Review of Ertl, Hubert: A World of Difference? Research on Higher and Vocational Education in Germany and England. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag

In A world of difference? Research on higher and vocational education in Germany and England, Ertl draws on diverse pieces of his own scholarship (and those of his research collaborators) on both national contexts to offer a contemporary picture of developments in vocational and higher education and the impact of these reforms on individual education pathways and, ultimately, educational and social inequalities. Structured in five substantive chapters and brief introductory and concluding chapters, the monograph collects and builds on a considerable body of work published over roughly a dozen years (more than twenty sole- and co-authored contributions are cited). The book’s overarching argument is that recent reforms have strengthened intranational heterogeneity in terms of institutional frameworks and governance due to culturally-specific policy formation and reception processes—and in contrast to the frequently postulated homogenizing impact of internationalization. In sum, the chosen examples of research on these two sectors provide insights into the variable impact of education policy agendas and programmes in England and Germany, including pan-European and international developments over the past two decades that emphasize both continuity and change. This book, with its wide-ranging and specific analyses presented by an expert on both countries, will be of interest to scholars and students who hope to make sense of contemporary transitions of and within VET and HE systems in the Bologna era. This volume is most innovative in combining these two sectors, far too often treated singly although, as Ertl shows, they have developed in complex relationships to each other and to schooling and the labour market.