The Editors: Antony Lindgren is an Associate professor and senior lecturer in sociology at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. He lectures on political sociology, sociological theory, regional studies and the philosophy of science and is currently researching on working conditions in «the new service-jobs» and on vocational education.Anja Heikkinen is a professor of adult education at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her main research areas are historical, cultural and gender aspects of education, primarily in vocational and continuing education. She has been active for years in various European projects and international networks, which promote cross-cultural collaboration in teaching and researching vocational and continuing education.

• Contents: Philipp Gonon/Anja Heikkinen: Preface: Studies in Vocational and Continuing Education – Antony Lindgren/Anja Heikkinen: Introduction: The Revival of the Social in Vocational and Continuing Education – Anthony Lindgren: Can Research on Vocational Education and Training (VET) still be Progressive? – Lorenz Lassnigg: Strengthening Social Competences in VET - a New Relationship between Social Capital and Human Capital? – Matthias Vonken: Being Competent or Having Competences – Beatrix Niemeyer: Gender and Key Competences - Key Terms of Unrelated Debates? – Liv Mjelde: Women and Apprenticeship: Industrial, Technological Skilling and Gendering Changes in the Printing Industry in Norway – Håkon Høst/Svein Michelsen: Who will Nurse us in our Old Age? - On the Erosion of Social and Cultural Preconditions for Care Education – Rudolf Husemann: Ageing, Employment and Qualification - Problems and Perspectives of Adult Education – Antony Lindgren: Vocational Education and Social Competence - Theory and Practice in Vocational Education – Philipp Gonon: Convergence of Discourses - Convergence of Structures? The Reform of Vocational Education in England and Switzerland in the Light of the European Integration – Katrin Kraus: New «Virtues of Employees» - a Topic for Educational Science? – Anja Heikkinen: The Erosion of the Social and the Promotion of Social Competences in Vocational Education and Training.