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Lukas Graf
Former Member
Title
Dr.
Last Name
Graf
First name
Lukas
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1 - 10 of 18
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PublicationTorn between economic efficiency and social equality? Short-track apprenticeships in Denmark, Germany and SwitzerlandEducational institutions, especially those facilitating vocational education and training (VET), face the challenge of combining social goals, such as the provision of quality education for a large section of the population, with rising economic utility demands. However, we know little about how VET systems institutionalize these different demands and, further, how social and economic goals are actually institutionalized in VET. Our article aims to unpack this puzzle by analysing shorttrack dual vocational training programmes (short-tracks) in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. These short-tracks combine on-the-job and school-based training, targeting candidates who face difficulties entering full-length dual programmes. Thus, short-tracks are prime examples of training programmes located at the nexus of economic and social demands. In our comparative institutional analysis, we bridge the political economy of collective skill formation and sociological institutionalism literatures. We find that the institutionalization of goals in VET not only differs between countries but that there is also considerable variation within national VET systems. Our analysis reveals that VET regulations, regional and sectoral standards, and the legitimization of key actors can differ greatly in their institutionalization of social and economic goals.Type: journal articleJournal: European Educational Research JournalVolume: 18Issue: 6
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PublicationThe rise of work-based academic education in Austria, Germany and SwitzerlandAustria, Germany and Switzerland are renowned for their extensive systems of collective vocational skill formation, which, however, have developed largely in separation from higher education. This divide has become increasingly contested as a result of a variety of socioeconomic factors that have led to an increasing demand for higher level skills. Do the three countries deal with these challenges in similar ways? The comparative analysis is based on process tracing from the 1960s to 2013 and builds on historical institutionalism as well as several dozen expert interviews with key stakeholders. A key finding is that all three countries have developed hybrid forms of work-based academic education that combine elements of vocational training and higher education. However, in Austria and Switzerland, these hybrids have been integrated into the traditional model of collective governance, whereas the German case signifies a departure from this model.Type: journal articleJournal: Journal of Vocational Education and TrainingVolume: 68Issue: 1
Scopus© Citations 33 -
PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Sociology of EducationVolume: 85Issue: 3
Scopus© Citations 83 -
PublicationThe Shifting Relationship between Vocational and Higher Education in France and Germany: Towards Convergence?(Blackwell Publishing, 2012)
Scopus© Citations 35 -
PublicationApplying the Varieties of Capitalism Approach to Higher Education. Comparing the Internationalization of German and British UniversitiesIn recent years, the global market for higher education has expanded rapidly, while internationalisation strategies have been developed at university, national and European levels to increase the competitiveness of higher education institutions. This article asks how institutional settings prevailing in national models of capitalism motivate distinct national approaches with regard to the internationalisation, globalisation, and Europeanisation of higher education systems. While the university is defined as an organisational actor embedded in the higher education system, the higher education system itself represents an institutional subsystem within the national model of capitalism. An analytical framework is then developed on the basis of the Varieties of Capitalism approach to compare the internationalisation of German and British universities. Findings indicate that the relations between the various actors involved in the internationalisation of universities are based largely on market coordination in the British case. In contrast, this process in Germany relies more on strategic interactions between the various organisational actors in higher education. The development paths in the internationalisation of universities are found to be influenced by and reflect the specific mode of coordination in the respective higher education system and the national model of capitalism more generally. This comparative case study shows that recent conceptions of path dependence as well as conceptual tools developed in the Varieties of Capitalism literature, such as institutional complementarity and comparative institutional advantage, may be fruitfully applied to research on institutional change in higher education systems.Type: journal articleJournal: European Journal of EducationVolume: 44Issue: 4
Scopus© Citations 49 -
PublicationThe Hybridization of Vocational Training and Higher Education in Austria, Germany, and SwitzerlandAustria, Germany, and Switzerland are increasingly relying on hybridization at the nexus of vocational training and higher education to increase permeability and reform their highly praised systems of collective skill formation. This historical and organizational institutionalist study compares these countries to trace the evolution of their skill regimes from the 1960s to today's era of Europeanization, focusing especially on the impact of the Bologna and Copenhagen processes.
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PublicationStratifizierung von Berufs- und Hochschulbildung in Europa: Deutschland und Frankreich im Spiegel klassischer Vergleichsstudien(Beltz Juventa, 2015)
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PublicationGermany: Stability and ChangeBook presentation: "Exploring the development of educational provision and contemporary issues, this book covers the countries that made up the European Union from its foundation to the signing of the Treaty of Nice: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands. The chapters, written by regional experts, offer a review of contemporary national and regional educational structures and policies, research innovation and trends, as well as covering selected issues and problems including the effects of educational reform and systemic changes within the school and university systems, minority languages, and intercultural changes for indigenous and new immigrant populations." [http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/education-in-the-european-union-pre-2003-member-states-9781472528155/ Click here for more information]Type: book section
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PublicationThe European Educational Model and its Paradoxical Impact at the National LevelThe Bologna and Copenhagen processes promote standards for the categorization of educational programs and qualifications throughout Europe - with the goal to create greater transparency and permeability in European skill formation. However, key tools of Europeanization, like the Bachelor and Master degree cycles and the European Qualification Framework, fail to acknowledge important cultural, normative, and regulative idiosyncrasies of the educational systems in Austria and Germany. In both countries the sectors of vocational training and academic education represent distinct organizational fields divided by an "educational schism". The tensions and contradictions that accompany this traditional institutional divide have in many cases been masked by patterns of loose coupling. However, the current Europeanization processes tend to unsettle these patterns, which unleashes conflicts between the actors of the respective organizational fields, for example, with regard to the placement of the different certificates in the common qualification framework. The outcome of these struggles often is that the institutional divide between vocational training and academic education is widening rather than narrowing. The chapter shows how the Austrian and German institutional heritage has diverted the European educational model's initial goal to foster permeability and, with that, illustrates this model's paradoxical impact at the national level. [http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138903487/ Click here for more information]Type: book section
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PublicationGrowing in a Niche : Dual Study Programs Contribute to Change in Germany's Higher EducationThe German educational model is characterized by a historically evolved strong institutional divide between the vocational education and training system and the higher education system. Yet, the contemporary development of dual study programs implies the systematic combination of institutional elements from both subsystems. The rapid expansion of these programs is based on the hybridization of organizational structures - outside of traditional structures - at the nexus of traditional organizational fields of vocational training and higher education.Type: book sectionJournal: WBZ ReportIssue: 2014