From Embedding,Dis-embedding to Re-embedding:The Institutional Roots of the Decline in Vocational Education Appeal and Pathways to Its Reshaping
Enhancing the appeal of vocational education is an inevitable requirement for the high-quality development of vocational education in the new era.The decline in the appeal of vocational education is not an old issue but a new one.Drawing on the perspective of individualization theory,and through text analysis of memoirs written by former secondary vocational school students(old cohort)and in-depth interviews with current students(new cohort),this study reveals that the social image of voca-tional students has shifted in parallel with their process of individualization,characterized by a transi-tion from"embeddedness"to"dis-embeddedness".Specifically,vocational students have shifted from being"academic achievers under an elite educational system"to"academic failures in the collapse of the elite education system",from"rural youths eager to'escape the farming life'under the urban-rural dual management system"to"new urban citizens striving for inclusion in the city as the dual system dissolves",and from"holders of secure,state-assigned jobs under the employment allocation system"to"members of the working class in the wake of the system's collapse".Under the transition from a socialist planned economy to a socialist market economy,the individualization of vocational education students,as represented by secondary vocational school students,has not been effectively institutionally"re-embedded".This is the fundamental cause of the decline in vocational education's appeal.To enhance the appeal of vocational education,institutional reforms aligned with the individu-alization of vocational students must be strengthened.First,the single score-oriented general-vocational education tracking system must be reformed to guide students towards choosing educational pathways suited to their personal development.Second,the quality assurance system of vocational education needs to be solidified to highlight the competitive skills of vocational graduates in the labor market.Third,the vocational education enrollment system should be improved,and the evaluation system for skilled professionals needs to be improved.
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