Internationalization of vocational and higher education systems: A comparative-institutional approach

This paper sketches a comparative-institutional approach that seeks to enhance our understanding of internationalization and the resultant national dynamics of institutional change in vocational and higher education systems. Focusing on change at the nexus of general and vocational skill formation institutions, we discuss shifts in the relationship between higher education and vocational training systems. How are such national systems responding to the exogenous pressures of international diffusion and Europe-wide Bologna and Copenhagen processes more specifically? Changes in the competition between the differentially institutionalized organizational fields of general and vocational education also imply the adjustment of individual pathways, participation rates, and life chances. Three complementary studies serve to compare and contrast the transformation of Germanys vocational and higher education systems. The comparison of Germany, Great Britain and the United States analyzes the diffusion and cross-national transfer of educational models in specific historical periods. To highlight different national responses to internationalization and Europeanization, Germany will also be compared with Switzerland and Austria as well as with France. If the first study charts primarily the origins of models to be emulated because of their global salience (cultural-cognitive dimension), then the second and third comparative studies analyze the normative and regulative dimensions, showing the consequences of institutional change processes for the on-going competition between these organizational fields. -- Dieses Papier versucht darzulegen, welche Forschungsleitfragen, theoretischen Zugänge und welches Forschungsdesign für eine Untersuchung von Internationalisierung und nationalen Veränderungsdynamiken von Berufsbildungs- und Hochschulsystemen in Ansatz zu bringen sind. Gegenstand des vergleichenden Forschungsprojekts ist die Untersuchung des institutionellen Wandels an den Schnittstellen von höherer Allgemein- und beruflicher Bildungmit der Perspektive auf Veränderungen im beruflichen Bildungssystem. Welche Veränderungen ergeben sich im Berufsbildungssystem und seinem Verhältnis zum System der höheren Allgemeinbildung durch den exogenen isomorphen Veränderungsdruck, etwa durch Bologna und Kopenhagen? Mit detaillierten Analysen der nationalen Bildungsstrukturen und -pfade werden gegenwärtige Veränderungsprozesse und -dynamiken untersucht. Von zentraler Bedeutung sind dabei Aspekte des Wettbewerbs zwischen den beiden unterschiedlich institutionalisierten und organisierten Bildungsbereichen. Ferner werden die Implikationen des festgestellten institutionellen Wandels für die Beteiligung der Individuen an höherer Allgemein- und beruflicher Bildung eruiert. Die Ländervergleiche dienen als Kontrastfolien für den Wandel des deutschen Berufsbildungssystem: Deutschland wird in den drei vergleichenden Projekten mit den USA und Großbritannien, der Schweiz und Österreich sowie Frankreich verglichen. Ziel dieser Ländervergleiche ist es, Institutionalisierungs- und Europäisierungsprozesse der kulturell-kognitiven, normativen, und regulativen Dimensionen zu analysieren und damit den Wettbewerb dieser organisatorischen Felder aufzuzeigen.

Johnson, Magdalena: Schulische Inklusion in den USA – ein Lehrbeispiel für Deutschland? Eine Analyse der Vermittlung von Ansätzen der Inklusion durch die Zusammenarbeit mit einem outside change agent. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2013. [...] [Sammelrezension]

Rezension von: 1. Magdalena Johnson: Schulische Inklusion in den USA – ein Lehrbeispiel für Deutschland? Eine Analyse der Vermittlung von Ansätzen der Inklusion durch die Zusammenarbeit mit einem outside change agent. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2013, 244 S. ISBN 978-3-7815-1892-6. 2. Andreas Köpfer: Inclusion in Canada. Analyse inclusiver Unterrichtsprozesse, Unterstützungsstrukturen und Rollen am Beispiel kanadischer Schulen in den Provinzen New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island und Québec. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2013, 290 S. ISBN 978-3-7815-1917-

Building Capacity for Comparative and International Social Sciences: Inter-organizational Collaboration and EU Research Funding & Degree Programs

In this essay, I present global mega-trends in higher education and science (expansion, competition, collaboration), discuss regional shifts in scientific publication globally since 1900 and systematic attempts to build capacity for knowledge production, especially in research universities. Pure exponential growth in the publication of research articles is matched by rising international, interorganizational, and transdisciplinary collaboration. The implications of these patterns, especially for international and comparative social sciences, are then briefly delineated on the basis of the case of EU research funding (Framework Programmes) and joint degree programs (Erasmus Mundus) that promote sustainable collaborations across borders in Europe

Competing Institutional Logics and Paradoxical Universalism: School-to-Work Transitions of Disabled Youth in Switzerland and the United States

Disablement is a complex social phenomenon in contemporary societies, reflected in disability policies oriented towards contrasting paradigms. Fraught with ambivalence, disability raises dilemmas of classification and targeted supports. Paradoxical universalism emphasizes that to achieve universality requires recognizing individual dis/abilities and particular contextual conditions and barriers that disable. Myriad aspects of educational and disability policies challenge both conceptualization and realization of universal policies, such as compulsory schooling, with widespread exclusion or segregation prevalent. Resulting tensions between providing support and ubiquitous stigmatization and separation are endemic, and particularly evident during life course transitions that imply shifting memberships in institutions and organizations. Particularly visible among disabled youth, school-to-work transitions are fundamentally challenged by contrasting policies, institutional logics, and institutionalized organizations. Analyzing institutional logics facilitates understanding of the lack of coordination that hinders successful transitions. Examining such challenges in the United States and Switzerland, we compare their labor markets and federal governance structures and contrasting education, welfare, and employment systems. Whereas lacking inter-institutional coordination negatively impacts disabled young adults in the United States, Switzerland’s robust vocational education and training system, while not a panacea, does provide more coordinated support during school-to-work transitions. These two countries provide relevant cases to examine ambivalence and contestation around the human right to inclusive education as well as the universality of the right (not) to work

Sonderschule behindert Chancengleichheit

Gleicher Zugang zu Bildung für alle: Das fordert die UN-Konvention über die Rechte behinderter Menschen, die 2009 verbindlich für Deutschland wird. Mit dem deutschen Sonderschulsystem, das fast alle Schüler mit besonderem Förderbedarf aufnimmt, ist Chancengleichheit nicht gewährleistet. 80 Prozent der Abgänger von Sonderschulen erhalten keinen qualifizierenden Abschluss. Beispiele aus dem In- und Ausland zeigen, dass inklusiver Unterricht erfolgversprechender ist

Higher Education and the Exponential Rise of Science: Competition and Collaboration

How we collaborate and compete to find solutions to the problems and challenges of our age vastly impacts our individual and group success and well-being. Interdependent, the institutions of education and science have dramatically expanded. Today, scientists in nearly all countries contribute to our shared stores of knowledge, with research universities the driving force behind unexpected pure exponential growth in scientific production. Competition—regional, national, organizational, and individual—has become more potent—with performance measures, comparative indicators, and formal evaluations continuously generated and used in decision-making. Simultaneously, collaboration across institutional, disciplinary, organizational, and cultural boundaries expands the possibilities of discovery and produces the most influential science. Competition and collaboration at the nexus of higher education and science demand enhanced attention as they shape the future of scientific innovation and production, with its understudied yet increasingly incontrovertible effects on individuals and societies

Rehabilitation International

Founded by Edgar F. Allen in 1922 in Elyria, Ohio as The International Society for Crippled Children, today Rehabilitation International (RI) is a global network promoting and implementing the rights, inclusion and rehabilitation of people with disabilities. From the beginning, the organization dedicated itself to assist disabled people, doing so by providing direct services, by disseminating information, and by influencing political decisionmaking. Uniquely, it has been a cross-disability, cross-disciplinary, and international organization from the start. Further, in its first decade as in its eighth, conceiving and publicizing bills of rights were a key feature of the organization’s mission

Thomas Koinzer: Auf der Suche nach der demokratischen Schule, Amerikafahrer, Kulturtransfer und Schulreform in der Bildungsreformära der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2011 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Thomas Koinzer: Auf der Suche nach der demokratischen Schule, Amerikafahrer, Kulturtransfer und Schulreform in der Bildungsreformära der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2011 (279 S.; ISBN 978-3-7815-1811-7; 32,00 EUR

International Year of Disabled Persons, 1981

Not only was 1981 the United Nations’ International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP), but the following period 1983-1992 was proclaimed the UN Decade of Disabled Persons, emphasizing the need for increased awareness of and commitment to address the living conditions of people with disabilities worldwide. The Year’s key goal was to affirm and implement the principle “full participation and equality” contained in the UN General Assembly’s 1975 Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons. Disabled people should participate fully in communities, self-identify their needs, and share in their societies’ socio-economic development. However, continued social and political action, advocacy, and awareness-raising is needed everywhere to more completely realize these goals

The RAE/REF have engendered evaluation selectivity and strategic behaviour, reinforced scientific norms, and further stratified UK higher education

The UK's periodic research assessment exercise has grown larger and more formalised since its first iteration in 1986. Marcelo Marques, Justin J.W. Powell, Mike Zapp and Gert Biesta have examined what effects it has had on the submitting behaviour of institutions, considering the intended and unintended consequences in the field of education research. Findings reveal growing strategic behaviour, including high selectivity of submitted staff, the reinforcement of scientific norms with respect to the format and methodological orientation of submitted research outputs, and an explicit concentration of funding