Editorial: special issue TVET race and ethnicity in the global south and north

Abstract

The papers in this special issue (SI) comprise a range of scholarship, illustrating divergent approaches to examining technical and voactional education and training (TVET), race and ethnicity in the global south and north. In a number of respects, this SI follows on from an earlier issue, ‘VET, Race and Ethnicity’ 69(3) published in 2017. While much has changed since 2017, many of the themes and concerns expressed remain current. These have been brought into starker relief by the Black Lives Matter and Rhodes must fall protests, by campaigns to decolonise the curriculum and challenges to white supremacy as well as the crisis of care engendered by Covid-19 (Avis et al. 2021; Bathmaker and Pennacchia 2022 SI; Elias 2021 SI; Joncas et al. 2022 SI). In short, our concern was – and remains – racialisation rather than ethnicity. By this, we have in mind the process whereby black and minority ethnic groups become racialised and othered, which in turn is reflected in institutional racism and structural relations. The salience of race and ethnicity is apparent in ongoing research taking place in secondary schooling and in particular in analyses of higher education. In the latter, questions of white supremacy, de-colonisation, neo-colonialism, as well as indigenous knowledge and the lived experience of race and racialisation, are pivotal. However, as far as TVET is concerned, there is a limited and uneven discussion taking place in both the global north and south that focuses on race and ethnicity. Frequently, race and ethnicity are treated as subordinate or secondary within the political economy of TVET. Narrow definitions can tie TVET to an instrumentalism that places employers’ interests centre stage, limiting engagement with questions of social justice, at best, to social democratic sensibilities or, at worst, dominant neo-liberal discourses. This is not, however, to gainsay TVET as a site of struggle in which participants seek to move beyond social democratic tropes. While this SI foregrounds race and ethnicity, it seeks to go beyond the rhetorical call for an acknowledgement of the interrelationship of race, ethnicity, class and gender, seeking to foreground critical race approaches to studying race and education. In short, the papers in this SI, while theoretically diverse, avoid equating issues of race and education with superficial notions of diversity and inclusion that are liable to be co-opted by neo-liberal interests. Can TVET address a social justice agenda while attending to technical and vocational education and remain TVET? Or do we need to re-imagine TVET so that it can seriously address questions of well-being, social and reparative JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION & TRAINING 2023, VOL. 75, NO. 1, 1–5 https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2023.2156660