Democratising the curriculum or training the children of the poor: school-based vocational training in Australia

Abstract

Historically grounded in a tradition of meeting local skills needs and training the children of the poor, vocational education and training (VET) in schools continues to struggle in terms of esteem and parity of status. Associated in the literature with the training of a reliable and compliant class of workers, it has also been tainted by its links to the processes of social selection and its lowly status in the hierarchy of school subjects. However, VET has also been proposed as a means of democratising the school curriculum and improving accessibility for marginalised populations. The evidence presented in this article suggests that VET provision in Australian schools is of relatively poor..