the role of vocational education and training in enhancing social inclusion and cohesion
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The role of vocational education and training in enhancing social inclusion and cohesion. Professor John Preston Cass school of Education and Communities, University of East London Keynote to European Training Foundation (ETF), Torino, Italy, 12 th December 2011 [email protected]. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The role of vocational education and training in enhancing social inclusion
and cohesionProfessor John Preston
Cass school of Education and Communities, University of East London
Keynote to European Training Foundation (ETF), Torino, Italy, 12th December 2011
CEDEFOP
Cedefop' is the French acronym of the organisation's official title, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Centre Européen pour le Développement de la Formation Professionnelle)
It is a European agency that helps promote and develop vocational education and training in the European Union (EU). It is the EU's reference centre for vocational education and training.
Reports for CEDEFOP
2004: Non-material Benefits of Education2008: The role of vocational education and
training in enhancing social inclusion and cohesion
2009 / 2010: The macro-social benefits of VET
2010 / 2011The benefits of VET for communities and social groups
The ‘integrative’ role of VET‘…we need to explore the extent to
which VET contributes to the integration of groups that otherwise would be marginalized, and to the formation of vocational identities’
(Leney et al, 2004, p.108).
Historically this has been a key part of VET…
Kerschensteiner and DeweyKerchensteiner’s ‘system of education was
to educate its members to form a community of thinking, selfless, efficient people all working willingly and joyfully together for the betterment and progress of the state’ (Simons, 1966: 29)
Dewey wrote in The School and Society:-‘No training of the sense organs in school
introduced for the sake of learning…can begin to compete with the alertness and fullness of sense that comes through daily intimacy and interest in familiar occupations’
Return to integrative function of VET?Europe ‘should play a role through education and
training: to affirm and transmit the common values on which
civilisation is founded; in devising and disseminating ways of enabling the
young people of Europe to play a fuller part as European Citizens;
to identify and disseminate best practise in education and training for citizenship, in order to filter out the best means of learning contemporary elements of European citizenship.’ (European Commission Study Group on Education and Training, 1997, p. 57)
Social Exclusion
Broader than ‘Anglo-Saxon’ emphasis on employability
Multi-faceted and subjective / objective dimensions
Polysemic variable – different meanings across different political cultures
Differs from social cohesion in terms of ‘scale’ (micro vs. macro) and antecedents
Methodological issues in examining social exclusionSocial exclusion is multi-faceted –
requires an approach which does not measure a single outcome
Social exclusion is polysemic, so absolute scale of exclusion may be questioned
Social exclusion is outcome rather than characteristic based (e.g. not all immigrants are socially excluded, not all working households are socially included!)
1. Targeting VET by background characteristics may miss some of the socially excluded
Households earning less than 20% of mean household income (Source: WVS / EVS, 2004)
INCOME EXCLUSION Norway Poland Port. GB USA
Workless Households 8% 24% 27% 4% 9%
Working Households 11% 10% 2% 1% 2%
Single Parent Households N/A 25% 22% 18% N/A
Dual Parent Households N/A 15% 21% 5% N/A
Immigrants 12% 20% 11% 3% 9%
Non-immigrants 12% 10% 21% 6% 5%
Social exclusion in the UK : cluster analysis (source: WVS / EVS 2004)
05
10
15
05
10
15
05
10
15
0 5 10
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11
soci
al
scale of incomesGraphs by exclude
VET and the socially excluded – some examples where ‘targeting’ by characteristic (rather than outcome) has had perverse effects
In UK, immigrants often have higher levels of skill to local population but training focuses on soft skills (Kempton, 2002)
In the US, local, targeted provision for disabled people has led to low quality and mixed provision of VET (Fairwether and Shaver, 1991)
In Poland vocational provision for disabled people is tracked to strongly focus on rehabilitation with the continuation of ‘sheltered workplaces’ (Ostrowska, 1994)
In Norway, there is little incentive for local municipalities to fund training for immigrants (Schone, 1996) and training often consists of language / cultural skills.
A contested concept, historically specificMacro-social but with multi-level elementsInvolves elements of both system and
social integrationImportance of equalitiesDifferent political forms of cohesionNot necessarily associated with lifelong
learning or strong social capital
Theoretical framework Mechanisms Benefits
Human Capital Stock of human capital and associated endogenous growth
Social Cohesion
Equality Streaming in VETStatus of VETCompensatory role of IVET / CVET Class / Gender / Racial biases in VET / CVET
Institutional Institutional development (path dependencies)Interest group conflict / compromise
Social capital – a coherent syndrome? (Adapted from Norris, 2000)
Low Memberships
High Memberships
High Trust MIXED – East Asian Countries (China, Japan)
RICH – Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden)
Low Trust POOR – Some European countries (Spain, Bulgaria)
MIXED – Anglophone countries (UK, US)
Memberships and Trust (1996)
DEN
NL
SW
IRLFIN
CAN
PO
UKB
POR
NWD
SZ
AU
US
.00
.20
.40
.60
.80
1.00
1.20
1.40
1.60
1.80
.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00
General trust
Mem
ber
ship
s
Income and skill inequality (1996)
NLSWDEN
AUFIN
D
B
CAN
POR USA
IRL
UKNW
POSZ
1.00
1.10
1.20
1.30
1.40
1.50
1.60
20.00 25.00 30.00 35.00 40.00 45.00
Test score ratio
Inco
me
ineq
ual
ity
+0.65
Skill inequality and trust (1996)
POR
US
D
NW
UK B
CAN
POSZ
AU
IRLFIN
NLSW
DEN
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6
Education Inequality
Gen
era
l T
ru
st
-0.6
Time series data on education inequality, income inequality and social cohesion measures over time (1960-1990) for industrialised countries
Complied into single datasetMeasure of unrest comprising riots, strikes and demonstrations.
Measure of civil and political liberties
23
Data Sources
‘Freedom in the World’ survey
Educational attainment dataset for 21 OECD countries, from de la Fuente and Domenech (2001)
Data on vocational training at secondary level derived from UNESCO data
Thomas/Wang/Fan (2003) World Bank dataset on educational inequalities
‘Democracy and Development – Political Institutions and Material Well-being, 1950-1990’, (Przeworski et al, 2000; ACLP dataset).
Nation year edgini gini civlib pollib unrest gdp
Greece 1965 0.37 5 7721
Greece 1970 0.37 0 10888
Greece 1975 0.36 34.84 6 6 1 13532
Greece 1980 0.32 33.54 6 6 1 15511
Greece 1985 0.32 34.37 6 6 4 16270
Greece 1990 0.27 35.13 6 7 8 17717
-6-4
-20
2S
tand
ardi
zed
valu
es o
f (ci
vlib
1)
0 .2 .4 .6 .8edgini
0.35 0.4
Increasing education inequality
Decline in civil / political liberties
Increase in political unrest (riots / demonstrations)
Netherlands
(0.25)
Switzerland
Denmark
(0.26)
Finland
(0.27)
France
(0.35)
Spain
(0.36)
Portugal
(0.43)
COUNTRY Education inequality 1990 Netherlands 0.25Switzerland 0.26Denmark 0.26Finland 0.27France 0.35Spain 0.36Portugal 0.43
Macro-causal modelling for direct VET impact
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990
Vocational upper secondary
Vocational higher qualification
Apprenticeships
Riots
Strikes
Demonstrations
Civil liberties
GDP / capita
Inequalities
General education
31
Outcome measures
Political rights and civil liberties
Measures of inequality
Social unrest / social cohesion
Health variables (e.g. infant mortality rates)
32
Main results: quantitative analyses
Political/Civil:No evidence of links between VET and civil liberties; VET at secondary level may be associated with somewhat
worse political rights outcomesSocial Unrest:
No relationship between VET and either strikes or riots; Some evidence that demonstrations more prevalent in
societies with more higher level VETHealth:
Higher level VET was associated with higher infant mortality; No evidence of relationships between secondary VET and
health outcomesInequality:
VET does not appear to be related to measures of inequality
In general: Little Quantitative Evidence of Social Benefits of VET at the MACRO level
Institutional factorsMitigating against social unrestCombating extremismProviding securityFormation of national citizenships (and vocational cultures)Encouraging professional and trade union participationDevelopment of industrial democracy
Conclusions
Social inclusion is multifaceted and hard to target.VET initiatives around social inclusion are sometimes
designed to exclude to achieve a narrow form of (employment) inclusion.
In terms of social cohesion equality in education is important and equity of access alone will not suffice.
The level of VET has little direct influence on macro-social benefits.
Equality of education is not related to the level of VET and so increasing levels of VET will not provide more equality.
VET can not be disaggregated from institutional frameworks. In policy terms, this means that IVET / CVET policies need to account for the existing welfare regime.
Conceptually, the macro-social sides of VET lie outside of the policy imagination of most models of VET. There needs to be a reimagining of VET at this level in scenario building.