ABSTRACT
The thesis that vocational and special education have been converging may seem quickly explained as a reflection of global forces to which all national educational systems are in some way subject, and thus, there should be little that is distinctive about these two subsystems. Alex Inkeles and colleagues explored the convergence and divergence of national educational systems by documenting the "trends" in five dimensions: ideational/legal; structural; demographic; administrative-financial; and interpersonal/institutional dynamics. The prevalence of similarity, and the overall pattern of convergence that may be a consequence, however unintended, is a state that is privileged by time and circumstance. The concept proposes that vocational and special educations are contemporary modes of benevolence that have been incorporated into the structure of "general education" and instrumental in the expansion of "mass schooling". The secularization of benevolence was accentuated with the construction of national systems of education.
