This publication analyzes ways in which vocational teachers construct the content and purpose of vocational studies in comprehensive high schools. Data were gathered during a 3-year field study conducted in 5 comprehensive high schools. Findings suggest: (1) schools and teachers accommodate to an "academics first" policy, thereby compromising both academic education and work preparation; (2) an institutional dichotomy exists between college-bound and noncollege-bound students; (3) vocational offerings are valued by administrators and counselors to the extent that they appeal to academically unsuccessful students and relieve some of the burden on the school for remedial work in academic basic skills; (4) nonacademic teachers tend to preserve their jobs by accommodating those students who have the greatest difficulty in conventional academic classes, generally the limited English proficient, special education, and remedial students; (5) the five schools are a long way from proposed reform effort scenarios, which call for integration of academic and vocational education, bring to the fore fundamental questions surrounding the differentiated curriculum, and feed the debate regarding what is basic in the secondary curriculum. (LL)