"Old" and "New" Professionals in Austrian Vocational Education

Abstract: The present study was carried out in the framework of a European project of the Leonardo da Vinci programme on the development of a European profile of skilled workers in the field of vocational training. It investigates the form in which the professionalization of skilled workers in the field of vocational training is structured, the changes in the division of labor which can be observed among the different categories of skilled workers and the role of these changes play for specificaspects of the development of the system of vocational training. A closer analysis is made of the integration and the role of research within the processes of change as well as of the importance of innovation in the interlinking of structures of labor division among skilled workers in the field of vocational training. The apprenticeship training policy and the establishment of the sphere of higher technical education are analyzed as two specific cases. It is shown that traditional categories ofskilled workers can be differentiated from new ones. While a highly specialized and fragmented structure impeding an equal integration in the processes of change and innovation can be made out among traditional skilled workers in the field of vocational training (teachers, administrative staff, politicians and lobbyists, researchers), more complex profiles are to be detected among the new skilled workers (human resource development, adult education, intermediaries). The new system of higher technical education differs from the fragmented traditional structure on the one hand by a stronger integration of responsibility profiles and the demand of an accordingly complex profile of skilled workers, who, on the other hand, do not always find adequate job opportunities.;