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Vocational Education as Symbolic Action: Connecting Schooling With the Workplace1:

Vocational Education as Symbolic Action: Connecting Schooling With the Workplace1: Policy connecting education with the workplace is usually seen as a form of instrumental action. Vocational education, therefore, is commonly justified as either providing individuals with needed skills in order to enter the workforce or as making the United States economically competitive with other nations. The efficacy of these efforts has been called in question; but whatever success vocational education may have achieved in terms of instrumental action, its effects in terms of symbolic action also need to be considered. Symbolic action works not by achieving a defined goal but by organizing allegiances, conferring status, and ratifying certain norms. Under these circumstances, it becomes especially appropriate to ask who benefits from the policy. Vocational education, for example, can be linked to the rise of professionalism, and, therefore, it may be an emerging breed of education professionals who were the primary beneficiaries of the policy. Other significant symbolic effects include the reconciling of a traditional work ethic with a modern industrial system and even the way in which we conceive of the function of schooling itself. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Educational Research Journal SAGE

Vocational Education as Symbolic Action: Connecting Schooling With the Workplace1:

American Educational Research Journal , Volume 27 (1): 18 – Jun 23, 2016

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Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by American Educational Research Association
ISSN
0002-8312
eISSN
1935-1011
DOI
10.3102/00028312027001009
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Policy connecting education with the workplace is usually seen as a form of instrumental action. Vocational education, therefore, is commonly justified as either providing individuals with needed skills in order to enter the workforce or as making the United States economically competitive with other nations. The efficacy of these efforts has been called in question; but whatever success vocational education may have achieved in terms of instrumental action, its effects in terms of symbolic action also need to be considered. Symbolic action works not by achieving a defined goal but by organizing allegiances, conferring status, and ratifying certain norms. Under these circumstances, it becomes especially appropriate to ask who benefits from the policy. Vocational education, for example, can be linked to the rise of professionalism, and, therefore, it may be an emerging breed of education professionals who were the primary beneficiaries of the policy. Other significant symbolic effects include the reconciling of a traditional work ethic with a modern industrial system and even the way in which we conceive of the function of schooling itself.

Journal

American Educational Research JournalSAGE

Published: Jun 23, 2016

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