Vocational and Professional Capability: An Epistemological and Ontological Study of Occupational Expertise

by Gerard Lum

Overview

The central claim of this fascinating monograph is that strategies for vocational and professional education adopted by the UK over the last two decades are founded upon a number of fundamental and fatal errors. The essential problem is that these strategies derive from a number of philosophical confusions about what it is to be skilled, competent or capable. The aim of the book is to unravel the philosophical assumptions at the heart of current strategies, examine their shortcomings and propose a more coherent account of vocational and professional capability. It will be argued that not only does this have serious practical implications for the vocational curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment, but that it indicates the need for an urgent and radical reassessment of the relationship between vocational, general and academic education.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847061188
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/22/2009
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Gerard Lum is Lecturer in Philosophy and Education Management at King's College, London, UK. He is a longstanding member of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. The Orthodox Conception of the Vocational 2. Philosophical foundations of the orthodoxy 3. Knowing how and Knowing that 4. The Competence Problem 5. Towards an ontology of occupational capability 6. An alternative conception of vocational and professional capability 7. Working to Rules 8. Constitutive Rules and the Problem of Structure 9. The Trouble with Competence-based Education and Training 10. Rethinking Vocational and Professional Education References