Journal of European Social Policy

Dual vocational education and training (VET) is said to have positive economic effects. However, recent contributions suggest that the rise of the knowledge economy may undermine these positive effects because university-educated workers are better suited for the new knowledge-intensive jobs. This p…

This thematic review essay focuses on the relationship between social inclusion and collective skill formation systems. It briefly surveys foundational literature in comparative political economy and comparative social policy that documented and explained the traditionally socially inclusive nature …

Vocational education and training (VET) often suffers from a lack of social standing among students and their families. Parents have been shown to discard vocational education because of social status maintenance considerations. How adults perceive the social prestige of occupations might therefore …

Education is increasingly seen as a substitute for social policy, but opportunities for skill development vary by social background and educational institutions are not neutral in this respect. While previous research has extensively examined how schooling affects skills distribution, the role of po…

Owing to the recent recession, the German apprenticeship model is once again praised for smoothing out school-to-work transitions. In line with the social policy shift of favouring education as a key means to combat youth unemployment, European Union (EU) recommendations and German national policies…

Vocational education and training (VET) has been described in the sociological literature as a mixed blessing. On one hand, vocational qualifications facilitate the school-to-work transitions of youth (safety net function of VET); on the other hand, placement into vocational tracks dissuades student…

Education policy is a salient topic both in political debates and in the scholarly literature. Still, the study of individual policy preferences on education policy has received little scholarly attention, mostly because existing comparative surveys provide only very crude measures on education poli…

The last 20 years have seen a substantial increase in enrolment in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in several European countries. The expansion of ECEC services inevitably requires new staff. There is however a tension between a rapid growth of services via the creation of low-paid, low-qu…