Perspectives of Vocational Education in West Germany and Other Capitalist Countries

In: Economic and industrial democracy, Band 2, Heft 3, S. 321-348

Abstract

Based on a dialectical model of correspondences and contradictions within and between education and work, the main functions of vocational education (in the broadest sense, including all kinds of work-relevant learning, both on and off the job) in capitalist countries are examined. Corresponding to the profit interests of private firms, vocational education here contributes to a very high specialization (either theoretical or practical), an abstract achievement orientation (instead of interest in concrete work tasks), hierarchical conformity, low sense of responsibility for other people and for future generations, selfish competition (at the expense of solidary cooperation) and the beliefs of self-worth of the 'winners' and of a lack of self-worth among the 'losers'. To get the opposite results, a closer combination of scientific education and practical training, early job experiences and repeated participation in formal education throughout adult life are required, but also major changes in the occupational system, particularly a substitution of democratic forms of direction and control for rigid hierarchies and by periodical rotation between higher and lower positions. The growing 'over-education' and legitimation crisis in industrialized capitalist countries present contradictions which may only be reconciled by a major change in both areas.