Scottish education and the vocational gauntlet

Describes how the Scottish Office Education Department funded a“stock‐taking exercise” by researchers based in the Department of Education at the University of Stirling during 1992/93. The project′s main aims were to map and analyse the range and complexity of education‐industry links (EIL) in Scotland. The picture which emerged was a complex one, with many competing and overlapping initiatives vying for space in school curricula – dubbed “policy hysteria”. Examines ways of analysing this complexity and finds that many national schemes and initiatives took on a distinctly“tartan” flavour in their Scottish manifestations. Selects the questions of “domestication” and“progression” within the EIL curriculum for further development.