In an era of globalization, driven by the prevailing neoliberal trend colleges and other higher VET institutions have predominantly focused on measuring their success through criteria such as research excellence and their ability to adapt to the ever-evolving demands of the job market. This development can also be witnessed in Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS), which were established in the mid-1990s.

However, this myopic approach often neglects other vital dimensions of their mission (Marginson, 2023). These institutions play a pivotal role not only in equipping individuals with job-specific skills but also in cultivating responsible citizenship and nurturing the capacity for lifelong learning. It is imperative to recognize that the diversity of post-secondary institutions are not only providers of human capital (Marginson, 2019) with curriculum shaped by labor market needs; rather, they should be esteemed as institutions dedicated to human development, community anchors, the promotion of the public good (Marginson & Yang, 2022), democratic education (Molnar, 2010), the cultivation of civil society and global citizenship (Franco, 2002) – specifically in the field of vocational education and training.

Particularly in countries such as Switzerland, with its coordinated market economy (Hall & Soskice, 2001), educational institutions focus strongly on imparting specific specialist knowledge and awarding corresponding diplomas that are in demand on the labor market. Recent Swiss studies looked mainly on the impact of UAS in regional labor market innovation and development (Lehnert et al, 2020; Pfister et. al., 2021; Schlegel et al., 2022). However, there are no studies examining the civic role of Universities of Applied Sciences or their role in promoting civic education.

This case study is part of an international comparative study on the civic role of post-secondary educational institutions, which focuses on German-speaking countries, the USA and Canada as well as a sample of East Asian educational systems (Kost, Mou & O’Shea, in prep.). The study examines the civic and democracy-promoting role played by such institutions in Switzerland. This includes, in particular, questions about the specific levels at which this is expressed (legal foundations, service contracts, mission statements, curricula, specific events and activities). As a sub-study of an international comparative study, in addition to the presentation of the results for Switzerland, a positioning of the results within the international context is provided, thus offering a variety of points of reference for colleagues from different countries.

The method and theoretical framework for this paper primarily rely on an extensive review of selected literature pertaining to the mission, goals, aims, and roles of the post-secondary sector in general and UAS in specific. The approach involves an in-depth examination of existing scholarship to elucidate current trends, via mapping conceptions of postsecondary institutions’ civic roles. Previous research has resulted in a broad corpus of data. This includes UAS laws and regulations, information on performance contracts between funding authorities and the institutions, university mission statements, mission statements of individual departments, study programs and descriptions of projects and engagements in their respective regions and communities. Following the grounded theory methodology (Corbin & Strauss, 2015), we are currently coding the data corpus and developing theoretically grounded categories.

The project is part of a growing interest in the social role of colleges and TVET institutions. This has already been highlighted by symposia at ECER 2023 or by corresponding publication projects (Wheelahan, Moodie & Kost, in prep.). Initial results show that the civic role of institutions manifests itself in different ways: On the one hand, in a specific characterization of learning that incorporates elements of civic responsibility (cf. the German concept of "Bildung") (Bauer, 2003). On the other hand, it is already clear that elements of a subsidiarity (Hega, 2000) that is also evident in other areas of the education system emerge in the institutional form of the civic role. This is expressed, among other things, in the fact that civic engagement is hardly evident at more abstract levels (e.g. in mission statements and laws) - but the more concrete the analysis of the everyday world and practice at the UAS becomes, the more its civic role becomes apparent. In the presentation, these, and additional results on the civic role of UAS will be further explained and situated in an international context.

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