Anja Heikkinen – författare

Flexibility seems to be the core concept of economic and educational change in our time. The promise of solutions to many problems at the individual, institutional, and national level evokes as much controversy as acclaim. This might be related to the different perspectives of actors and researchers involved in problem-solving in Vocational Education and Training (VET), where, on the one hand, solutions should be sought in key qualifications and transferability, in changing teaching and learning processes, while, on the other, political, institutional, organisational, and professional conditions are seen as the key interventions to build a responsive workforce on the basis of a re-engineered VET system. Consequently, flexibility in connection with vocational education and training and the labour market has several divergent connotations.

Flexibility seems to be the core concept of economic and educational change in our time. The promise of solutions to many problems at the individual, institutional, and national level evokes as much controversy as acclaim. This might be related to the different perspectives of actors and researchers involved in problem-solving in Vocational Education and Training (VET), where, on the one hand, solutions should be sought in key qualifications and transferability, in changing teaching and learning processes, while, on the other, political, institutional, organisational, and professional conditions are seen as the key interventions to build a responsive workforce on the basis of a re-engineered VET system. Consequently, flexibility in connection with vocational education and training and the labour market has several divergent connotations.

Social competences have played a crucial role in the international search for generic, over-arching skills, key qualifications and core competences since the 1970s. By the end of 1990, social cohesion and integration had gained new momentum in this discourse because of their importance for the functioning of global market economy and industries. Moreover, the concept of social capital affects and changes the role of social competences in vocational and continuing education. This volume presents a collection of papers which reflect and describe these changes and their political, economical and pedagogical backgrounds and implications. The topics include economisation of social competences, social competences as key qualifications for employability and entrepreneurship, social challenges in eroding welfare societies, gender and social competences, and the ideological and economical context of the social competences discourse.

Pedagogical theory arising from general education has long dominated discourse in both research and policy-making in education: this is also evident in vocational studies. Today, both locally and internationally, the complex processes of vocational pedagogy play a central role in the discussions. Work-based learning, the master-apprenticeship learning tradition, and the pedagogy of vocations and professions are all important concepts in on-going education policy debates. Contradictions between different learning traditions are clearly evident in vocational pedagogy: learning according to the workshop traditions or learning in the classroom, vocational theory and general theory, learning at school and learning in a work situation. This book is based on research in Norway and examines problems of teaching and learning in relation to vocational curricula of upper secondary schooling, apprentices’ experiences and masters thesis-writing in the field of vocational pedagogy. The book also explores the question of vocational education and gender, today and in the past.