Research project Right competence at the right time - but for whom?
Right competence at the right time - but for whom? Trajectories and aspirations within and beyond higher vocational education in Sweden.

The aim of this study is to launch a mixed-methods examination of the social recruitment of participants into higher vocational education and their transition into the labor market. As one of the most recently established educational types in Sweden, higher vocational education has undergone remarkable expansion in government investment over the last decade.
The explicit focus of higher vocational education (HVE, yrkeshögskolan) is to equip training participants with the “right competence at the right time” in order for them to be integrated quickly into labor market segments where there is a need for workers.
Government interest in this segment of the education system has soared due to labor market challenges posed by immigration, ageing, and gender segregation in the labor market—all of which HVE may be able to mitigate. However, despite this interest and investment, little is still known about the efficacy of this educational policy device, particularly, the trajectories and aspirations of its participants.
Project description
In this study, we draw on register data, interview data and archival material, combining approaches from sociology, demography and education to examine: processes of differentiation and selection in participation, how changes in participation are taking place alongside expansion and population changes, and how justifications for higher vocational education participation are enacted.
Project members
Project managers
Rebecca Ye
Senior lecturer

Members
Erik Nylander, docent / Associate Professor
Docent

Maya Rita Stark
Researcher

More about this project
Publications
Nylander, Erik & Margarita Chudnovskaya (Forthcoming). Kompetensförsörjningens geografi: Om Yrkeshögskolans expansion, organisering och platsförankring (The Geography of Skill Formation: On the Expansion, Organization, and Localization of Swedish Higher Vocational Education). Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift.
Ye, Rebecca and Erik Nylander. (Forthcoming). Challenging Merit: Analysing competences in research on vocational education through convention theory. Historical Social Research.
Ye, Rebecca. (2024). “Convention theory and education to work transitions”. In Handbook of Economics and Sociology of Conventions , ed. Rainer Diaz-Bone and Guillemette de Larquier. Springer.
Ye, Rebecca and Erik Nylander. 2024. Conventions of skilling: The plural and prospective worlds of higher vocational education. European Educational Research Journal, https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041241262826
Ye, Rebecca, Margarita Chudnovskaya, and Erik Nylander. 2022. Right Competence at the Right Time — but for Whom? Social Recruitment of Participants in an Expanding Higher Vocational Education Segment in Sweden (2005–2019). Adult Education Quarterly 72: 380–400. https://doi.org/10.1177/07417136221080423.
Chudnovskaya, Margarita, Erik Nylander, and Rebecca Ye. 2023. Skills and adult educational choice: Gender (in)equality in a new form of Swedish vocational education. In A Research Agenda for Skills and Inequality, ed. Michael Tåhlin, 85–101. Edward Elgar Publishing.https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800378469.00012.
Symposiums, Workshops and Invited Talks
The project team organized a symposium: “Right competence at the right time – but for whom? The transformation and expansion of higher vocational education” at the 13th Researching Work and Learning Conference June 2024, Linköping University. Ye was also invited to deliver a keynote address at the conference, entitled “The transformation of anticipatory governance in skilling regimes.”
Nylander, Erik and Margarita Chudnovskaya. 2024. “Kompetensförsörjningens geografi: Om yrkeshögskolan och dess lokalt rotade karriärvägar”. Research Seminar at Forskning vid Centrum för kommunstrategiska studier (CKS), Linköping University.
Ye, Rebecca and Erik Nylander. 2023. “Skills versus merit: A pragmatic sociological analysis of competences in educational research”. European Conference for Educational Research, Glasgow, August 2023, symposium on Conventions and Education
Ye, Rebecca and Erik Nylander. 2022. “Right competence at the right time – but for whom? Trajectories and aspirations within and beyond higher vocational education in Sweden”
- Invited talk with Swedish Agency for Higher Vocational Education’s (MYH) Research Council, May 2022.
- Research seminar, Division of Behavioural Sciences, Linköping University, October 2022.
Ye, Rebecca and Yasmin Y. Ortiga. 2022. “Stockpiling, anticipating and protecting skills: The mobilisation of skilling strategies in different phases of a crisis”.
- Workshop on Comparative Perspectives on Skills and Skilling Regimes, June 2022, Stockholm University.
- Swedish Sociological Association Conference, Uppsala University, March 2022.
- International and Comparative Education Research Colloquium, Stockholm University, March 2022.
Ye, Rebecca and Erik Nylander. 2022. “Justificatory logics of skilling: the plural worlds of higher vocational education participation”.
- Sociologidagarna, Gothenburg, March 2024
- Nordic Sociological Association Conference, Iceland, August 2022.
- Sociology/Economy of Conventions: An Interdisciplinary Conference for Methods and Theory Development (with special focus on Education), Leibniz University, Hannover, September 2022.
- Organizing the World 2.0 Conference, Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research, Stockholm University, October 2022.
Ye, Rebecca, Chudnovskaya, Margarita and Erik Nylander. 2021. “Right competence at the right time, but for whom? Social recruitment of participants in an expanding higher vocational education segment in Sweden (2005-2019)”.
- European Consortium for Sociological Research Conference, October 2021.
- Nordic research network on vocational education and training (NordYrk) Conference, June 2021.
- Research seminar, Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University, May 2021.
- Research seminar, Department of Education, Stockholm University, April 2021
Coverage on research
MYH. (April 25, 2022). “GD har ordet: Vad vet vi om yrkeshögskolan – ett försök att sammanfatta”. Ye, Chudnovskaya and Nylander (2022) featured in a summary by the Swedish Agency for Higher Vocational Education (Myndigheten för yrkeshögskolan).
Research-teaching nexus
Our research from this project has been incorporated into our teaching on courses such as Educational Planning (International and Comparative Education master’s programme), Educational Policy and Practice (Utbildningspolitik och pedagogiska praktiker, Masterprogram i pedagogik) at Stockholm University, as well as on the Masters programme, and professional exam program, for vocational education teachers (yrkeslärare) at Linköping University.