ABSTRACT

Access to, and participation in, higher education is expanding. Commonalities in the organisation of this expansion are distinctive vocational pathways, liberal marketisation and significant employer influence. However, whether this expanded access to higher education in vocational pathways is contributing to opportunities of social mobility for the students accessing higher education in this way is questioned. This article explores one way to investigate this by focusing on knowledge in VET curricula – specifically knowledge which students in higher VET get access to. Knowledge in VET curricula can both reproduce existing social divisions and inequalities or support social mobility, as knowledge may both include and exclude from social power. Thus, possible reproduction of stratification may be tracked in formation of curricula. In this article, the Swedish system of higher VET established in 2009 serves as the case for a policy analysis examining what knowledge policy defines for higher VET curricula. The analysis shows a dominant definition of legitimate knowledge as that generated in the production of goods and services and selected by locally involved employers. This is a definition of knowledge for higher VET in line with a global focus on differentiation in higher education rather than on equality of outcomes.

摘要

获得高等教育和参与高等教育的机会正在扩大。这种扩展组织的共同点是独特的职业道路，自由市场化和重要的雇主影响力。但是，这种以职业途径获得高等教育的机会的扩大是否为以这种方式接受高等教育的学生带来社会流动的机会。本文探讨了一种方法，通过侧重于VET课程中的知识-特别是高VET学生可以访问的知识。在职业教育与培训课程中，知识既可以重现现有的社会分化和不平等现象，也可以支持社会流动性，因为知识既可以包括也可以排除在社会权力之外。因此，可以在课程的形成中追踪分层的可能再现。在这篇文章中，2009年建立的瑞典高等职业教育体系可作为一项政策分析的案例，研究知识政策对高等职业教育课程的定义。分析表明，合法知识的主要定义是在产品和服务的生产中产生并由当地相关雇主选择的合法知识。这是对高等职业教育的知识的定义，符合全球对高等教育差异化而非成果均等的关注。