The role of vocational education and training in enhancing social inclusion and cohesion

1. The role of vocational education and training in enhancing social inclusion and cohesion Professor John Preston Cass school of Education and Communities, University of East London Keynote to European Training Foundation (ETF), Torino, Italy, 12th December 2011 j.j.preston@uel.ac.uk

2. CEDEFOP • Cedefop' is the French acronym of the organisation's official title, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Centre Européen pour le Développement de la Formation Professionnelle) • It is a European agency that helps promote and develop vocational education and training in the European Union (EU). It is the EU's reference centre for vocational education and training.

3. Reports for CEDEFOP • 2004: Non-material Benefits of Education • 2008: The role of vocational education and training in enhancing social inclusion and cohesion • 2009 / 2010: The macro-social benefits of VET • 2010 / 2011The benefits of VET for communities and social groups

4. Green, Preston, Janmaat (2006)

5. The ‘integrative’ role of VET ‘…we need to explore the extent to which VET contributes to the integration of groups that otherwise would be marginalized, and to the formation of vocational identities’ (Leney et al, 2004, p.108). Historically this has been a key part of VET…

6. Kerschensteiner and Dewey Kerchensteiner’s ‘system of education was to educate its members to form a community of thinking, selfless, efficient people all working willingly and joyfully together for the betterment and progress of the state’ (Simons, 1966: 29) Dewey wrote in The School and Society:- ‘No training of the sense organs in school introduced for the sake of learning…can begin to compete with the alertness and fullness of sense that comes through daily intimacy and interest in familiar occupations’

7. Return to integrative function of VET? Europe ‘should play a role through education and training: to affirm and transmit the common values on which civilisation is founded; in devising and disseminating ways of enabling the young people of Europe to play a fuller part as European Citizens; to identify and disseminate best practise in education and training for citizenship, in order to filter out the best means of learning contemporary elements of European citizenship.’ (European Commission Study Group on Education and Training, 1997, p. 57)

8. Social Exclusion Broader than ‘Anglo-Saxon’ emphasis on employability Multi-faceted and subjective / objective dimensions Polysemic variable – different meanings across different political cultures Differs from social cohesion in terms of ‘scale’ (micro vs. macro) and antecedents

9. Methodological issues in examining social exclusion Social exclusion is multi-faceted – requires an approach which does not measure a single outcome Social exclusion is polysemic, so absolute scale of exclusion may be questioned Social exclusion is outcome rather than characteristic based (e.g. not all immigrants are socially excluded, not all working households are socially included!)

10. 1. Targeting VET by background characteristics may miss some of the socially excluded

11. Households earning less than 20% of mean household income (Source: WVS / EVS, 2004)

12. Social exclusion in the UK : cluster analysis (source: WVS / EVS 2004)

13. 2. Don’t assume that exclusion (or inclusion) is absolute

14. VET and the socially excluded – some examples where ‘targeting’ by characteristic (rather than outcome) has had perverse effects In UK, immigrants often have higher levels of skill to local population but training focuses on soft skills (Kempton, 2002) In the US, local, targeted provision for disabled people has led to low quality and mixed provision of VET (Fairwether and Shaver, 1991) In Poland vocational provision for disabled people is tracked to strongly focus on rehabilitation with the continuation of ‘sheltered workplaces’ (Ostrowska, 1994) In Norway, there is little incentive for local municipalities to fund training for immigrants (Schone, 1996) and training often consists of language / cultural skills.

15. Social Cohesion A contested concept, historically specific Macro-social but with multi-level elements Involves elements of both system and social integration Importance of equalities Different political forms of cohesion Not necessarily associated with lifelong learning or strong social capital

17. Social capital – a coherent syndrome? (Adapted from Norris, 2000)

18. Memberships and Trust (1996)

19. 3. Equality is important for social cohesion

20. Income and skill inequality (1996) +0.65

21. Skill inequality and trust (1996) -0.6

22. Education and Social Cohesion over time Time series data on education inequality, income inequality and social cohesion measures over time (1960-1990) for industrialised countries Complied into single dataset Measure of unrest comprising riots, strikes and demonstrations. Measure of civil and political liberties

23. Data Sources ‘Freedom in the World’ survey Educational attainment dataset for 21 OECD countries, from de la Fuente and Domenech (2001) Data on vocational training at secondary level derived from UNESCO data Thomas/Wang/Fan (2003) World Bank dataset on educational inequalities ‘Democracy and Development – Political Institutions and Material Well-being, 1950-1990’, (Przeworski et al, 2000; ACLP dataset). 23

27. Education inequality and social cohesion (Country statistics, World Bank: 1990) Netherlands (0.25) Finland (0.27) France (0.35) Spain (0.36) Portugal (0.43) Switzerland Denmark (0.26) Decline in civil / political liberties Increase in political unrest (riots / demonstrations) 0.35 0.4 Increasing education inequality

28. Welfare regimes and education inequality

29. The level of VET is not associated with macro-social benefits

30. Macro-causal modelling for direct VET impact

31. Outcome measures Political rights and civil liberties Measures of inequality Social unrest / social cohesion Health variables (e.g. infant mortality rates) 31

32. Main results: quantitative analyses Political/Civil: No evidence of links between VET and civil liberties; VET at secondary level may be associated with somewhat worse political rights outcomes Social Unrest: No relationship between VET and either strikes or riots; Some evidence that demonstrations more prevalent in societies with more higher level VET Health: Higher level VET was associated with higher infant mortality; No evidence of relationships between secondary VET and health outcomes Inequality: VET does not appear to be related to measures of inequality In general: Little Quantitative Evidence of Social Benefits of VET at the MACRO level 32

33. Institutional factors Mitigating against social unrest Combating extremism Providing security Formation of national citizenships (and vocational cultures) Encouraging professional and trade union participation Development of industrial democracy

34. Conclusions • Social inclusion is multifaceted and hard to target. • VET initiatives around social inclusion are sometimes designed to exclude to achieve a narrow form of (employment) inclusion. • In terms of social cohesion equality in education is important and equity of access alone will not suffice. • The level of VET has little direct influence on macro-social benefits. • Equality of education is not related to the level of VET and so increasing levels of VET will not provide more equality. • VET can not be disaggregated from institutional frameworks. In policy terms, this means that IVET / CVET policies need to account for the existing welfare regime. • Conceptually, the macro-social sides of VET lie outside of the policy imagination of most models of VET. There needs to be a reimagining of VET at this level in scenario building.