Post-Fordist restructuring and vocational training in sport in the UK

Abstract

This paper reviews current vocational education and training policy within the sport and recreation sector of the UK economy. In particular, it examines the inroads New Labour's Skills Agenda has had in the sector, and how far this can be characterized as a paradigm shift from Fordist/Keynesian accumulation toward new forms of post-Fordist/post-Keynesian regulation. Informed by Jessop's Regulation Theory, it questions the extent to which the construct of employment sectors remains valid as a means of identifying and organizing social and economic development. In so doing it reports the findings of group interviews with managers and employers in the sport and recreation sector, which conclude that there have been profound structural changes in employment patterns over two decades, which have culminated in the decline of sport and recreation as a vocation. Rather, sport and recreation is now characterized as a predominantly short term and transitory element of a broader service employment sector. This finding indicates that the sector has assumed many of the characteristics of post-Fordist regulation.