Institutional theory and vocational education: a discussion

Institutional theories have come to dominate comparisons of vocational education systems. Their emphasis on the agency of social actors outside the educational sphere has proved attractive to researchers seeking to understand the complex social relations in which vocational education is embedded. These questions are discussed here with special regard to historical institutionalism, by two authors with diverging views of the significance and value of these theoretical approaches. For Maurer, institutional theory, and especially historical institutionalism, offers a valuable opportunity to theorise VET research. For Esmond, its emphasis on shared interests and perpetuation of path-dependent models understate how VET has been contested among irreconcilable actors in the past and the possibility of changes that advance social justice in the future. The authors agree that the descriptive nature of these theories, which lack a normative educational dimension or critical perspective, enables important comparisons but necessarily limits their capacity to guide future change.