PurposeThe paper describes the Swiss Vocational Education and Training (VET) system, its crucial role and challenges with respect to the inclusion of vulnerable groups and investigates the effectiveness of the efforts undertaken to promote inclusion in VET so far.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical research focusing on various indicators of inclusion (national monitoring data and own studies) is analysed.FindingsThe overall findings show that equity and inclusion of persons with a migration background or special education needs in VET have been successfully promoted but can be improved.Research limitations/implicationsLong-term, in-depth longitudinal data regarding some issues are still scarce.Practical implicationsThe paper provides information about young people having difficulties to access and complete VET or who are at-risk of exclusion and points out further courses of action.Originality/valueA comprehensive and detailed account of the current state of inclusion in Swiss VET and of related systemic problems is given.

Over the last 15 years, different countries have developed low-level vocational education and training (VET) programmes for young people who struggle to enter or complete education at upper secondary level. Switzerland introduced nationally standardised two-year initial VET programmes in 2005, Norway in 2016. Data of interviews with curriculum experts in Norway and Switzerland provided an empirical basis to examine the underlying intentions for offering these programmes and the respective criteria for defining the learning outcomes and the curricula. The reference frame in Norway for identifying appropriate learning outcomes and selecting learning goals are the national curricula of the respective four-year VET programmes. In Switzerland, the learning outcomes of two-year curricula are defined by lower-level occupational activities which are usually identified in analyses involving active workers and experts in the respective fields. Despite these differences, the criteria for developing two-year curricula are largely the same in both countries. The findings further show that two-year VET programmes in Norway are not intended to lead to a direct labour market entry but are understood as a first step of a staged qualification whereas in Switzerland they are designed to find a viable balance between employability and permeability to the more demanding three-or four-year VET programmes. In both countries, the twoyear apprenticeships do not correspond to a holistic concept of vocation.

The introduction to this article gives a short overview of the main theoretical ideas which have been advanced to explain the low cognitive perfomances of retarded persons in learning and problem solving. The question of how retarded learners organize and control their problem solving activities led the authors to conduct a series of single case studies investigating qualitative and dynamic aspects of retarded learning. Metacognitive training research, socio-cognitive theories and a schematheoretical top-down/bottom-up model of information processing constitute the theoretical background. In a tutorial setting mentally retarded and learning disabled subjects were presented tasks which consist of connecting amorphous clouds of dots in order to reproduce geometrical model figures. Verbal and behavioral data were collected to precisely describe the subjects problem solving activities. Post-hoc a two-dimensional category system listing 28 different problem solving components was developed. The first dimension introduces a distinction between explorative, elaborative, planning and control components, the second dimension specifies whether the components are initiated topdown or bottom-up. This category system is presented in detail followed by a few examples of analyzed problem solving sequences. Finally, the proposed model and inherent methodological problems are discussed.Research in cognitive psychology and in the field of mental retardation within the past 15 years has favoured a number of different key conceptions about structural and/or functional deficits which are to be held responsible for the low cognitive perfomance of learning disabled and mentally retarded individuals. Especially, the methodological approach referred to as «training paradigm» (Belmont & Butterfield, 1977; B( iwski & Buchel, 1983) proved to be useful in generating, testing and thereby continuous.y differentiating hypotheses about cognitive core deficits of this population. We will shortly recall the most important results in this field of research which have partly influenced our own theoretical assumptions underlying the research presented in this paper.

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«Anchored Instruction» ist ein konstruktivistischer Ansatz aus den USA, dessen Vertreter technologisch unterstützte, situierte Lernumgebungen für verschiedene schulische Fächer und Altersstufen entwickeln, implementieren und erforschen. Wichtige Ziele, Gestaltungsprinzipien und Merkmale solcher Lernumgebungen sowie ihre Implementation im Unterricht werden anhand von zwei Anwendungen näher dargestellt: (1) «The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury», eine Serie von Video-Geschichten und Zusatzmaterialien, die Schüler mit komplexen mathematischen Problemstellungen konfrontieren, und (2) ”The Little Planet Literacy Series”, die Schulanfänger mit Trickfilm-Geschichten und damit verbundenen multimedialen Lernaktivitäten ins Lesen und Schreiben einführen. Es wird auch kurz auf einige Forschungsergebnisse zu den beiden Lernumgebungen verwiesen. Im Weiteren verdeutlicht eine Taxonomie, dass soziale und technologische Formen der Lernunterstützung bei «Anchored Instruction» vielfältig kombiniert werden, um die Flexibiliät und den Transfer des Gelernten zu fördern. Im Hinblick auf die aufwändige Erstellung und Implementation solcher Lernumgebungen wird am Schluss eine Reihe kritischer Fragen und Einwände diskutiert.