Fernando Marhuenda-Fluixá – författare

Vocational education and training has played an important role in the struggles between Work and Capital along history and today; there are examples of such tensions worldwide. The first section of this book provides illustrations of different countries from the 18th to the early 20th century. The authors explain and exemplify the education of the workforce and its political engagement, contributing to the formation of the working class. The chapters provide relevant approaches to how young apprentices and adult workers developed a class consciousness through vocational education. The second section illustrates practices of resistance and transformation within policies and practices of vocational education nowadays in Central and Southern Europe and South America, addressing the needs of people with disabilities and dispossessed populations. The final section analyses how theories and policies intertwine resulting in the idiosyncrasy of vocational education practices across the world, through tensions between logics and institutional actors. The book addresses the political dimensions of Vocational Education and problematizes its mere consideration as an instrumental tool in skill formation.

Vocational education, apprenticeship included, is subject to reviews and updates that the recent crises are demanding. The role of education and training systems in different welfare regimes is key in shaping what it involves becoming an adult, a worker and a citizen. Nevertheless, policy-makers often indicate dual systems as the most successful, efficient and intelligent way to provide vocational education. This volume contributes with research that discusses the appropriateness of dual systems in Germany and Switzerland and shows some of its current weaknesses. It also portrays effective and non-effective ways of introducing apprenticeships in non-dual systems in Sweden and Spain. The authors want to contribute to the debate on the internationalization of VET and particularly of dual systems, to clarify differences between apprenticeship and alternance (too often taken as synonymous). Particularly relevant is the seldom-cited case of France.

This book discusses the developments in policy and practice in the field of formal, non-formal and continuing vocational education and training in Spain since 1970. It describes how VET has been transformed and become one of the country’s main areas of pedagogical innovation, and also examines current developments, such as the role of non-formal vocational education and training, the accreditation of vocational qualifications acquired in the non-formal system, and the adoption of dual apprenticeships that bear little resemblance to central European dual systems.Written by respected researchers in these fields, the first section is informative and analytical, offering a description of the system and comments based on academic literature and research. The second section illustrates the research on relevant issues, portraying empirical data from different regions in Spain, as well as nationwide data. Explaining and interpreting data on the basis of the authors’ different theoretical frameworks, the book provides a comprehensive, updated and accurate overview of VET and relevant research in Spain, as well as their relation to European and global developments.