Vocationalism and Structural Change: a Social Justice Analysis of the Growing Connection Between Schools and the Economy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 67
  In Roundtable Session: Education Policy in Theory and Practice: Consequences for Equitable Schooling

Abstract

Increasingly, policy discourse concerned with economic outcomes exerts significant influence on schools (Molnar, 2005). Part one of this paper provides an historical and conceptual overview of this phenomenon: the rise in economic purposes of schooling, or "vocationalism" (Grubb & Lazerman, 2004), and the dominance of human capital theory, and ideology based upon it. In part two, I synthesize sociological, philosophical, and economic evidence and theories that demonstrate the limits of vocationalism. Thirdly, this conceptual synthesis is used to develop a continuum that situates different ideologies by the degree to which they advocate for structural-economic change. Finally, through an analysis of this continuum based in critical theory, I argue that education for structural-economic change is a superior alternative to vocationalism.

Author

• Ryan H. Pfleger, University of Colorado - Boulder