The Standing of Vocational Education: Sources of Its Societal Esteem and Implications for Its Enactment

Autor/in	Billett, Stephen
Titel	The Standing of Vocational Education: Sources of Its Societal Esteem and Implications for Its Enactment
Quelle	In: Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 66 (2014) 1, S.1-21 (21 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1363-6820
DOI	10.1080/13636820.2013.867525
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Vocational Education; Educational Attitudes; Educational Policy; Educational History; Public Opinion; Occupations; Vocational Education Teachers; Social Attitudes; Administrative Organization; Government Role; Labor Market; World History; Australia; China; Germany; Italy + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Ausbildung; Berufsbildung; Educational attitude; Bildungsverhalten; Erziehungseinstellung; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; History of education; Bildungsgeschichte; Öffentliche Meinung; Beruf; Berufsumfeld; Ausbilder; Social attidude; Soziale Einstellung; Labour market; Arbeitsmarkt; Weltgeschichte; Australien; Deutschland; Italien
Abstract	The standing of vocational education is salient for how it is perceived by those who sponsor, participate in and work within it and how its provisions are supported and administered. Yet, this standing continues to be intractably low, compared with other education sectors, more so in some countries than others. The consequences for this low standing can be profound. Serially, moreover, it has been the voices and sentiments of powerful others (e.g. aristocrats, theocrats, bureaucrats and academics) that have long been privileged in discourses about the standing of occupations and their preparation. In perhaps most instances, this privileging has and continues to come at a cost to the standing, processes of and goals for this important educational sector. Indeed, the legacies of earlier sentiments about and conceptions of different kinds of occupations and their preparation are now deeply embedded in societal discourses and variously sustain and constrain the standing of vocational education. At its strongest, concepts such as the Berufs concept in the German speaking world does much to sustain and elevate vocational education. Elsewhere, this lowly standing generates constraints that comprise efforts to control and micro-manage those who teach and learn. Adopting a historical approach, this paper offers a brief and partial account of how, across time, sentiments of powerful others have shaped the standing of vocational education and its proposes and practices, often for purposes of power and control. Instead, it is proposed that for vocational education to realise it purposes necessarily requires it to be informed by and directed more by the interests of those learning about--teaching and practice--these occupations. In addition, the need for societally based (i.e. governmental) imperatives to ameliorate the long-standing consequences of these sentiments for vocational education is proposed. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10