Vocational Education in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

This book examines the concept of the fourth industrial revolution and its potential impact on vocational education and training. Broadly located in a framework rooted in critical/radical theory, the book argues that the affordance of technologies surrounding the fourth industrial revolution are constrained by their location within a neoliberal, if not capitalist, logic. Thus, the impact of this revolution will be experienced differently across European regions as well as low and middle income economies. In order to break this impasse, this book calls for a politics based on non-reformist reforms, premised on an aspiration towards a socially just society that transcends capitalism. James Avis is Professor of Post-Compulsory Education at the University of Derby, UK, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Huddersfield, UK. His research interests include vocational education and training, the political economy of post-compulsory education, the labour process and education policy.