![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital development resulting in the persuasive political argument that schools should be more closely aligned to the needs of the economy to better prepare ‘job ready’ workers. These common sense views resonate strongly in school communities where the problem of youth unemployment is most acute and students are deemed to be ‘at risk’, ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘disengaged’. This article starts from a different place by rejecting the fatalism and determinism of neoliberal ideology based on the assumption that students must simply ‘adapt’ to a precarious labour market. Whilst schools have a responsibility to prepare students for the world of work there is also a moral and political obligation to educate them extraordinarily well as democratic citizens. In conclusion, we draw on the experiences of young people themselves to identify a range of pedagogical conditions that need to be created and more widely sustained to support their career aspirations and life chances.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant entitled Getting a Job: Vocationalism, Identity Formation and Schooling in Communities at Disadvantage (ARC Linkage LP110100031) (2010–2014). We acknowledge the contribution of Industry Partners and the Western Australian Department of Education. The facts and views expressed in this paper are, however, those of the authors. We also wish to acknowledge the contribution of the reviewers and editor to the final article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Barry Down
Barry Down is professor of Education at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. His research interests focus on critical pedagogy, social justice, student engagement, vocationalisation and teachers’ work. He has co-authored numerous books with long time collaborators John Smyth, Peter McInerney and Robert Hattam.
He is currently working on a new book Rethinking school to work transitions: Young people have something to say (with Smyth and Robinson) (Springer) and editing The Sage International handbook of critical pedagogies (with Steinberg, Grande and Nix-stevenson) (Sage).
John Smyth
John Smyth was appointed visiting professor of Education and Social Justice at the University of Huddersfield in 2015. He has previously held professorships and visiting professorships in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and is a former a Senior Fulbright Scholar. John is the author or co-author of 30 academic books, and over 130 papers in peer-reviewed academic journals, and 80 book chapters. He is currently Series Editor Palgrave MacMillan Critical University Studies.
Janean Robinson
Janean Robinson graduated as a secondary school teacher in the 1970s and taught at many public secondary schools throughout Western Australia. She completed her PhD thesis; ‘Troubling’ Behaviour Management: Listening to student voice (2011) and was appointed research associate to the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant informing this article. Janean’s research interests include critical ethnography, educational policy, teachers’ work and student voice. She continues to publish work in journals such as Ethnography and Education.