On The Historical Origins Of The Basic Concepts Of Vocational Education

The concept of vocational education has long been controversial in China. The100years’ history of the development of China’s vocational education is one on thedispute over naming. To explore the underlying causes of the dispute is the intialmotivation of the writing of this dissertation. In the part of introduction, the origin,significance, approaches and methods of this study have been explicated.The concept of “vocational education” contains three basic elements: vocation,technology and education, which will be called “source concepts”. This research willbe based on the belief that the real understanding of the vocational education will beimpossible without the historical, deep and systematic study of these “sourceconcepts”. The study of these “source concepts” constitues the second part (fromchapter two to chapter four). In this part, the socialcultural connotation of theseconcepts have been revealed by the trace of their historical origins followed by acomparative analysis of the differences between China and the West.The concept of vocation education in different countries or societies, or in thesame country or society at different times, has different names, such as “vocationaleducation”,“technical education”,“vocational training”, which are regarded as “coreconcepts”. In part three, the historical evolution and the resulted complex culturalphonemenon of these core concepts have been interpreted in terms of thought,organization, the relations between social stratification and classification of education,the relations between education and training and other aspects.Finally, in part four, namely the ninth chapter, conclusions have been drawnbased on the summary and induction of the whole text.1. Vocational education is closely related to the philosophical dualism.Thedifferent attitudes towards dualism resulted in the conservative and progressivethoughts of vocational education respectively. Kerschensteiner and Dewey are therepresentative personages of the two kinds of thoughts.2. Class culture, the spirit of democracy and social characteristics are the mainfactors to shape vocational education concepts of different countries or nations. InGermany, the combination of vocational view formed by Protestant Reform andnational ideology makes “vocational education” a popular term. The Britishgentleman culture and laissez-faire, make it chose the term “technical education” Theterms of “vocational education” and “technical education” have been embedded into French history due to the its national compatibility. While in the United States, thechoice of terms of vocational education takes on the feature of diversity and varietydue to its democratic, practical spirits and lack of the tradition of class culture.3. In China, the concept of vocational education has long disputed, whichoriginated from the conflicts between “ontology” and “practice theory” or culture andthe system. That is to say, the vocational education based on the value of ontology inChina is characterized by Dewey in nature, but the vocational education in accordancewith the real system is of the type of Kerschensteiner.The conflict reflects the conflictbetween Chinese traditional culture, socialist values and the changed socialstratification.4．“Vocational education” actually contains three relatively independent subconcept, namely “vocational education of the literal meaning”,“technical education”and “vocational training”. Therefore, based on the principle of purification in terms ofacademic concept, the so-called “vocational pedagogy” should have three differentpath to develop, namely，“education and vocation study”,“technical education study”and “vocational training study”.