Vocational Education in the Nordic Countries

The Historical Evolution

Svein Michelsen, Marja-Leena Stenström, Svein Michelsen, Marja-Leena Stenström

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315411798
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Didattica
• Sous-sujet: Didattica generale

Vocational Education in the Nordic Countries: The Historical Evolution is the first of two books that disseminate new and systematic knowledge on the strengths and weaknesses of the different models of vocational education and training (VET) in four Nordic countries. Vocational education in Europe has resisted standardisation to a higher degree than other fields of education, and during the last decade, there has been a growth in international, comparative VET research. While the Nordic countries provide an ideal case for comparative education studies, the literature in English on the Nordic VET systems is at present very limited.

This first book provides thorough examinations of VET in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland over 150 years. Each section examines the historical evolution of VET at upper secondary level in one of the four Nordic countries. Contributors also analyse how each country have tried to reform their respective VET systems, and compare the paths which each nation has taken. The book explores what can be learned from the diversity of the VET-systems in the Nordic countries, which otherwise have many similarities and share a common heritage in education policy.

This volume will help strengthen the knowledge base required for transnational policy learning, and for developing vocational education internationally for the future. It will be of interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students involved in the study of vocational education, educational studies and educational policy, education planners and teachers educators.

1 The historical evolution of vocational education in the Nordic countries

Svein Michelsen

Introduction: explorations into the origins of Nordic VET

The Nordic countries represent a challenge to the study of vocational education and training (VET) and VET systems. The Nordic region denotes a geographical denomination consisting of a cluster of countries, which, measured by numerous approaches, are considered as similar. They share a number of commonalities, which makes them meaningful and interesting to study jointly. What they have in common outweighs the differences. The concept of a Nordic model is broad, vague and ambiguous, but in many fields of research, it has often served as a helpful reference for observers of varieties among nation states and commonalities among Nordic states. Nordic VET systems are for the most part characterized as strong systems, and attract a considerable part of the youth population (Iversen, 2005). However, in the comparative literature on VET systems, the differences are normally emphasized rather than the similarities. For the most part attention has been focused on Sweden and Denmark as archetypal exemplars of different VET systems. In the literature on collective skill formation systems, Denmark has evolved into a role model system with a strong and well-functioning VET system based on apprenticeship and enterprise-based learning (Busemeyer and Trampusch, 2012). Sweden, on the other hand, has often been treated as the primary example of a statist, egalitarian social-democratic school model, where upper secondary VET is embedded in a publicly funded and comprehensively organized school (Dobbins and Busemeyer, 2014). The Norwegian and Finnish VET systems have received less international attention. For the most part they are represented as school-based, statist systems, similar to Sweden, but still somewhat different (Allmendinger, 1989). In conventional typologies of VET, Nordic systems have had no clear place. Measured by such yardsticks, what Nordic VET systems have in common is that they are different, and that the differences are significant and persistent.

However, a closer look also reveals emerging commonalities. Whereas school-based VET was regarded as a superior form of training in the golden period of social democracy, the enterprise has been rehabilitated under neo-liberalism as a place of learning. Also in Nordic school-based systems, apprenticeship has (re-)emerged as a highly relevant template for organizing VET (Nilsson, 2007). Through policy transfer, where policy instruments, mechanisms and structures have been borrowed from well-performing neighbours, the various national VET systems often comprise very different and even contradictory elements. The old distinction between school-based and apprentice-based systems have become increasingly blurred, and conceptions of ‘mixed systems’ have gained ground in comparative VET research. This also applies as far as characterizations of the Nordic countries are concerned. The Danish apprentice system is often considered as more ‘blurred’ than the Austrian, German and Swiss dual systems (Graf, 2013), and perhaps a bit similar to the mixed Dutch system (Anderson and Nijhuis, 2012; see also Iversen, 2005, p. 55). This resonates somewhat with newer conceptualizations of the Norwegian VET system, which in spite of its strong school-based character, has developed an apprentice-based system combining training in school and in the firm. Also in Finland, a more practice-oriented system is in the making, involving employers in new ways and in Sweden apprenticeship is being tried out. Furthermore, new forms of articulation with the educational system have been attempted in order to promote the status and esteem of VET tracks as well as the attractiveness of apprenticeship schemes. In this process older boundaries between vocational and general education, between secondary and higher education (HE) have been challenged. Seemingly, the Nordic countries are developing towards a common, extended repertoire of VET reforms in order to create better conditions for social inclusion and labour market access, more diversity in educational choices, attempting new gateways to higher education as well as securing and safeguarding transitions into working life during the life cycle.

Rather than emphasizing structural differences in the organization of VET, its size should also be accounted for and analyzed. It has been maintained that the Nordic countries represent a distinct approach to education, training and skill formation (Pontusson, 2005). They devote more of their resources to education than the continental countries like Germany and Austria or liberal countries like the USA. Vocational education has accounted for a smaller share of upper secondary education in the Nordic social market economies than in the continental countries. They place more emphasis on general education and public funding, and rely more on schools rather than firms to provide vocational training. (Denmark is seen as a hybrid case). In contrast to the liberal countries, there are higher standards at the lower end of the skill hierarchy. High public spending on education (general, vocational as well as higher education) and a low private share have been related to the strong egalitarian tradition in the Nordic countries, as well as the persistent high economic performance of the Nordic countries. In the 1990s they were singled out among the world’s most competitive nations, measured by World Economic Forum rankings. In February 2013 the Nordic model was lauded by The Economist as the next ‘supermodel’.

Nordic skill formation has been associated with a new type of policies, the idea of the enabling state and the social investment agenda (Gingrich and Ansell, 2015; Morel, Palier and Palme, 2015). High levels of investment in education are still significant, but there is a growing interest in the supply side, in flexibilization and in firm-based forms of skill formation. According to Morel, Palier and Palme (2015) the key to success seems to be the fact that the Nordic countries have not pursued a simple re-orientation strategy with their welfare systems towards more activation, but have instead combined strong protection with heavy social investment in skill formation.

Education has traditionally not been regarded as part of welfare (Wilensky, 1975). But relations between welfare and capitalism have emerged as a fruitful research agenda. Of particular relevance to the investigation of Nordic VET is the comparative work of Gøsta Esping-Andersen (1991). His ‘three worlds of welfare capitalism’ approach emphasize the similarities of the Nordic countries and the significance of universalist welfare insurance or ‘decommodification’, that is ‘the degree to which they permit people to make their living standards independent on pure market forces. It is in this sense that social rights diminish citizen’s status as commodities’ (Esping-Andersen, 1991, p. 23). This perspective also provides an interesting link to the formation of the social democratic comprehensive school. Such arrangements were believed to be conducive to greater social equality, and similar ideas were harboured by the social democratic parties in all four countries in the post-war period, where the school system were regarded as a strategic part of a future encompassing welfare state. A stream of authors argue that a specific Nordic or social democratic model has evolved with equity, participation and welfare as the major goals and the publicly funded comprehensive school system as the major institutional form (Lundahl, 2016; Wiborg, 2009; Arnesen and Lundahl, 2006; Antikainen, 2006, Telhaug, Mediås and Aasen, 2006). The establishment and growth of the comprehensive or unitary school principle in the Scandinavian and Nordic countries has been described as a progressive development, as part of the process towards a more equal society, and as an important precondition for the development towards the greater equality for all children, irrespective of social background. Through these processes the old diversity of post-obligatory parallel school types were first broken down and eliminated, and a lower, comprehensive secondary educational level constructed. The prospects of organizational integration and amalgamation between general education and vocational education and training became a central concern in the Nordic countries during the 1970s. We maintain that this feature is crucial for understanding the specific development of Nordic VET. All the four Nordic countries developed comprehensive lower secondary schools, but they diverged as far as the issue of upper secondary comprehensive school was concerned.

Welfare arrangements structure social relations, which in turn have important implications for the structuring of power in society as well as relations between employers and employees (Kangas and Palme, 1998). But Nordic VET researchers have so far not showed much interest in the dynamics of the welfare state as important drivers for the re-formation of VET and their implications. The main focus for Nordic VET research has been on traditional areas like industry and crafts, while welfare state research has focused processes of de-commodification. The linkages between VET and the welfare state and how they have been formed historically in the Nordic countries are so far a quarry that remains to be mined systematically. There is also a divide between the historical literature on VET and the literature on the formation of the comprehensive school (Wiborg, 2009; Schriewer et al., 2000; Leschinsky and Mayer, 1999). VET is hardly mentioned in the literature on the comprehensive school, while comprehensivization has not been treated much in the VET literature. The general theme in the (scarce) contributions has for the most part been the academization of VET and its consequences (Heikkinen, 2004). Going against the statics of established academic boundaries, the book attempts a more systematic exploration of the historical formation of relations between VET and welfare and the comprehensive school in the Nordic countries. The various chapters reveal long-term trajectories, continuities and ruptures in the articulation between the evolving educational system, the comprehensive school and VET in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

From these various points of view, it seems worthwhile to investigate the experience of the Nordic countries and the institutional development of their VET systems as they have emerged historically. How do they combine social and economic goals in VET? How do they combine high educational levels and a mass higher education system with vocational education and training? How do they combine labour market participation and social inclusion with educational mobility? However, systematic cross-national comparative studies of the historical formation of VET institutions and policies in the Nordic countries have not been carried out, and for some of these countries available materials on historical developments in VET are patchy and not easily accessible. Therefore we ask: What is the character of these VET systems? What are the differences? What are the similarities? What set them apart from other systems? How did they come about? How could similarities and variations in trajectories and outcomes be explained?

Making sense of the evolution of Nordic VET

Much of VET research takes its point of departure in case studies or cross-national comparative studies of reform trajectories in a selection of countries. The most interesting of these rely on a mixture of historical institutionalism, partisan politics and varieties of capitalism. Others depart from perspectives emanating from the welfare state or human capital formation. We acknowledge the significance of the theoretical approaches, which recently have enriched the field of skill formation, the cross-national comparisons of different skill regimes, which has emerged, as well as the fruitfulness of historical diachronic analysis. The book is not strictly historical, but also relies on a plurality of theoretical perspectives and approaches. These approaches comes from a number of different disciplines; from pedagogics, political science and political economy, sociology and organization theory and public administration, each emphasizing different aspects of the emergence of Nordic VET. We rely on a mixture of approaches: historical institutionalism in its various forms, (partisan) politics and political regimes, varieties of capitalism, worlds of welfare capitalism/human capital as well as contributions emanating from the sociology of educational systems, organization theory and pedagogics. The different perspective can be regarded as competing or as additive; that is, they combined contribute to the analysis of the topic, emphasizing different aspects of the research topic. We argue that there is a need for a multiplicity of theories rather than a single approach, where existing approaches and bodies of knowledge could be integrated into a combination that illuminates Nordic VET in different ways and from different angles. This makes the book theoretically complex and eclectic, but it allows a more nuanced interpretation of trajectories and drivers.

Such an approach has implications for the definition of VET. VET is an elusive concept. VET can be regarded as a standardized policy area, a policy sector or as a broad social and organizational field. In comparative terms, VET has traditionally been defined in opposition to general education, as practical education, as education and training for manual labour, or as training for the hand and not the mind. Comparative practice has almost exclusively been defined in relation to industry and the crafts, that is; working life in a traditional sense. We have not followed this convention. Instead we have sought to enhance our understanding of the specificities in the historical formation of VET in the Nordic countries by expanding the object of enquiry. Many important changes in the development of vocational training have happened outside core industrial and craft areas. In order to capture these changes we have investigated reforms in the broader institutional framework of the educational system as well as welfare service undergirding education and labour market training. The boundaries of VET are intrinsically unclear and varied in time and space. The investigation of the historical evolution of VET systems requires a processual and pragmatic approach, which allows the discovering of dynamic interrelations between domains as well as processes of differentiation and integration of policy areas in which vocational education and training is embedded. This implies that institutional change over time has to be accounted for. It also implies that institutional domains and policy areas that conventionally are considered as separate can be viewed as interrelated, dynamic and volatile.

Theoretical perspectives

In order to provide an adequate analysis of the evolution of Nordic VET systems, we have to equip ourselves with the necessary conceptual toolkit. The international comparative literature on vocational education and training systems and their developments has been multiplying fast the last 30 years. The thematic range, the disciplines and research domains contributing to it, and the modes of inquiry have become broader and more multifaceted. There is no general agreement on the value of typologies in VET, and a variety of models, typologies and ideal types are in use. Economic approaches focus on the requirements of the economy. Other approaches focus on political dynamics, partisan politics, electoral systems or political explanations in general when making sense of the formation of VET systems and trajectories. Some approaches, like political economy, combine these elements (Martin and Swank, 2012), while others depart from a functionalist perspective (Hall and Soskice, 2001). Furthermore, VET is increasingly not treated in isolation, but as embedded in broader societal configurations, and a series of studies have emerged, linking VET to a variety of other fields of research (Busemeyer, 2014; Thelen, 2014; Iversen and Stephens, 2008; Iversen and Soskice, 2006).

First, there is the issue of diachronic analysis and the significance of the past. Do we really need to understand the historical dynamics of VET institutions in order to understand the workings of contemporary VET systems? The claim is that attention to historical structure of institutions and power dynamics matter for contemporary VET reforms. A variety of approaches examining the production and reproduction of skill formation regimes have yielded results that seem to indicate that the historical regime differences and legacies are still valid today, and remain crucial for understanding how different countries experience new structural problems and their capacity to act and react ...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The historical evolution of vocational education in the Nordic countries
• 2 The development of Finnish vocational education and training from 1850 to 1945
• 3 Sweden: the formative period for VET (1850–1945)
• 4 The case of Norwegian VET – origins and early development 1850–1945
• 5 Historical evolution of vocational education in Denmark until 1945
• 6 The modern evolution of vocational education and training in Finland (1945–2015)
• 7 The modern evolution of VET in Sweden (1945–2015)
• 8 Norwegian VET and the ascent and decline of social democracy 1945–2015
• 9 The modernisation of the apprenticeship system in Denmark 1945–2015
• 10 Conclusions
• Index