Article Gold Open Access 2025

‘Soon you will go far’: discourse analysis on vocational education policy of Israel

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Journal · Vol. 55 · Issue 5 · pp. 887-905
Abstract

This article performs a discourse analysis on the recent interest of the Israeli Ministry of Education in vocational education by examining governmental and organisational texts. This article addresses two key questions. What is the government’s justification for its renewed interest in vocational education? What are its discursive practices to promote vocational education in the context of the current neoliberal discourse on equality and meritocracy? Highlighting three major justifications and discursive practices in the Ministry of Education’s current educational policy, this discursive analysis shows that the policy is related to culture, ethnicity, and class hierarchies in Israel. The analysis also underscores ambiguity as a governmental and organisational tool and the ramifications of the government’s ethnic blindness related to the social construction of a specific reality in vocational education. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Vocational education educational policy ambiguity discursive volatility strategic blindness

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
Department of Counseling and Human Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Funding & Acknowledgements
Israel Science Foundation, ISF
Grant: 1253/17
The work was supported by the\u00A0Israel Science Foundation [1253/17].
Israel Science Foundation, ISF
The work was supported by the\u00A0Israel Science Foundation [1253/17].
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