The Hybridization of Vocational Training and Higher Education in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland

Abstract

who provided me with helpful comments and practical ideas on different parts of the book.I would also like to acknowledge the support of the 48 experts I interviewed in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Each of them provided me with some important piece of the puzzle that I have put together here. I found meeting these experts in their organizations and workplaces and discussing the topics they actively engage with on a daily basis to be both exciting and informative. I am very thankful for the friendliness and openness with which they welcomed me.During my field research in Austria, Ulrich Brand provided me with an office at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. During my stay in Switzerland, Rolf Becker gave me a workspace in the Department of Sociology of Education at the University of Bern. I wish to thank both of them for their generous hospitality.In addition, I would like to thank Mike Wright, Roisin Cronin, and Ute Reusch for their language assistance at different stages of the writing process. Furthermore, I thank Miriam von Maydell from Budrich UniPress for guiding me through the publication process.I gratefully acknowledge the financial support the WZB has provided to enable the publication of this book. The WZB is an excellent place to carry out research. One of the main reasons for this is its wonderful administrative AT DE CH UK

Higher vocational education and social mobility: educational participation in Australia and England

“…This argument is derived from the recognition that student outcomes are unequal when HIVE is positioned at the 'bottom of the hierarchy' of tertiary institutions (Wheelahan 2016, 45). Hierarchically stratified systems are typical of liberal-market systems, such as Australia and England (Graf 2013). The consequence is that vocational institutions are perceived as lower status than universities, and often aimed at second chance learners and those in low-paid work (Norton Grubb and Lazerson 2005;Kyvik 2004;Parry, Callender, Scott and Temple 2012;Wheelahan 2009;.…”

“…Mission and status differences between higher vocational education and university-based higher education, would appear to be important areas of consideration in exploring the relationship between widening access and social mobility, not only between Anglophone and German speaking countries, but also within Anglophone countries (Graf 2013;Powell, Graf, Bernhard, Coutrot and Kieffer, 2012;Wheelahan 2009). Furthermore, the literature on (Davies, Williams and Webb 1997;Vickers and Bekhradnia 2007).…”

“…The literature that has conceptualised system differences between liberalmarket and mixed regulation ideal types has argued that vocational education and training (VET) in Australia has developed a distinctive version of the liberal-market Anglophone model due to the greater role played by employers in Australia, compared to the UK, and partly shaped by the regulations of occupational sectors and the activities of some states and territories (Graf 2013;Knight and Mlotkowski 2009;Powell et al 2012). The introduction of deregulation of student fees and market competition for VET funding between private and public providers has reduced the role of the public providers of VET, increased the role of the private sector, particularly as large employers become private training organisations and consequently increased the appetite of TAFEs to seek out new markets, such as higher vocational education Knight and Mlotkowski 2009).…”

“…framework as university providers. Consequently, there is the potential for the Australian tertiary sector to reduce the steep hierarchical status segmentation between academic and vocational higher education and display some characteristics more typical of hybrid systems of German-speaking countries, rather than those found in the English Anglophone system (Graf 2013;Powell et al 2012, Wolter andKerst 2015), Whilst this discussion has identified regulatory differences between Australia and England that suggest higher vocational education is differently positioned in the two countries, the analysis of participation data has revealed some paradoxes that will now be discussed. Even allowing for the difficulties in comparing like-for-like data sets between Australia and England and the problems of whether or not area-based measures of disadvantage adequately measure individual disadvantage, it is still puzzling that the participation data for HIVE in Australia shows the high preference rates and presence of many younger students from high socio-economic status areas, and disproportionately few young people from low socio-economic status areas compared to universities; the obverse of the participation data in England Gale et al 2015;HEFCE 2016;Parry et al 2012).…”

Higher Education in Societies

“…Whereas the Swiss Federal Vocational Baccalaureate was created as a distinct vocational pathway by basically providing additional general education beyond the practical part of VET training in Switzerland (Graf, 2013), the French baccalauréat professionnel evolved from "vocationalising" the academic baccalauréat (Verdier, 2001). Varying institutional settings of national education systems are likely to affect this mobility in various ways.…”