrast, in the corporatist model
(including Denmark and Germany), the state intervenes in
the capital labor relationship, thereby, producing a social
partnership approach (also involving the Trades Unions) to
achieving initial industrialization and later economic devel-
opment. This model is underpinned by shared support for and
involvement in the education and training system.
The achievement of a consensus with the social partners means that
this model creates a more institutionally dense environment for
training, usually focused on the apprenticeship system.
Ashton, 2004: 24
Thirdly, the developmental state model (including South
East Asian economies such as South Korea and Singapore)
reects an approach where, starting from a low industrial and
educational base, the state has taken the leading role (since
World War II) in promoting industrialization, and in shaping
industrial relations and the education and training system.
In drawing attention to the different roles played by the
state in the three models, Ashton is able to make further
important points about the relationship between national VET
systems, work, and employment. Leaving vocational education
primarily to employers (free market model) means that
provision is more likely to be narrow and task specic to meet
the needs of particular organizations (i.e., nonstandardized).
Where, as in the corporatist model, the consensus approach
produces highly skilled workers (via standardized occupational
apprenticeships), the challenge is how to adapt the system to
meet new needs owing from rapid technological innovation.
In the case of the developmental state model, where the state
plays a highly active not-to-say dominant role, it can push
employers to adopt new methods of production and indi-
viduals to learn the appropriate skills (p. 34). In the context of
an increasingly competitive global economy, then, it is appar-
ently not enough for countries to create and sustain vocational
education systems. In addition, the character of jobs created,
linked to the mode of production and competitiveness strate-
gies adopted by countries, sectors, and companies can act as
a pull factor shaping what is required from the vocational
education supply pipeline.
The discussion so far has suggested that there is a relation-
ship between the purpose and nature of the vocational
education pathway and employment and occupational
opportunities. In other words, insights about the nature of the
labor market, the kinds of jobs available, their status and grade,
the way skills are constructed and rewarded, can be gained from
studying the vocational education system and vice versa. Put
more strongly, I would suggest that there may actually be
a wash-back effect on the status, purpose, and nature of voca-
tional education from the distribution of good quality (secure,
Vocational Education 235
well-paid, full-time permanent, respected status) jobs in
national and sectoral labor markets. This raises the question of
what kinds of jobs nation-states are preparing their young
people for. Lorna Unwin has observed that in the UK politi-
cians and policy-makers make denigrating assumptions about
low-grade jobs being performed by individuals who are de-
cient in knowledge and skills. She criticizes this analysis and the
policy solution (which it can be noted is consistent with
Ashtons free market model as the state stops short of proac-
tively intervening with employers):
. at the same time as being dismissive of many occupations, poli-
cymakers have become xated on the individual as the source of the
problem, and, hence, millions of pounds are being poured into the
acquisition of qualications without any parallel initiatives to
improve job quality.
Unwin, 2009: 2
It follows that enterprises that organize work and
production in ways that foster the creation of jobs designed to
foster employee discretion, involvement, and contribution are
more likely (1) to feed into and support the development of
a high-quality initial vocational education system from which
to select well-educated and able staff, and (2) to create
workplace learning environments capable of fully utilizing
and further developing their skills (Fuller and Unwin, 2004;
Felstead et al., 2009).
Characteristics of Vocational Education Pathways
and Some Implications
In broad-brush terms, vocational pathways can be viewed as
school-based, where students follow full-time programs of
study linked to a broad vocational area such as business,
economics, and commerce in a formal educational institution;
apprenticeship, where apprentices are placed (and usually
employed) in a company where they receive on-the-job
training (usually) coupled with regular off-the-job training
(such as day release in college); or mixed, where the vocational
system includes both apprenticeship and school-based modes
of participation. David Raffe (2008: 285) suggests that path-
ways can be analyzed along four dimensions:
l Size of vocational pathway in comparison with general
education the proportion of the cohort pursuing each
route
l Nature of vocational pathway particularly extent to which
it is school-based, work-based, or a mixture of the two
l Occupational specicity the degree to which the program
is narrowly job specic or more broadly focused on
a vocational area
l Relationship between general and vocational pathways
the degree of commonality between the modes of partici-
pation, pedagogy, assessment, and certication associated
with each, and the ease of movement between them.
These four are key dimensions for illuminating the general
character of the pathway but it is also worth identifying some
other issues. In addition to the size of the vocational pathway,
the main setting in which it is followed, the degree of
236 Vocational Education
occupational specicity and the extent to which there is stan-
dardization and permeability between general and vocational
pathways, it is important for social justice reasons to ask who is
participating in what pathways: How evenly are young people
with different social class, race, and gender characteristics rep-
resented across the system? Linda Clarke (2007: 63) discusses
the role of vocational education in reproducing rather than
challenging social inequalities. She argues that the institutional
arrangements (discussed earlier in terms of the societal
approach) that underpin the shape and structure of VET also
reect historically entrenched class and gender relations.
Stereotypical patterns of participation by females and males in
vocational courses and apprenticeships continue to persist
(Lakes and Carter, 2004) with young women being strongly
overrepresented in elds such as hairdressing and child care
and underrepresented in engineering and construction, sectors
that are dominated by young men. Historically, the ability of
institutional gatekeepers (e.g., the guilds, professional bodies)
to oversee or even restrict entry (numbers and characteristics)
into apprenticeships and occupations can have the effect of
maintaining wage levels and job status:
It [vocational education] is about entry into the labour market;
about dividing up the potential labour force into different occupa-
tions and skills, each with a distinct quality. And it is about class and
gender divisions, acting as a lter to include or exclude particular
groups from particular occupations or industries and from acquiring
a particular status in society.
Clarke, 2007: 62
The classed nature of who participates in what pathway has
been illuminated in highly insightful research by Shavit and
Mller (2000). They drew attention to the diversion effects
of vocational education systems where most young people do
not participate in HE and where, in a strongly stratied system
(such as in Germany), it is hard to move between tracks. Their
ndings indicated that those from lower socioeconomic groups
were more likely to be found in the apprenticeship pathway
than their more socially advantaged peers. On the other hand,
the more regulated nature of the labor market and the
involvement of the social partners in designing and supporting
apprenticeship meant that it usually provided a strong safety
net for participants (male and female) and vehicle for sup-
porting their transitions to skilled jobs and permanent
employment. There are few signs that the renewed interna-
tional interest in expanding the apprenticeship route is, as yet,
challenging gendered patterns of participation, although
during the 2000s there have been some useful vocational
education initiatives sponsored by the EU that have produced
some positive outcomes (Fuller and Unwin, in press).
In addition to examining the characteristics of the pop-
ulation participating in vocational pathways, it is important
to focus on content and in particular the approach taken to
vocational knowledge (Winch, 2010; Bathmaker, 2013). In
the UK this has been a strongly contested issue, as researchers
and academics have critiqued the marginalization of knowl-
edge in the outcomes-based design of National Vocational
Qualications (NVQs), which have dominated the VET
system since the early 1980s (for a critique of NVQs see
Grugulis, 2003).
Michael Young (2004) has identied and discussed
distinctions between three approaches to knowledge and the
vocational curriculum which he has related to different periods
in the development of vocational education in the UK since the
late nineteenth century. These also serve as useful lenses for
analyzing the approach to knowledge in vocational education
more widely, including in other countries. Firstly, the knowl-
edge-based approach arose from the perceived need for
apprentices in engineering and science-based industries to be
taught relevant scientic subject knowledge. It assumed that
the natural sciences were important for their specic content
and as a model of reliable, objective knowledge (Young, 2004:
187). This model was later extended to other vocational areas
such as business studies which were taught in further education
colleges (the main institutions providing vocational education
in the UK).
Secondly, the standards-based approach introduced in the
1980s arose from policy-makers criticism of the knowledge-
based model which they felt had become too academic and
removed from what employers required. The new approach
used functional analysis to develop occupational standards in
line with employers requirements. Individuals were deemed to
be competent (through an accreditation process in the work-
place) if they could perform tasks to the specied standards.
The principal weakness Young (2004: 191) identied with the
rst model is that it failed to consider how this new [scientic
subject] knowledge could be recontextualised in the work-
place. He went on to argue that the second model neglected
the extent to which only some of the knowledge relevant to
particular occupations has its origins in workplaces, and
therefore provides an emasculated approach to vocational
knowledge. In response, Young identied a third model the
connective approach which aimed to overcome these limita-
tions by combining theory and practice, and on and off the job
learning. Michael Young and others (e.g., David Guile, 2010;
Young, 2008; Winch, 2010) have gone on to develop ideas
about the nature of vocational knowledge and expertise and
how it needs to be reconceived, positioned, taught, and learned
in the context of contemporary vocational and professional
education and the dynamics of changing patterns or work
organization and production.
Recent studies of the content and inclusion of vocational
knowledge in full-time vocational courses and apprenticeship
frameworks in England (Brockmann et al., 2010; Fuller and
Unwin, 2011a,b; Bathmaker, 2013) have found continuing
shortcomings inviting negative comparisons with the quality of
vocational education in other countries.
It is also important to consider the value and worth of
qualications attained by participants in vocational educa-
tion pathways. To what extent do they provide a strong
platform for career and educational progression, and to what
extent do they articulate and so support horizontal bridging
to general educational pathways and vertical ladders to HE?
To explore this, I draw on a recent EU Leonardo funded
project on hybrid qualications (HQ) in England, Den-
mark, Germany, and Austria (Deissinger et al., in press). The

study explores the ability of qualications positioned as
providing both general educational and vocational currency
to lead either to employment in the skilled labor market or
to a place in HE. The focus of the research reects the EU
policy aims of improving the permeability and progression
opportunities within and between national vocational
education systems.
In England, Germany, and Denmark there was no well
understood or established hybrid pathway that catered for
a clear population of young people of upper secondary age. In
Germany and Denmark the stratication of the school system
into different academic (gymnasium) and vocational institu-
tions (vocational schools and dual system apprenticeship) and
tracks led to limited opportunities for movement between
them. Moreover, the qualications attained by young people in
each track are not portable such that those who achieve the
academic diploma are not qualied to enter the skilled
employment in the regulated occupational part of the labor
market, and those who successfully complete their appren-
ticeships do not accrue the qualication currency to access HE.
There are experiments underway in both countries to try and
develop HQ routes but, in the main, opportunities for vertical
progression (either to the labor market or HE) rely on indi-
viduals gaining qualications from both pathways (double
qualications) (Deissinger and Wern, 2011; Jrgensen and
Lindvig, 2011).
In England the system is less stratied and standardized but
the linkages to the labor market are looser (Davey and Fuller,
2011). Young people populating the middle or hybrid space
can progress to HE if they attain a combination of academic
and vocational qualications through full-time study but there
is no automatic labor market recognition of these attainments.
Alternatively, those following the apprenticeship route are in
employment, although the variable quality of programs (and
limited labor market and occupational regulation) means
that the strength of apprenticeship as a platform for career
progression is uneven. The difculty for apprentices is
progression to HE because the currency of the qualications
available in their frameworks is usually insufcient for entry
to Bachelor degrees, even those in subject areas that are
cognate with the apprenticeship.
In Austria, by contrast with the other three countries, there is
a well-understood and established hybrid route within
a system that is characterized by stratication and
standardization. The hybrid option sits between the countrys
solely academic pathway followed by approximately 20% of
the cohort through the attendance at the gymnasium and its
dual system (vocational school and work-based)
apprenticeship route followed by approximately 40% of the
cohort. Young people (approximately a third of the cohort)
participate in the hybrid route where they attend specialist
educational institutions known as vocational colleges. The
distinctive feature of the vocational college provision is that it
leads to a certicate of secondary education (the same
Reifeprufung examination as their gymnasium peers) and
a VET diploma supplemented with additional specic labor
market qualications. College graduates with these
achievements possess the recognized entry qualications to
Vocational Education 237
access the full range of university courses in as well as skilled
employment (Aff et al., 2011).
Conclusions
The article began by contrasting a far-reaching, holistic
conception of vocational education with a narrow
occupationally specic alternative, indicating the range of
purposes it may be required to fulll and the unhelpful
persistence of the academicvocational divide. The ensuing
analysis of national vocational education systems has
indicated some of the important dimensions along which
they can be differentiated and some of the implications for
social justice and inclusion, as well as for educational and
career progression.
The brief discussion of the HQ study illustrated the uneven
value and portability of qualications, and the scale of the
challenge involved in fullling the increasingly popular
(national governments, EU, OECD) aim of increasing perme-
ability between pathways and progression opportunities from
vocational education to HE and skilled employment. Case
study comparative research is important here as it provides an
effective way of identifying and explaining the diverse charac-
teristics of vocational education systems. Evidence can be
generated that shows, on the one hand, how approaches to
vocational education reect deep-seated historical, cultural,
economic, and institutional differences between societies and,
on the other, how external pressures and economic forces
(e.g., related to the negative economic effects of the banking
crisis, changing industrial structure and patterns of
international labor mobility, and technological innovation)
provide a transformed context with which all industrialized
countries are grappling. Young people are particularly
vulnerable to unemployment and to experiencing barriers to
their successful transition to fullled adult lives and
citizenship. The extant literature suggests that the availability
of good quality vocational education can facilitate
transitions, but contextual factors mean that what counts as
effective, for whom, and in whose interests, is likely to
continue to differ.
See also: Communities of Practice; Education and Economic
Growth; Education and Employment; Education: Skills Training;
Equity and Education; Youth Joblessness.
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