Purpose: The article focuses on the contribution of didactics and didactic theory as a distinct strand in research on vocational education and training (VET). Empirical research is reviewed to further explore what characterizes vocational didactics in the Swedish context of Upper Secondary VET. Approach: Semi-structured and flexible review…

The Swedish government has overall responsibility for the education system and sets the policy framework at all education levels. National goals and learning outcomes are defined centrally but with decentralised implementation. Swedish vocational education and training (VET) starts after compulsory education at age 16 and includes programmes at…

The concepts glass escalator and glass ceiling have been widely used in studies of gender and organisations. In this paper we propose a novel metaphor to describe and analyse gender segregation and discrimination, that of a "glass funnel." This concept does not relate to men and women as groups in the sense of fixed collective entities,…

Experiencing a teacher shortage, Sweden has allowed vocational teachers to gain employment without teaching qualifications. In this context, a population of non-qualified vocational teachers has emerged, a group of people rarely captured by national statistics and previous research. This study aims to shed light on the profile of non-qualified…

This report describes how entrepreneurship competence is embedded in vocational education and training (VET) in Sweden. It complements existing knowledge with examples of methods, tools and approaches that can help policy-makers, VET providers and other stakeholders build better entrepreneurial learning ecosystems. The report is based on the…

This article presents an analysis of a team-teaching approach, applied in two learning spaces: a regular mathematics classroom; and a hairdressing salon at an upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) school. A mathematics teacher and a VET teacher jointly developed, planned and carried out the teaching activities in these two…

Reconciling broad educational goals of job-readiness with specific work task-related qualifications or competences poses challenges for vocational teachers. To assist efforts to address these challenges, this article explores knowledge practices of project-based vocational instruction in Swedish upper secondary vocational education and training,…

Purpose: This article examines the prevalence of six economic terms in 17 Swedish upper-secondary school textbooks and how the language shifts between everyday and scientific language. Variations regarding content in the textbooks used in vocational programmes and preparatory programmes for higher education are also investigated. Design: Powerful…

This work discusses how the complex relationship between welfare policies of equity and market efficiencies/deficiencies of education policies is handled in local practices. It offers contributions from the five Nordic countries - Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland - and pays special attention to questions about access and diversity in…

Political reforms of the 1990s ushered in sweeping socio-economic changes in the Nordic countries, including radical changes in their vocational education and training systems. However, the reforms led to a school-based vocational education and training system with a strong orientation towards higher education in Sweden, and a hybrid system with a…

We use PIAAC data to study the relationship between parental education and educational success among adults from 23 advanced economies. We consider educational success in terms of both educational "attainment" (formal qualifications) and educational "achievement" (competencies) and in both "absolute" and…

This report provides information on the structure of mainstream European education systems, from pre-primary to tertiary level for the 2020/21 school and academic year. It includes national schematic diagrams and a guide to reading the diagrams. It also contains a map visually showing the main organisational models of primary and lower secondary…

In a context of considerable interest in apprenticeship in recent years, Cedefop and the OECD decided to explore its future from the perspective of a number of megatrends, including sociodemographic changes, the accelerated adoption of emerging technologies and new forms of work organisation. They also considered how these trends have affected,…

Concise, clear and comprehensive snapshots of vocational education and training systems in EU, Iceland and Norway: this is what the Cedefop Spotlight on VET series offers. Building on individual country Spotlights, this publication provides an overview of VET systems with their distinctive qualities, such as main accession and progression routes…

This article focuses on vocational learning in technical vocational education in upper-secondary school, with a special focus on the object of learning to weld. A concrete teaching situation where the learning object to weld is the focus of the interaction between a vocational teacher and an upper-secondary student was documented by a video camera…