ABSTRACT
Vocational education deals so frequently with job training for poor students, one would think that a central feature of the study of vocational education would involve questions of socioeconomic class and mobility. Corporate and business leaders would have been reluctant to support any work education that did not result in commercial profit for themselves and other dominant power groups. Four "class myths" perpetuated by power elites lay the ideological foundation for dismissal of class in the economic, political, and educational life of America. Critical vocational educators examine the complex dynamics of power at work at both the individual and structural contextual levels in their attempt to understand the polarization of socioeconomic class in America. Postformalism grapples with purpose, devoting attention to issues of human dignity, freedom, power, authority, domination, and social responsibility. Maintaining social order and social control have typically been viewed as educational purposes superior in importance to the promotion of social mobility.
