This book explains how education policies offering improved transitions to work and higher-level study can widen the gaps between successful and disadvantaged groups of young people.

Bill Esmond is Associate Professor in the Institute of Education at the University of Derby, UK. His research interests focus on comparative VET and its intersection with employment and higher education. His publications span higher-level vocational studies, workplace learning and apprenticeship.

Liz Atkins is Professor of Vocational Education and Social Justice in the Institute of Education at the University of Derby, UK. Her research interests focus on vocational education policy and practice. She is the UK's foremost authority on education for low-attaining young people.

1. Technical and further education after COVID: New opportunities or new inequalities? 2. Lessons of European VET? National systems and international prescriptions. 3. Shifting but impermeable? Higher-vocational barriers and diversions. 4. Further education and skills in England: From 'craft' education to polarisation. 5. Enter the technical elites: Fragmentation or a new mobility myth? 6. Welfare Vocationalism: Preparing for service and caring occupations. 7. Beyond the divide:Learning for work in the post-industrial economy? 8. The polarisation of professionalism. 9. Conclusions.