Criteria lists of academic skills are widely used to assess the work readiness of people who are looking to enter or re-enter the apprenticeship market. These instruments represent a particular hurdle in the path to vocational training for low-skilled would-be trainees. We investigate the validity of one such list used in Germany. As different…

Adolescents' occupational expectations are relevant for occupational status attainment. In strong vocational education and training (VET) systems, such as in Germany, school leavers face the challenge of forming occupational expectations that correspond to the competitive VET market. This study investigates students' target occupations in the…

In Germany, about half of the school-leavers -- irrespective of their school-leaving certificate -- start an apprenticeship instead of entering the labour market or university. Firms act as gatekeepers who influence which school-leavers start an apprenticeship. Previous studies have provided important information on the reasons firms train. By…

It is argued that developing digital abilities is key for today's knowledge society. They facilitate engaging with pervasive information communication technologies and manipulating information. Governments have invested vastly in formal education aimed at developing digital abilities. Policies and directives driving this venture need to be…

The interest in educational and professional aspirations of students transiting to post-secondary education has gained prominence in academic debates and policy agendas internationally. Political interventions for raising aspirations quite often draw on narrow instrumental and rationalistic assumptions of individual decision-making that, as we…

Pedagogic practices at workplaces are provided to support students' vocational education. To contribute to the understanding of supporting workplace learning, the focus of this literature review is to operationalise how pedagogic practices play out in practice. An overview is provided of pedagogic practices applied at workplaces to support…

Disparity in educational and career outcomes between rural, regional and remote (RRR) students and their metropolitan counterparts persists despite successive federal and state government initiatives. In this paper, we will present a study that highlights one important, yet overlooked, avenue to improve outcomes for RRR students: early-stage…

A great deal of hope is pinned on experiential learning initiatives for young people. This hope is in line with policy approaches adopted by global organisations such as UNESCO and the World Bank in which learning is characterised as the vehicle through which transformation, self-actualisation and social development can occur. In order to provide…

Drawing on a review of international literature published between 2005 and 2021, the present article discusses interventions tailored for Indigenous people in vocational education and training. A critical analysis of this literature was carried out to gain a deeper understanding of the scope of these interventions in bolstering success among…

The VET sector can be located as one that sits within the intersections of the racial and spatial in addition to the classed; the traditional focus of research concerns. There is a direct correlation between towns and cities with high levels of deprivation and the recruitment of racialised and other marginalised groups into general further…

I argue that local adult literacy programming involves consciousness and praxis that obscures and renders invisible the social relations of race and ethnicity, and a key mechanism that enacts these processes in Canada are the Essential Skills Framework. Race and ethnicity, as social relations, have both a muted and active presence in the…

Concerns about racism and race equality have been widely reported in the first decades of the 21st century, following the Black Lives Matter protests and campaigns such as 'Rhodes Must Fall'. Yet 'race' remains largely absent from policy debate and research concerning further education colleges in the four countries of the UK, particularly in…

The special issue (SI) TVET race and ethnicity in the global south and north closes with a critical review of debates that address race/ethnicity and TVET'. These debates focus on the crisis of care, decolonisation and whiteness as well as the manner in which we conceptualise TVET. The paper was developed in response to the special issue but also…

Often second generation young adults and their immigrant parents aspire high and towards general education despite a modest socioeconomic background. Little is known about the interrelation between educational aspirations and institutionally co-structured educational pathways. These interrelations are particularly important in an early tracking…

The purpose of this article was to improve the post-secondary vocational education curriculum for private security students by focusing on a particular applied skill -- detection of juvenile shoplifters. Educators are tasked with helping students to identify racist beliefs and reduce worldwide organisational racism in the retail industry.…