Vocational education and Bildung: a marriage or divorce?

The notion of Bildung has been booming in several European countries for almost twenty years now, but it has attracted little attention in vocational education. One reason for this is that Bildung, the process of becoming human as a goal in itself, is understood in opposition to vocational education, which task would be to qualify students for the labour market. The goal of this article is to examine whether a marriage is possible between Bildung and vocational education. This is done by consulting and comparing the ideas of three German thinkers: Von Humboldt's classical view on Bildung in the early 19th century, Spranger's idea of Bildung through vocations in the early 20th century, and Blankertz' critical pedagogy from the 19605. The relevance of these accounts for vocational education today is evaluated by considering whether the authors enable us to think about Bildung and the preparation for a job in a more integrated way. The three accounts have their pros and cons, but Blankertz' critical approach seems most relevant. He accepts that vocational schools prepare for specific jobs, but on the condition that students learn to critically reflect on the kind of society they will be living and working in.