Journal of Vocational Education and Training - 250th edition event

To celebrate the 250th edition of the Journal of Vocational Education and Training, we invite you to participate in a debate on two key theoretical traditions influential in vocational education and training research, followed by the launch of two new books.

Each debate will start with members of the JVET board debating each of the two identified theoretical traditions, after which the debate will be open to participants. We hope, in the process, to clarify the value of each theoretical approach for research in our field.

Please join us for this stimulating event. Refreshments will be served, so RSVP for in-person attendance is essential by 8th May 2026, and RSVP for online attendance by 15th May 2026.

What: Debating theoretical traditions in VET, and book launches

When: 22nd May 2026, 10:30 am to 3 30pm

Where? Institute of Education, UCL, Bloomsbury campus, room to be confirmed

Coffee and socializing: 10:30

Programme and abstracts

Opening and welcome: 11am - JVET: Stephanie Allais, Jim Hordern and Simon McGrath & LLAKES: Prof. Andy Green, Prof. Germ Janmaat and Dr Natasha Kersh

Debate one, 11:30 am to 1 pm: The Capabilities Approach

Chaired by Simon McGrath

Leesa Wheelahan

The human development and capability approach provides a normative framework for evaluating vocational education policies and practices, and for considering alternatives. It calls attention to human flourishing rather than instrumental concerns about investment in human capital. The capabilities approach cannot be applied in the absence of theorising about social relations of power and domination, but it can provide a framework for positing alternative aims of vocational education that focus on human flourishing. In particular, the capabilities approach provides the grounds for considering whose interests are served by vocational education, the extent to which it meets students’ interests, and the resources that are needed to ensure these interests are met.

Stephanie Allais

The capabilities approach makes an important, although difficult to implement, contribution to economic debates, by drawing attention firstly to economic outcomes beyond growth, and secondly to individual differences in what is valued most. But the current widespread application of it in education research is problematic. The term ‘capabilities’ lends itself to thinking about attributes of individuals, instead of societies. In education, this is aggravated by the fact that education systems are set up to cultivate and develop attributes in individuals. Much work in this tradition then focuses on the attributes that individuals need, as opposed to how societies should change. It is frequently juxtaposed with the human capital approach, but it has more in common with it than difference: both position VET as an independent variable that will lead to hoped for changes in individuals, and these will, it is hoped, enable them to gain productive employment and earn well (HCT) or to ‘flourish’ (capabilities). The capabilities approach could lead to ever greater burdens placed on weak VET systems that already are expected to produce miracles; now, not only should they produce work-ready individuals, but also individuals who can flourish in ways of their choosing. This may, paradoxically, reinforce victim-blaming both of individuals and education institutions.

Lunch: 1 to 2pm

Debate Two, 2 pm to 3:30pm: Institutional Economy

Chaired by Moses Oketch

Markus Maurer

An institutionalist economy approach is productive for researching vocational education and training (VET) because it treats skills systems not just as education arrangements, but as embedded in labour markets, firms, states, and production regimes. Within this broad family of approaches, historical institutionalism has become particularly influential in comparative VET research, as it highlights how skills systems are shaped by historically developed institutional configurations rather than by policy design alone. Yet, historical institutionalism foregrounds not only path dependency and critical junctures, but also processes of gradual institutional change. Such a perspective can enable researchers to understand VET systems as outcomes of negotiated settlements and evolving institutional paths, and to develop more realistic reform perspectives that engage with incentives, coalitions, and institutional change rather than assuming that improved policy design alone can fix the system.

Bill Esmond

Institutional theories have attracted interest in our field because of their recognition that skill formation systems in each country possess their own rationalities and ecologies: they appear to offer possibilities to resist the convergence of VET on neoliberal lines. Yet in discarding established understandings of social structures such as class, gender and ‘race’, these mid-level theories neglect the active engagement in national skills policies of powerful social forces whose aims centre on maintaining social hierarchy and deepening accelerating inequalities. They overlook the significance of educational practices that support social justice within VET and their need to connect to broader social forces that can support the world's youth towards meaningful work and a sustainable humanity.

Book launch 3:30 onwards

David Guile presenting Beyond Skills: A Capability Conception of Vocational Education, by Leesa Wheelahan and Gavin Moodie, published by Brill/SENSE.

This book argues that a new ‘social settlement’ is needed in vocational education, one which is based on a broader understanding of occupations and preparation for work. It argues for more expansive understandings of the purposes of vocational education which includes support for human flourishing, social justice, social inclusion, and sustainability.

Emancipation and vocational education: Skills, Bildung and the subject, by Bill Esmond, Johannes Schmees, and Volker Wedekind, published by Routledge. Speaker to be confirmed.

This book challenges the economistic neoliberal rationale for vocational education, drawing critically on neglected bodies of theory, especially from Germany but also the global South, to explore the possibilities for critical thinking and emancipatory practice within vocational space.

Refreshments and informal discussion

17:00 Close

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

UCL Main Campus, Gower Street, London, United Kingdom

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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