‘Silent Frontier’: New Study Examines Why TVET Remains Overlooked in Sociology of Education
Vera Maltseva and Ekaterina Pavlenko authored the study for a special issue of the Education + Training journal, Research in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Post-Compulsory Education: Challenging the Narrative of Under-Representation. This issue examines the role of research in further education, skills, and TVET systems, as well as its contribution to pedagogical development, professional practice, and system-level improvement.
Vocational education serves as an important pathway for large groups of learners across countries and educational systems. However, sociological research has traditionally focused on schools and universities, with TVET often remaining analytically peripheral. According to the authors, marginalization within the SoE is not simply a matter of missing empirical topics but reflects deeper epistemological hierarchies and disciplinary boundaries that shape the field itself.
The study identifies three interconnected mechanisms contributing to the marginalization of TVET:
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A historical emphasis on academic schooling and higher education.
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The dominance of inequality research that frequently treats vocational pathways as residual tracks.
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And broader hierarchies of knowledge that privilege academic forms of learning over vocational and practice-based knowledge.
Adopting a cultural-organisational approach developed by Amy Binder and colleagues, the authors suggest viewing TVET institutions as social environments in which identities, aspirations and notions of 'successful' educational and professional trajectories are actively formed. From this perspective, everyday institutional practices, including admissions, assessment, guidance and extracurricular activities, become central to understanding how vocational education reproduces or challenges social inequalities.
By incorporating TVET more directly into mainstream sociological debates on inequality, culture and institutions, the article provides a framework for the more comprehensive integration of vocational education into the sociology of education. The authors also outline future research areas, including the study of inequalities within vocational systems, institutional cultures, and cross-national differences in educational trajectories.
The marginalisation of TVET in the SoE reflects more than an empirical gap; it expresses deep-seated epistemological hierarchies and institutional priorities that privilege academic pathways and abstract knowledge. Treating vocational education as merely technical or residual obscures its role in structuring life chances, shaping identities and organising moral economies of work and worth.