Children of immigrants from non-EU countries face particular problems to access apprenticeship training in German-speaking countries. In this context this article asks how recruiters in small and medium sized companies (SME) make sense of national and ethnic origin when hiring new apprentices. The author proposes Boltanski and Thévenot's theory of…

This study investigated how firms in Germany and Australia compare when dealing with the institutional arrangements for apprenticeship training in their countries, with particular attention given to factors which may impact on their training motivation. Apprenticeships are a well-established pathway to employment across many countries, with a…

The internationalization of higher education globally continues to grow more and more towards commercialization and neoliberalism paths, despite growing concerns about the underlying consequences. Building further on our work and using Saudi Arabia as a national case, this article critically investigates how and in what ways the Saudi government's…

The United Nations (UN) proclaimed the years 2005 to 2014 the World Decade on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). As a follow up on the World Decade, the UN launched a Global Action Programme (GAP) that is designed to set the framework for international activities on ESD. The GAP focuses on five priority areas that are of high relevance…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to re-examine the unique political economy of Germany's dual apprenticeship training model and its underlying philosophy of corporatist governance. It responds to recent arguments suggesting that Germany's collectivist skill regime is under threat, increasingly giving way to the introduction of…

Despite the heavy investments in the economic development of East German industry, the region still faces immanent structural challenges that affect the provision of vocational education and training (VET), in particular apprenticeships, and the availability of a well skilled workforce. In this article the situation of the economy as well as new…