Access to the published version may require subscription. N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper.

No abstract

In this study we examine how the academic-vocational divide is manifested today in Finland, Iceland and Sweden in the division between vocationally (VET) and academicallyoriented programmes at the upper-secondary school level. The paper is based on a critical re-analysis of results from previous studies; in it we investigate the implications of this divide for class and gender inequalities. The theoretical lens used for the synthesis is based on Bernstein´s theory of pedagogic codes. In the re-analysis we draw on previous studies of policy, curriculum and educational praxis as well as official statistics. The main conclusions are that contemporary policy and curriculum trends in all three countries are dominated by a neo-liberal discourse stressing principles such as "market relevance" and employability. This trend strengthens the academic-vocational divide, mainly through an organisation of knowledge in VET that separates it from more general and theoretical elements. This trend also seems to affect VET students' transitions in terms of reduced access to higher education, particularly in male-dominated programmes. We also identify low expectations for VET students, manifested through choice of textbooks and tasks, organisation of teacher teams and the advice of career counsellors.

No abstract

Educational equality has been a central tenet framing educational policy in Nordic welfare states and stimulating school reforms in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the conceptualisation of equality has fluctuated, reflecting the changing economic and political climate within which policy statements have been made. In this article, we analyse policy and curriculum documents relating to upper secondary education from the 1970s to the 2010s in two Nordic countries. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s theorisation of different forms of injustice, we focus on the aims and goals that are attached to the concept of educational equality, analysing how ideas about society and educational equality have changed over these decades. Our analysis suggests that over this period there have been quite dramatic shifts in how equality is conceptualised, inter alia shifting from a focus on economic inequalities to questions of sexuality and ethnicity. Furthermore, ambitions about tackling economic inequality have largely been replaced with ambitions about promoting employability, which is particularly visible in the curriculum of vocational upper secondary education. The Finnish general upper secondary education (GUS) curriculum has gone against the tide. In the 1970s the GUS curriculum had the most conservative tone in terms of equality, whereas the current curriculum requires an agentic stance against discrimination and a critical stance towards marketisation.