This article proffers a normative reading of vocational education by focusing in particular on the “right to an open future” (Feinberg 1980). The article is part of a broad study on becoming a vocational subject in vocational schools, based on ethnographies in vocational schools in Israel. Because these schools (also known as "second class" schools and "last chance" educational spaces), are primarily attended by students from low socio-economic classes, the study also deals with educational policies related to becoming a working-class subject.

The inductive findings show a special emphasis on the future on the part of teachers and principals of vocational schools for the construction of vocational subjectivity. This means for example encouraging students to pursue "realistic aspirations" (aspirations that are not disconnected from the “here and now” reality), an immediate future (as opposed to a distant one), and an emphasis on certainty for the future (achieved mainly by acquiring a profession such as a welder, a metal worker, a car mechanic, or a hairstylist during high school). The justification for this educational rationale is related to the need to extract vocational students from their past and their "dangerous" identity that ensures a future life characterized by "risk" "criminality" and unemployment.

An analysis of the findings highlights the way in which this educational pedagogy maintains students' subaltern status and social inequality. It is here that we find the concept of a “right to an open future” highly relevant and illuminating to a normative reading of vocational education. Such a right was first suggested by Joel Feinberg (1980). Feinberg’s classic relates to “anticipatory autonomy rights”, and denotes a legal and social prerequisite that “future options” should be “kept open” for the child “until he is fully formed, self-determining adult capable of deciding among them” (77). Parents, and teachers according to this principle, should not undertake actions “that permanently foreclose or pre-empt the future options” of children, but instead “take those actions that leave them the greatest possible scope for exercising personal life choices in adulthood" (Darby 2013: 463).

We suggest, then, that the pedagogical attitude towards the future of vocational school students does not promote the opening of the future, as is prevalent for example in elitist schools (Demerath 2009). On the contrary. It is made to “close” such a future. Such a normative reading of vocational schools based on the “right to an open future” was not yet suggested by other works in the fields.

The study design is based on ethnographies in two vocational schools (high schools) located in two communities in the geographic periphery of Israel- one in the north and one in the south of the country. The selection of these two regions is related to the fact that most of the vocational schools in Israel are located in the geographical periphery. The choice of schools in two different geographic areas is related to an attempt to understand whether and how occupational conditions (e.g. industrial enterprises, military camps, unemployment rates, different types of labor organizations) influence educational work in schools as well as the experiences of students and graduates. The broad study included ethnographies in the classrooms and in informal events (such as annual trips, enrichment workshops, parent-student meetings); ethnographies in workplaces in which the students are employed; and interviews with principals, teachers, students, parents and school graduates. The in-depth interviews were conducted with 40 teachers and 20 school principals in vocational schools throughout Israel. 

The findings indicate that an educational policy of narrowing the students to a selected vocation is based on three principal descriptions of the future concept and hence on the vocational subjectivity and working-class subjectivity offered to students: realistic aspirations for the “here and now”; a closed future scenario; and dialectic between certainty (for the future) and uncertainty (because of the child’s past and present life). The first depiction engaged in the active encouragement of "realistic aspirations" as an educational and therapeutic means. These aspirations are described as "connected" to actual reality, are not "too exaggerated" and involve "modest" imagination. Education to realistic aspirations (and hence to realistic subjectivity) the past, present, and the future of the vocational student. Unrealistic ambitions (or "wild ambitions" that are seen as antithetical to current living conditions defined as "emergency" conditions) have been described as a danger and a risk for the vocational student himself/herself and for social order as a whole. The second description suggested the construction of a closed future scenario, expressed, inter alia, by the preference for an immediate future (high school graduation and the relatively rapid transformation from boy/girl to breadwinner); dramatic engagement in preparing for the immediate future and preventing future surprises (unemployment, crime, and "risk"); and outlining two contradicting future alternative biographies for the vocational student (an “at risk" adult or, conversely, a good life following adherence to a vocation taught at the school). The third description suggests a dialectic between certainty and uncertainty that also constructs a specific subjectivity. The vocational students are encouraged by the teachers and principals to prefer a certain future and stay away from the uncertainty that is prescribed by their past and current lives. Certainty is endowed with a positive, arguably moral, connotation. It is described as an educational-therapeutic means that may rehabilitate the pathological personality of the vocational student, which is expressed mainly in the absence of boundaries and the preference for "fantasy aspirations" that are "disconnected from reality", and in turn threaten his/her life and the social order. Uncertainty is endowed with a negative connotation for the vocational subject. It is also described as psychological capital or cultural capital that has exceptional qualities for acquiring lucrative positions, but only for "strong" subjects, i.e. students of a higher socio-economic class.

This argument, works against any call for a right for an open future as suggested by Feinberg and others (Davis 1997; Morgan 2005) because it does not relate to the child’s right to be “permitted to reach maturity with as many open options, opportunities and advantages as possible” (Feinberg 1980, 80). Keeping the future open means also that certain actions by parents, educators, or political players may violate the right to an open future if the child will discover in adulthood that certain options were intentionally closed to him/her. The educational emphasis on realistic aspirations, a closed future scenario, immediate future, “modest imagination,” and the use of certainty as an educational-therapeutic means may be discussed as containing such intentions. Such pedagogic vocabulary does not only relinquish the right of student to an open future, but also establishes the ethical relation of the student toward himself/herself and the student subjectivity which has long-term implications. This approach to the child’s future characterizes not only educational work in vocational schools, but also the vocational and working-class subjectivity it promotes, and reinforces inequality through its explicit as much as hidden curriculum. The seminal descriptions of Bowles and Gintis (1976) stress that schools not only impart explicit academic knowledge to their children, but also latent messages that shape their world dramatically. The preoccupation with "closed future," "immediate future," "realistic aspirations," and "realism" makes it difficult for vocational education students to imagine alternatives that are far from their disadvantaged past, and that are essential for economic and social mobility. In other words, we claim that educational engagement in "realness" rather than "virtuality" – if to evoke Deleuze (1994) – creates a "morality of low expectations" (Furedi 1997) and does not allow for exercising the "right to an open future," (Feinber 1980)

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