Context: This chapter traces social change in vocational education and training by showing how vocational education and training, in particular vocational education and training (VET) and adult education, is part of this change. It examines how the rise of concepts such as flexibility and work-life balance in countries undergoing transition to a post-industrial society reflects and contributes to this change. Approach: The chapter takes a discourse analysis approach and combines two case studies. One looks at changes in the legal foundations of the Swiss VET system, and the other at the emergence of work-life balance as a topic in adult education programs in various European countries. Findings: The study shows that the examined developments in vocational education reflect a transformation from standardized, institutionalized time norms to individualized time management expectations as one aspect of the transformation to the post-industrial society. Flexibility has become a pedagogical goal in VET reforms, while work-life balance has emerged as a topical issue in adult education. Conclusions: Socio-economic changes also bring about changes in vocational education, which is geared towards socially standardized requirements of the working world and also perpetuates these through its structures. It is often overlooked that such orientations towards normalized ideas of life and work are also a dimension of work-related education. With our analysis, we make this visible in the context of a change in time regimes that is part of the transformation of industrial society.
Kraus et al. (Thu,) studied this question.