糖心破解版

Over the last two decades, there have been concerted efforts by governments and international development agencies to encourage skill development reform in the global South. These efforts have consisted of expanding global South countries’ offerings in vocational education and training, aligning vocational curricula with industry demand and improving service delivery through a variety of reforms.
 
Yet, these reforms often proceed with a weak understanding of the everyday realities of how skills are learned and acquired, and how they are deployed and valued by individuals and communities. Frequently, they ignore the social and institutional barriers that prevent people from using their skills in meaningful or remunerative ways.
 
The contributions to this edited volume seek to address this gap in knowledge, by exploring ‘the social life of skills,’ which Grace Carswell and Geert de Neve define as ‘the social processes, relationships, and ideologies that enable (or constrain) people’s access to skills, and subsequently to employment, wages, satisfaction, and dignity.’
 
Drawing on research conducted in India, Taiwan, Turkey, and Brazil, the papers shed light on (a) how social context shapes which kinds of work are socially and institutionally recognized as ‘skilled’ or ‘unskilled’; (b) the different ways skills are acquired in formal, informal, and nonformal settings; (c) how skills are imbricated in power relations and intersecting inequalities; and (d) how skills can express agency, aspirations, and identities.
 
The papers in this collection were originally published as a special issue of the journal Third World Quarterly. The edited volume also features a new Afterword by Emeritus Professor Kenneth King, a leading scholar of international vocational education.
 

(Written by Trent Brown, Associate Professor, Tokyo College / 2025)