Demands-based and employer-driven curricula: defining knowledge in higher vocational education and training

Abstract

ABSTRACT Access to, and participation in, higher education is expanding. Commonalities in the organisation of this expansion are distinctive vocational pathways, liberal marketisation and significant employer influence. However, whether this expanded access to higher education in vocational pathways is contributing to opportunities of social mobility for the students accessing higher education in this way is questioned. This article explores one way to investigate this by focusing on knowledge in VET curricula – specifically knowledge which students in higher VET get access to. Knowledge in VET curricula can both reproduce existing social divisions and inequalities or support social mobility, as knowledge may both include and exclude from social power. Thus, possible reproduction of stratification may be tracked in formation of curricula. In this article, the Swedish system of higher VET established in 2009 serves as the case for a policy analysis examining what knowledge policy defines for higher VET curricula. The analysis shows a dominant definition of legitimate knowledge as that generated in the production of goods and services and selected by locally involved employers. This is a definition of knowledge for higher VET in line with a global focus on differentiation in higher education rather than on equality of outcomes.