"Adjunct to Manufacture and Commerce": U.S. Elementary and Secondary Vocational and Technical Education, 1917–2018

• In Event: Vocationalism in U.S. Education: An Interdisciplinary Symposium

Abstract

In objecting to prevailing opinion prior to the passage of landmark vocational education legislation, Smith-Hughes Act (1917), philosopher and education reformer John Dewey (1916) explicated a rendering of ‘vocation’ that emphasized significant individual flourishing and societal cooperation through occupation. Dewey was prescient regarding how vocational education as outlined by Smith-Hughes would work to undermine the progressive pedagogical vision he set forth, noting certain dangers should vocational education become merely ‘trade education’, with schools serving as agents of manufacturing and commercial interests. Indeed, this form of vocationalization of education is pervasive, demonstrated by career readiness and job training objectives formally established in the U.S. curriculum through the Common Core National Standards (Allen, 2016) and sustained partnerships with private sector actors. The programmatic and ideological centering of job training is the outcome of a century-long public and legislative debate that consistently reinforces the role of schools as structures for ensuring national economic competitiveness and growth while working to resolve individual economic inequality through increased equality of opportunity (Dougherty & Lombardi, 2016).

This paper excavates the vocationalism debate and legislative arc of vocational education. It asks: what is the federal government’s role in advancing vocational education and how is legislation reflective of existing political orders and priorities held by individual and institutional actors throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? In considering the ways educational priorities and purposes come to be defined and codified, I ask: how do the twin priorities of economic competitiveness and protection against perceived national security threats emerge in shifting definitions, depictions, and support of vocational education against parallel or alternative progressive education movements? Finally, how does the transition to career and technical education for 21st century skills reflect shifts in national and coalitional priorities, particularly through increased emphasis on equitable student outcomes?

I detail the initial terms and coalitional support for vocational education in the Smith-Hughes Act, investigating key political actors responsible for its construction and passage. I examine subsequent legislative moments, identifying the National Defense Education Act (1958) and Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act (1984) as moments of ‘critical juncture,’ drawing on the text of relevant legislation—both in draft and codified form—analyzing submitted bills; congressional records; US Code Revisions, and press media coverage. This paper engages methods and theories of American Political Development, including ‘political institutional orders’ described by King and Smith (2005) to identify and evaluate coalitions of political actors that “seek to secure and exercise governing power” in certain contexts, thus “defin[ing] the range of opportunities open to political actors'' (75). Using Orren and Skowronek’s (2004) framework for evaluating durable change along ‘paths’ and ‘junctures,’ I conclude that meaningful development has occurred during this period, demonstrated by a shift in: programmatic elements from agro-industrial to technological; the composition of supporting and oppositional political coalitions both regionally and partisanly; and the increasingly ‘submerged state’ resulting from neoliberal reforms (Mettler, 2011) that has allowed for an expanded presence of private actors in the provisioning and management of vocational education, precipitating implications for democratic governance.

Author

• Nora Reikosky, University of Pennsylvania