ESRC SEMINAR SERIES 2014-2016Higher Vocational Education and Pedagogy

HIVE PED

Higher Vocational Education: History, Policy and Theory

Professor Gareth Parry - University of Sheffield

Centre for Leadership and Enterprise, Faculty of Education and Health

Higher vocational education: history, theory, policy

Gareth ParryUniversity of Sheffield

g.w.parry@sheffield.ac.uk

Overlapping boundaries• definitional dilemmas• spheres of policy• fields of study • clumsy (enduring) categories

Histories, long and short• advanced FE to higher VE• binary to post-binary• elite-mass trajectories• public-private configurations• sites of innovation-inclusion-intervention

Theory-policy debates1. organisational field or high-skill ecosystem?2. 50% = demand + diversion + diminution?3. integration: horizontal or vertical?4. higherness = administrative + arbitrary?

Theory-pedagogy arguments1. vocational knowledge: different in kind?2. professional formation: can it be taught?3. qualifications: hybrid in form + function?4. scholarship(s) of T + engagement + inquiry?

Short-order agendasWe will develop and promote the concept, identity and value of our higher vocational education (BIS 2011)

• conceptual• relational • empirical