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Berger and Luckmann (1967) pointed out in “The Social Construction of Reality” that social-cultural habits, histories, national characteristics, and institutions characterize the reality of life. Because the education system is part of reality, it is heavily influenced by those characteristics. Without well-founded knowledge of the institutions’ social construction in qualitative, spatial, and temporal circumstances (Renold et al., 2019), it is very difficult to compare concepts in education and training systems. People must be aware of the fundamental problems (Turner, 1997) they want to solve and need a deep understanding of the social institutions (Renold et al., 2019) that moderate those obstacles to find ways to improve education systems. Social institutions are a common pattern of behavior and shape the way goals can be achieved. They are driven by values, attitudes, habits, and incentive mechanisms. Following Social Constructs (2019),

Social constructs or social constructions define meanings, notions, or connotations that are assigned to objects and events in the environment and to people’s notions of their relationships to and interactions with these objects. In the domain of social constructionist thought, a social construct is an idea or notion that appears to be natural and obvious to people who accept it but may or may not represent reality, so it remains largely an invention or artifice of a given society (p. 1).

The social construct phenomenon may occur in this handbook because scientists from several disciplines have contributed. Depending on their epistemological and methodological approach, the used socially constructed concepts are more or less systematically explained. This handbook provides an overview of research results on the economics and management of VET from different perspectives. In general, the reader will look at concepts that aim to lead people into the labor market. Examples of such concepts are VET, apprenticeship, technical VET, career and technical education (CTE), or vocational training. Scholars often use these terms interchangeably. Sometimes these terms come from ordinary language or are simply translations from another language, but they do not necessarily match the concepts of the respective country. Behind such terms are socially constructed concepts that vary across countries. Without identifying functional equivalences (see Chapter 5), we run the risk of empirically comparing completely different concepts. Accordingly, it is difficult to adequately classify results and to recommend policy measures.

Education systems around the world are under constant pressure to adapt. Therefore, complex social processes are set in motion to periodically revise and renew educational programs based on values, norms, and incentive mechanisms. Hence, it is obvious that such programs are socially constructed concepts that fully agree with unobservable meanings and values. Therefore, it will not be possible to find theoretically derived definitions for apprenticeship, VET, and other labels of such programs. “Thus, concepts are cultural constructs that are socially established, valid in limited territories and demonstrate traditions” (Bachleitner et al., 2014, p. 61[3]). If we want to identify the functions lying behind concepts, we have to find a methodology to uncover them.