From Lisbon to Copenhagen, London, Helsinki and Edinburgh - a study of vocational education and training (VET) policy making in four European countries (Denmark, England, Finland and Scotland)

ABSTRACT In this study I explored the complex relationships developed during vocational education and training (VET) policy making by the European Union (EU), three member states (Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom) and a region, Scotland, between 2000 and 2019. Discourse and thematic analyses of EU and national VET policy documents were used to compare the distinctive nature of VET policy making in the four countries. Illustrative thematic case studies were then compared with selected policy change theories of convergence, Europeanisation, Europeification and policy drift. Using a critical realism framework to support analyses of different layers of discourse, it was found that there was no consistent understanding of the purpose of VET between the EU and its member states, or, indeed, within the nations of the UK. The purpose of VET policy was varyingly perceived as either social, economic, educational or political between 2000 and 2019. This led me to the conceptualisation of a VET policy making gyre, developed as an alternative to the policy making cycle. The gyre was found to represent more fully the ebb and flow of aspects of policy purposes and goals over time as well as the dynamics of structure and agent relationships in policy formulation.