Vocationalism In Further And Higher Education

Vocationalism in Further and Higher Education presents a collection of research-based papers on the ‘English model’ of vocationalism and higher education. It argues that negative societal and political perceptions have hindered the debate about the significance and relevance of vocational education and training provision to learning, work and the economy. In this book, the writers offer unique solutions to the difficult questions that have emerged from their investigations into vocationalism in England. This edited collection brings together a group of academic experts to report and discuss their findings from many years of evidence-based research on vocationalism at three levels: macro (national and policy-making), meso (programmes and organization), and micro (individual learning and teaching). Chapters explore the key issues relating to the topic, such as policies, curriculum, learning and teaching, and work contexts. The book reflects on the diversity of related programmes, and discusses the applicability and relevance of the term ‘vocationalism’ in the light of current developments relating to higher vocational education, including occupation, employability and professionalism. This book is a timely contribution to the debate on the ‘English model’ of vocational education and will be an essential resource for researchers, practitioners and postgraduate students in the fields of vocational education, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), work-based learning, politics and policy of education, teaching and learning, higher education, and curriculum and pedagogy.

This book addresses the complex issue of the growing need for vocational content to increase the employability of the graduates in the context of mass higher education. Today, in a rapidly changing and globalising economy, accompanied by a fast rise in new information technologies, there are increasing pressures on higher education systems all over the world to rethink knowledge production and learning. The last ten years or so have seen many efforts to reorganise universities and to realign the missions of mass expansion and ‘new’ vocationalism to meet the demands of the so-called globalised knowledge society. In some cases, major organisational and epistemological shifts in the forms of knowledge production and learning have occurred which have enormous implications for defining the role and mission of the university in modern day society and more important, new challenges for forging knowledge producing partnerships between the academy and industry in a climate of increasing marketisation of higher education. This comprehensive study documents the policy shifts towards more vocational content in mass higher education and the associated implications and challenges of new forms of knowledge production, and new forms of knowledge-producing partnerships between higher education and the labour market. It examines both the academic sector and the labour sector and presents innovative approaches and illustrative examples for those institutional and national decision-makers considering introducing or widening the vocational orientation of their study programmes.​

Teachers and Teaching in Vocational and Professional Education introduces a critical understanding of how teachers deliver occupational or vocational courses at various academic levels. Including wider coverage of work-related programmes and based on empirical research, this book uses the term occupation-related to refer to programmes spanning several academic levels and education sectors, including the further and higher education sectors. The book disassociates the English context of work-related studies, where issues of the academic-vocational division and socio-cultural dimensions have hampered critical investigations of this under-researched topic. Also, it offers a conceptual framework from the perspectives of teachers in their teaching and work-related settings derived from the understanding and development of Bernstein’s recontextualization process. Teachers and Teaching in Vocational and Professional Education will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates who are engaged in the study of education and occupation-related programmes. The programme areas include accounting, dental hygiene, equine studies, fashion and textiles, health and social care, medical training of clinicians and emergency medicine, and travel and tourism.

In this hard-hitting history of "the gospel of education," W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson reveal the allure, and the fallacy, of the longstanding American faith that more schooling for more people is the remedy for all our social and economic problems--and that the central purpose of education is workplace preparation. But do increasing levels of education accurately represent the demands of today's jobs? Grubb and Lazerson argue that the abilities developed in schools and universities and the competencies required in work are often mismatched--since many Americans are under-educated for serious work while at least a third are over-educated for the jobs they hold. The ongoing race for personal advancement and the focus on worker preparation have squeezed out civic education and learning for its own sake. Paradoxically, the focus on schooling as a mechanism of equity has reinforced social inequality. The challenge now, the authors show, is to create environments for learning that incorporate both economic and civic goals, and to prevent the further descent of education into a preoccupation with narrow work skills and empty credentials.

This book analyses the development of work based learning from a number of perspectives: critical, historical, philosophical, sociological and pedagogical. Its various contributors argue that work-based approaches contain much that is challenging to the university, and also much that could help to create new frameworks of learning and new roles for academics.

This book includes a range of empirical-based international contributions by the global community of teacher educators and related researchers on the Further Education/post-compulsory, vocational/occupational and lifelong learning sector. It offers theoretical frameworks and empirical data to delineate issues relating to teacher educators and training in areas regarding policy, programmes, and pedagogic activities. Some of these areas include the education of teachers in vocational education, the professionalization of teacher educators in a neoliberal education system, and teacher educators' perspectives of a training programme for vocational education and training. Additionally, the areas cover the relevance of coherence in vocational teacher education for teacher educators, the use of questioning strategies for teacher educators, teacher educators and their initial disciplines, journeys and job titles, the relevance of craft and reflectivity of teacher educators, and the importance of teacher education and mentoring scheme. The rationale for this book is that there is a comparative lack of research and related publications on teacher educators and the delivery and design of teacher education facilitation in the sector internationally. Also, the FE sector is viewed as a backwater of educational research compared to the other sectors.

This book explains how education policies offering improved transitions to work and higher-level study can widen the gaps between successful and disadvantaged groups of young people. Centred on an original study of ongoing further education and apprenticeship reforms in England, the book traces the emergence of distinctive patterns of transition that magnify existing societal inequalities. It illustrates the distinction between mainly male ‘technical elites’ on STEM-based courses and the preparation for low-level service roles described as ‘welfare vocationalism’, whilst digital and creative fields ill-suited to industry learning head for a ‘new economy precariat’. Yet the authors argue that social justice can nevertheless be advanced in the spaces between learning and work. The book provides essential insights for academics and postgraduate students researching technical, vocational and higher education. It will also appeal to professionals with interests in contemporary educational policy and emerging practice.

"Marvin Lazerson’s new book is exactly what is needed: a readable, cogent explanation of how the U.S. can have the best system of higher education in the world, but also a system that seems to be coming apart at the seams.” —Susan Fuhrman, President Teachers College, Columbia University, President of the National Academy of Education "In prose remarkable for its clarity and analysis remarkable for its fair-mindedness, this volume delivers a penetrating, nuanced account of American universities in the twenty-first century. Blessedly without rant or cant, the book tackles topics that range from the rise of the managerial class to the failed attempts to reform practice in the classroom. It’s a smart provocation—a must-read for anyone who cares about where our universities are heading.” —David L. Kirp, Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education "Professor Lazerson gives an insightful account of American higher education based on years of study and first-hand experience. He discusses both the problems and the accomplishment of our universities with equal care and thus, succeeds in providing a useful and illuminating analysis.” —Derek Bok, Harvard University, President-emeritus "Marvin Lazerson’s magnificent book is not only comprehensive, but it is written from an all-embracing point of view: seeing higher education in America as an expression of the American Dream. This book should be on the reading list of all who want to understand America’s actions, role and image in the world today, with and equal emphasis on their successes and the discontents they create.” —Yehuda Elkana, Rector and President-emeritus, Central European University