by Gavin Moodie and Leesa Wheelahan
The capabilities approach focuses on human flourishing rather than augmenting productive capacities, although the latter may be necessary for the former. It is also concerned with the potential of people to achieve or become, rather than maximising happiness or the sum total of utilities that individuals have. It is concerned with the real freedoms people have rather than economic resources, as it recognises that different individuals, communities and societies need different types and different levels of resources to live dignified lives.
Students with special educational needs and disabilities
The capabilities approach provides the basis for understanding and addressing multiple and overlapping forms of disadvantage. Tikly explained that the capabilities approach ‘implies a focus on the institutional and cultural barriers that prevent inclusion of different groups’. It has implications for resourcing because it recognises that some groups will need more resources to achieve comparable capabilities as the basis for exercising choice in their lives. This is one reason why the capabilities approach was first drawn upon by the those fighting for the human rights and dignity for those with disabilities. Terzi argued that the capabilities approach ‘is innovative with respect to the centrality of human diversity in assessing inequality’. It offers another theory to guide the development of students with special educational needs and disabilities in further and higher education. This has implications for policy, funding and governance. As capabilities are embedded in their social context and manifest differently in different contexts, they require local engagement with social partners, educational institutions and a nuanced understanding of the different needs of different students.
Education for adults and part time students
The SRHE Blog has noted the under-provision of education for adults and its editor Rob Cuthbert observed that ‘Part-time students are vanishing from the system, as funding regimes repeatedly ignore their different needs and discourage institutions from providing for them.’ Capabilities theory offers a further argument for improving provision for adult and part-time students, if one is needed.
Further education
Tikly argued that the capabilities approach ‘allows for an expanded view of the purpose of [Technical and Vocational Education and Training] as supporting the development of human capabilities and functionings that individuals, communities and society at large have reason to value’. He applied the capabilities approach to understanding the broad purposes of vocational education and the role it can play in society, and also to issues of funding and governance.
We apply human capabilities to vocational education by considering what people are able to ‘be and do’ at work and through work to realise themselves and their goals. We understand capabilities to refer to the resources and arrangements of work and the broad knowledge, skills and attributes that individuals need to be productive at work, to progress in their careers, and to participate in decision-making about work, and in their life. Vocational education students need to understand how their field of practice fits within their communities and societies, and they require the capacity to be ‘citizens’ within their field, so they can help shape its future.
We argue that vocational education develops students’ capabilities in two ways. It develops students’ understanding of the world and their capacity to act in the world. And its educational processes facilitate students making decisions about their education and how they undertake it, even within strongly framed programs.
To do this vocational education should prepare students for a broad field of practice rather than a narrowly defined occupation, or worse, narrowly defined skills aligned with work-place tasks and roles. Vocational education should also contribute to and benefit from helping students develop the building blocks of these broader capabilities.
Strong institutions
The development of capabilities is underpinned by institutional frameworks and social partnerships. This points to the importance of strong public vocational education institutions in mediating the development of capabilities and in mediating links between students and other social partners. And, this requires strong public vocational education institutions to participate in discussions and debates about the nature of capabilities, and to support their development.
Sen explained that we live and operate in a world of institutions, and that ‘Our opportunities and prospects depend crucially on what institutions exist and how they function’. He explained that institutions must be evaluated by the extent to which they contribute to capabilities and to freedom. Winch said that a vocational education framework needs stability:
“… so that it can evolve along pathways familiar to participants, and so that routes and qualifications are recognized by all stakeholders … Governments must resist the temptation to change TVET structures for short-term political benefit, and should plan for robust and long-term stable structures. Last, but not least, qualifications should contain substantial theoretical content to facilitate permeability and broad occupational capabilities.”
Capabilities provide the conceptual basis of vocational education and its qualifications, but the specific focus and content of teaching and learning and curriculum requires deep understandings of the contexts for which students are being prepared, engagement with local communities of interest, and negotiation over the outcomes. For example, the capabilities that electricians need will differ from those of childcare workers.
The extent to which individuals can realise their capabilities at work is partly related to the extent to which a workplace facilitates their agency in work, the level of autonomy and support they are offered, and where they are situated in organisational structures. Hierarchical and managerial workplaces restrict agency, whereas a more expansive approach may provide opportunities for development and growth. It is particularly salient for vocational education that workers’ capabilities as workers depends crucially on the capabilities of their work unit. Work groups have been studied extensively since the Hawthorne studies of the 1920s which identified considerable variation in the effectiveness of different work groups. A work unit that supports and encourages its members to develop their knowledge and skills develops its members’ work capabilities more than others, and according to Senge, learning organisations have competitive advantages over other organisations.
Caveats in using the capabilities approach
There are important caveats in understanding the way in which the capabilities approach can be used. Tikly explained that ‘the capability approach should not be seen as providing ready-made answers to the policy issues and challenges facing the TVET sector today’. He argued that it ‘should be seen as a way of framing issues and as a starting point for evaluating policy choices’.
The second caveat is that while the capabilities approach provides a normative framework for evaluating, assessing and providing the conditions for individual well-being and social arrangements, it does not provide explanations about the causes of ‘capability deprivation’. The capabilities approach cannot be applied in the absence of theorising about social relations of power and domination.
The third caveat is that while the capabilities approach could help renovate vocational education so that it is more holistic and developmental, it cannot on its own ‘fix’ the problems of the labour market. To do this would require a focus on the labour market itself, and not just vocational education qualifications. For example, while vocational education may provide education that helps students develop capabilities, these capabilities may not be able to be realised in workplaces that resist change, are discriminatory, or provide few opportunities for discretionary learning or for the development of autonomous practice.
The fourth, crucial, caveat, is that capabilities cannot be considered in the abstract. Capabilities are not just an individual attribute: they include the resources available to a person and their personal, social and environmental circumstances that make it possible for them to realise what they reasonably value. A problem in some of the literature is that it considers capabilities in the abstract to generate idealised lists of individuals’ attributes such as general skills, employability skills and graduate attributes. However, since these are detached from the requirements of occupations and the circumstances in which they are practised they don’t advance analysis beyond other lists of general skills and attributes.
Dr Gavin Moodie is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Education
Leesa Wheelahan is Professor Emerita and William G. Davis Chair in Community College Leadership Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Education.