Vocational education that includes both in-company training and schooling is a highly successful educational model - in fact, it has come to be considered the most effective kind of youth education to date. The development of this so-called Dual System is often attributed to Georg Kerschensteiner (1854-1932). In this book Kerschensteiner's work is presented in the context of modernization processes in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, when the urgent need was felt to balance general education and vocational needs. The corresponding discourse was influenced by modern thinkers like Dewey, Weber and Simmel. This book thus offers new insights into the reform of vocational education and into educational thinking more in general.

A collection of the theories, practices, and policies of vocational education and training written by international experts The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training offers an in-depth guide to the theories, practices, and policies of vocational education and training (VET). With contributions from a panel of leading international scholars, the Handbook contains 27 authoritative essays from a wide range of disciplines. The contributors present an integrated analysis of the complex and dynamic field of VET. Drawing on the most recent research, thinking, and practice in the field, the book explores the key debates about the role of VET in the education and training systems of various nations. The Handbook reveals how expertise is developed in an age of considerable transformation in work processes, work organization, and occupational identities. The authors also examine many of the challenges of vocational education and training such as the impact of digital technologies on employment, the demand for (re)training in the context of extended working lives, the emergence of learning regions and skill ecosystems, and the professional development of vocational teachers and trainers. This important text: Offers an original view of VET’s role in both the initial and continuing development of expertise Examines the theories and concepts that underpin international perspectives and explores the differences about the purposes of VET Presents various models of learning used in VET, including apprenticeship, and their relationship with general education Explores how VET is shaped in different ways by the political economy of different countries Reviews how developments in digital technologies are changing VET practice Discusses the challenges for universities offering higher vocational education programs Draws on both recent research as well as historical accounts Written for students, researchers, and scholars in the fields of educational studies, human resource development, social policy, political economy, labor market economics, industrial relations, sociology, The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training offers an international perspective on the topic of VET.

This book discusses whether certain approaches to (vocational) education have become mythicized and branded, and the reasons for and consequences of this commodification. Additionally, the book also investigates how researchers are contributing to mythicizing and branding in education. Although transnational and comparative studies are increasingly taking into account historical and cultural ideas, is this a result of the exploitation of historical and cultural research for industrial purposes and education export? Educational brands should attract global customers and advertise countries as smart environments for global investments.

This book discusses what constitutes vocational education as well as its key purposes, objects, formation and practices. In short, it seeks to outline and elaborate the nature of the project of vocational education. It addresses a significant gap in the available literature by providing a single text that elaborates the scope and diversity of the sector, its key objectives (i.e. vocations and occupations), its formation and development as an education sector, and the scope of its purposes and considerations in the curriculum. The volume achieves these objectives by discussing and defining the concept of vocational education as being that form of education that seeks to advise individuals about, prepare them for, and further develop their capacities to perform the kinds of occupations that societies require and individuals need to participate in—and through which they often come to define themselves. In particular, it discusses the distinctions between occupations as a largely social fact and vocations as being a socially shaped outcome assented to by individuals. As people identify closely with the kinds of occupations they engage in, the standing of, and the effectiveness of vocational education is central to individuals’ well-being, competence and progress. Ultimately, this book argues that the provision of vocational education needs to realise important personal and social goals.

This book offers a new perspective on the transnational dimensions of China’s educational and economic history by focusing on Sino-German interactions in the field of vocational education. It explores how Chinese perceptions of manual work, vocational skills, and educational practices changed dramatically throughout the first half of the twentieth century as Chinese educators increased their efforts to study and translate German pedagogical writings. Case studies researched in this book illustrate how a Chinese appreciation for German technological and scientific advances and German interests in profiting from a growing Chinese economy are not just recent phenomena but have their roots in the early twentieth century.

This book discusses how the Dutch vocational education system has undergone significant waves of reform driven by global imperatives, national concerns and governmental policy goals. Like elsewhere, the impetuses for these reforms are directed to generating a more industry-responsive, locally-accountable and competence-based vocational education system. Each wave of reforms, however, has had particular emphases, and directed to achieve particular policy outcomes. Yet, they are more than mere versions of what had or is occurring elsewhere. They are shaped by specific national imperatives, sentiments and localised concerns. Consequently, whilst this book elaborate what constitutes the contemporary provision of vocational education in the Netherlands also addresses a broader concern of how vocational education systems become formed, manifested within nation states, and then are transformed through particular imperatives, institutional arrangement and localised factors. So, the readers of this book whilst learning much about the Dutch vocational education system will also come to identify and engage with a selection of contributions that inform factors that situate, shape and transform vocational education systems. Such a focus seems important given an era when there are concerns to standardise and make uniform educational provisions, often for administrative or political imperatives. As such, this book will be of interest not only to those who are engaged in the field of vocational education, but those with an interest in educational policy, practice and comparative studies.

Across the globe, vocational education and training is characterised by a number of over-arching trends, including the increasing use of technology, the growing importance of information and communications systems, and changes to national demographics. At the interface between the education and training system and the world of work, VET faces the challenge of tackling these changes, of making a constructive contribution to solving the problems posed by the transition from education to employment, and of ensuring that the next generation has the skills it – and the economy – needs. This volume comprises thirty individual contributions that together add up to a comprehensive overview of the current situation in vocational education and training, its strengths and weaknesses, and its prospects. VET experts from Canada, the USA, India, China, Japan and Korea, as well as from a number of European countries, focus on their national context and how it fits in to the bigger picture. The contributions combine theoretical discussions from various strands of VET research with evidence from country case studies and examples from current practice.