The marginalisation of VET in an Australian secondary school

Abstract

It has been argued that the culture and traditions of secondary schooling explicitly exclude vocational learning from the mission of secondary schools. Analyses have further highlighted the role played by vocational learning in sifting and sorting students by social background. In many continental systems, Germany, France or Italy for example, the fragmentation of the upper secondary curriculum into general and vocational tracks has been the means by which the 'integrity' of the academic stream has been maintained. In the Australian context, the abolition of technical schools in favour of a more comprehensive model of provision has not erased existing social inequalities. This article argues that the maintenance of the dominant academic curriculum and its associated forms of knowledge has involved a number of processes designed to exclude or accommodate different kinds of learners, to marginalise applied learning pedagogies and curricula and to ensure differentiated learning experiences for different subgroups of young people. Drawing on views and perspectives of students and teachers in a large secondary school in an industrial provincial city of Australia, this article presents an analysis of the school-level processes which have contributed to the construction of the learner identity of students in vocational programs in Australian schools.

Nothing changes: perceptions of vocational education in England

“…The policy acknowledgement that the value placed on vocational education is generally low, and the strong association between VET and lower attaining young people reflects rhetoric which is widely used in England and Wales, as well as notions of deficit which have become insidiously embodied in discourse around vocational education internationally. For example, Wallace (2001) provides an early UK critique, whilst Dalley-Trim, Alloway and Walker (2008), and Polesel and Clarke (2011) offer an Australian perspective. It was in this dynamic context that this research was undertaken, and in which the discussion of the outcomes of the study are located.…”

Teach For/Teach Firstcandidates: what conclusions do they draw from their time in teaching?

“…Polesel and Clarke (2011) have argued that the focus within school curricula on the more abstract learning that leads to university pathways (and the status and resources such pathways attract) marginalizes more applied and vocational learning and subjects, disenfranchizing those students whose interests and personal direction lie outside traditional university routes. The finding that participants in this study recognized the problematic nature of the current curriculum surprised us -Teach For candidates are usually high-achieving students who have followed the traditional academic curriculum with success, and it seemed likely that participants would have a weak understanding of the ways in which an abstract curriculum with few links to everyday experience and (in the case of students not planning to attend university) to future work and study, can impact negatively on student motivation and achievement.…”

International students in the private VET sector in Melbourne, Australia: rethinking their characteristics and aspirations outside the deficit model

“…The literature suggests that while education systems' purposes have remained contestable and in flux, the relationship between the economic and social goals of education and training today is fraught with tensions and contestations (Ferrier and Anderson 1998;Volkoff and Golding 1998;Anderson, Brown, and Rushbrook 2004;Seddon and Anderson 2006;Polesel and Clarke 2011;Tran and Nyland 2013). These tensions and contestations arise primarily from the changing demands and conflicting views about the roles and functions of education and educational institutions (Ferrier and Anderson 1998;Tran and Nyland 2013;Chadderton and Edmonds 2014).…”