Vocational education, transitions, marginalisation and social justice in the Nordic countries

Abstract

The five articles in this special issue present studies focusing on two key aspects of vocational education and transitions in the Nordic countries in relation to social justice: (a) impacts of policies and reforms on transitions and (b) content, practices, curriculum and equality. Collectively, the articles outline important similarities and differences between the countries and contribute, inter alia, to our understanding of the ‘academic–vocational divide’, the impact of neo-liberal steering on vocational education and transitions. They also develop bridges between different empirical contexts and theoretical ‘languages’ that may help efforts to understand and contextualise the current development of vocational education and transitions in the Nordic countries. © The Author(s) 2019.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Vocational education social justice educational policy Transitions Educational practices

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Umeå Universitet, Umea, Västerbotten, Sweden

Department of Education and Special Education, Göteborgs Universitet, Gothenburg, Vastra Gotaland, Sweden

Funding & Acknowledgements

NordForsk

Grant: 57741

Funding text 1: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by NordForsk through the Nordic Centre of Excellence JustEd and the network Vocational education, transitions, marginalisation and social justice [grant number 57741].; Funding text 2: The articles in this special issue present results of collaborative efforts of a network (Vocational education, transitions, marginalisation and social justice in the Nordic countries). Participants included researchers involved in a project (NordVET) and Nordic centre of excellence (JustEd), both funded by NordForsk, addressing related themes. The special issue’s guest editors, Mattias Nylund and Per-Åke Rosvall, answered a call for comparative research with colleagues from the NordVET project (led by Christian Helms Jørgensen) and JustEd (led by Gunilla Holm, 2018). The network was formed to combine and compare NordVET’s and JustEd’s previous findings on issues related to marginalisation and social justice in transitions and vocational education. During the initial network meeting, various issues were identified as warranting comparative analysis, based on the participants’ previous work. After some preliminary work on these issues, we decided to arrange a symposium to present and discuss our results at the 45th Congress of Nordic Educational Research Association in Copenhagen, in 2017. The symposium was held under the auspices of the Vocational education, transitions, marginalisation and social justice in the Nordic countries network, which is also the title of this special issue. Five papers were considered at the symposium, with UK-based Professor James Avis as discussant. This special issue is the final step in the collaborative process and includes five comparative studies, covering five countries, together with a paper by Professor Avis placing the Nordic examples in a wider context.

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Vocational education, transitions, marginalisation and social justice in the Nordic countries

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