Emancipation and Vocational Education: Skills, Bildung and the Subject
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
Product details
- ISBN 9781041000945
- Weight: 410g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 02 Apr 2026
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
This book challenges the economistic neoliberal rationale for vocational education by drawing critically on emancipatory theoretical approaches, especially a body of German theory neglected almost entirely by contemporary accounts.
Capitalising on the current under-theorisation of vocational education, this book revisits established perceptions of the role of vocational education under contemporary social, economic and political conditions. The book centres on pre-war and post-1960s emancipatory approaches to vocational education and training (VET), examining the context of their emergence and their application to present-day contexts. Chapters discuss the role of neoliberalism in undermining the educational integrity of VET and other educational spaces, and examine the complex relations between education and skill formation in different societies. Applying its learning to contemporary VET in both the global North and South, this book ultimately provides foundations for critical thinking in vocational spaces.
This book will be of interest to scholars, postgraduate students and researchers involved in vocational, technical, professional and adult education, the theory of education, and more broadly the economisation of education under neoliberalism. With potential to reframe debates concerning specific approaches to VET that can be applied in the global South, this book has undoubted international appeal.
Bill Esmond is Professor of Professional Education and Training at the University of Derby, UK.
Johannes K. Schmees is Associate Professor at the University of Derby, UK, and Visiting Professor at Berlin University of Technology, Germany.
Volker Wedekind is Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK, and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Researching Education and Labour, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
