Competence and Citizenship: Towards a Complementary Model for Times of Critical Social Change

Citizenship and competence are both contested concepts, and both have maximal and minimal versions which may be contradictory or complementary. Beth concepts have assumed a prominent place in discourses on the post‐compulsory curriculm and the development of life and work trajectories in early adulthood. Maximal concepts of citizenship allow consideration of the processes by which young adults make their transitions to full participation in society, with reference to the life course and the social structures of inequality. Tensions are created between individual potential and capacities and the institutional, social and labour market structures within which young adults are active. In England, Vocational Education and Training (VET) is now dominated by competence‐based approaches which seek to regulate behaviour through outcomes. In Germany, VET serves the broader purpose of preparing young people for citizenship. Some cultural assumptions behind these differences are revealed in ongoing comparative studies, whose findings are discussed with reference to complementary and contradictory trends in Competence and Citizenship, and the need for future models which bring together maximal versions of both.