Dissertation Project: A Contested Future

Vocational education and training (VET) is at the centre of attention when social and political imaginaries of the future are negotiated. This is not only because VET is perceived as a public good. VET is also seen as a 'critical success factor' for the nation state, as it forms the political interface for maintaining economic competitiveness, social inclusion and individual development. Since the vast majority of young people in Switzerland enter VET after lower secondary education, VET is all the more important when it comes to the future of society, i.e. VET is at the centre of social and political visions of the future. The dissertation project takes up this concept of "imaginaries of the future" as a category of historical analysis. Although futures are by definition imagined and thus fictitious expectations, they are understood in their representation as a means of world-making and in their character - intended or not - as performative. The project focuses on ideas of the future expressed in the context of VET in education policy or the apprentice unions that emerged from the 1968 protest phenomenon. The aim is to answer the question of how the future of and through VET was imagined, communicated and negotiated. Ideas about the future will be critically analyzed, contextually reconstructed and placed in an international context. Specifically, the project builds on current work at the interface between historical futurology and historical education research, with the former strand being integrated into the latter. The cultural-historical project is also of interest from the point of view of the history of mentalities, as it seeks to identify past structures of consciousness that have an impact on education and society, and to enable an understanding of collective integration processes. This seems particularly worthwhile as ideas about the future can differ significantly from the actual course of history.