This double symposium explores the important role that vocational colleges and similar types of institutions play in supporting social, educational, and cultural development in their local communities and regions. We argue that the role colleges play is not as well understood or theorised as is the role of universities and schools, and that this matters because colleges are vital for the well-being of their local communities. They support their regions and communities in many ways that are not prominent beyond immediate participants. However, the ways in which they do so differs in different countries and this symposium includes diverse contributions from very different systems.

The domain of this symposium is the second vocationally oriented tier of post school education. This tier may offer other programs, but its key mission includes offering short-cycle tertiary education of about two years’ duration with a vocational / professional orientation, classified in the International Standard Classification of Education ISCED 2011 as category 55 short-cycle tertiary vocational education (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2012, pp. 48-50).

The roles of schools and universities are generally understood and institutionalized as broadly intellectual and cultural that are well established historically and globally. In contrast, vocational colleges are ‘mainly local organizations justified by specific economic and political functions or shaped by particular historical legacies or power struggles’ (Meyer, Ramirez, Frank, and Schofer, 2007, pp. 187, 210).

Colleges are under theorized, which leaves them vulnerable to vicissitudes of marketisation and privatization (Meier, 2013), and undermines the institutional conditions that support them. They are justified mostly by their preparation for work, and gaps in the correspondence between vocational education and work are almost always considered only a supply-side issue for colleges, rather than being co-constituted by education and work (Livingstone, 2009, p. 150). Colleges are therefore thought not to respond sufficiently to the labour market, and to need disciplining by competing with for-profit providers.

This thinking is particularly prevalent in the liberal market economies of Australia, Canada, England, the USA, and others. But it is also projected onto low and middle income countries by intergovernmental and non government organisations.

This double symposium seeks to investigate, compare and analyse colleges’ diverse social roles in different countries, explore commonalities in colleges’ social roles, and invite perspectives from participants in the symposium. Part 1 will comprise 3 presentations, and part 2 will comprise 3 presentations and a discussant.

Livingstone, D. W. (Ed.). (2009).Education & jobs: Exploring the gaps. University of Toronto Press. Meier, K. (2013). Community college mission in historical perspective. In J. S. Levin & S. T. Kater (Eds.), Understanding community colleges. Routledge. Meyer, J. W., Ramirez, F. O., Frank, D. J., & Schofer, E. (2007). Higher education as an institution. In P. J. Gumport (Ed.), Sociology of higher education: Contexts and their contributions (pp. 187-221). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2012). International Standard Classification of Education ISCED 2011. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Pages/international-standard-classification-of-education.aspx