Education, skill formation, and training continue to
be important areas of consideration for both public policy and research. This book
examines the particular types of vocational training known as collective skill formation
systems, whereby the training (often firm-based apprenticeships) is collectively organized
by businesses and unions with state support and cooperation in execution, finance, and
monitoring.
With contributions from leading academics,
this book is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of the varying historical
origins of, and recent developments in, vocational training systems, offering in-depth
studies on coordinated market economies, namely Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the
Netherlands, and Denmark. It also contains comparative chapters that analyse how these
countries react to common challenges such as deindustrialization, labour market
stratification, academic drift, gender inequalities, and Europeanization.
Whereas previous research has focused on the
differences between various kinds of skill regimes, this book focuses on explaining
institutional variety within the group of collective skill formation systems. The
development of skill formation systems is regarded as a dynamic political process,
dependent on the outcome of various political struggles regarding such matters as
institutional design and transformations during critical junctures in historical
development.
Marius R. Busemeyer is a Professor
of Political Science and head of an Emmy Noether research group at the University of
Konstanz. Prior to this, he was a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the
Study of Societies in Cologne. His research focuses on the comparative political economy
of education regimes and welfare states, public spending, individual social policy
preferences, and theories of institutional change.
Christine Trampusch is currently
Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Berne. Starting in July
2011, she will be Professor of Comparative Political Economy and Economic Sociology at the
University of Cologne. Her research centers on the study of the origins and changes of
welfare states, industrial relations, and skill formation systems, in a historical and
comparative perspective.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Foreword, Kathleen Thelen
Introduction
1. Introduction: The Comparative Political Economy of Collective Skill
Formation, Marius R. Busemeyer, Christine Trampusch
Section I: Country Studies
2. Vocational Training and the Origins of Coordination: Specific Skills and the
Politics of Collective Action, Cathie Jo Martin
3. Institutional Change in German Vocational Training: From Collectivism towards
Segmentalism, Kathleen Thelen, Marius R. Busemeyer
4. The Development of the Vocational Training System in the Netherlands,
Karen Anderson, Dennie Oude Nijhuis
5. Educational Policy Actors as Stakeholders in the Development of the Collective
Skills System: The Case of Switzerland, Philipp Gonon, Markus Maurer
6. Austrian Corporatism and Institutional Change in the Relationship between
Apprenticeship Training and School-Based VET, Justin Powell, Lukas Graf, Lorenz
Lassnigg
7. The Social Partners and the Social Democratic Party in the Continuation of a
Collective Skill System in Denmark, Moira Nelson
Section II: Crosscutting Topics and Contemporary Challenges
8. Collective Skill Systems, Wage Bargaining, and Labor Market Stratification,
Marius R. Busemeyer, Torben Iversen
9. The Links between Vocational Training and Higher Education in Switzerland,
Austria, and Germany, Rita Nikolai, Christian Ebner
10. Gendered Consequences of Vocational Training, Margarita Estevez-Abe
11. Europeanization and the Varying Responses in Collective Skill Systems,
Justin Powell, Christine Trampusch
Conclusion
12. Skills and Politics: General and Specific, Wolfgang Streeck
380 pages, Hardcover