ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that secular reconstitution of religious benevolence has taken four global forms: paternalistic, punitive, bureaucratic and communal. It describes that the change in vocational education enrolment levels in secondary levels from 1970 to 1990 is an overall downward decline, as commonly argued, but the comparison of rank orderings at points between 1970 and 1990 reveals a vacillating pattern of increase-decrease-increase-decrease. As countries decline in vocational enrolments, they create vacancies for those behind them, who then experience increases in their rate of decline. The analysis of both vocational and special needs education rates for European nations for 2006 definitively shows: vocational education is linked to decentralized political systems, while special education is linked to centralized systems. The chapter considers vocational and special education as contemporary manifestations of the 18th century's mode of religious benevolence.
