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In his essay, Sismondo (1993) described various types of social constructs and analyzed the following four forms of construction metaphors:

a)the construction, through the interplay of actors, of institutions, including knowledge, methodologies, fields, habits, and regulative ideals;

b)the construction by scientists of theories and accounts, in the sense that these are structures that rest upon bases of data and observations;

c)the construction, through material intervention, of artefacts in the laboratory, and

d)the construction, in the neo-Kantian sense, of the objects of thought and representation. (p. 516)

For the current article, I limit myself to the first two forms (i.e., type a and b), which are mostly relevant for understanding the socially constructed concepts used in the literature on VET. Type a) is required to theoretically decontextualize the configuration of institutions and actors and identify functions of VET programs. Type b) applies to social constructs that are used in empirical research.

Analyzing VET across countries and taking the meaning of type a) seriously requires decontextualizing the configuration of institutions and actors and identifying the functions behind VET programs. The first metaphor addresses many different things and must be broken up into elements so that presuppositions are easier to identify. Relying on Berger and Luckman’s (1967) construction of institutions, Sismondo (1993) stated the following:

And insofar as all human ‘knowledge’ is developed, transmitted and maintained in social situations, the sociology of knowledge must seek to understand the processes by which this is done in such a way that a taken-for-granted ‘reality’ congeals for the man in the street. In other words, we contend that the sociology of knowledge is concerned with the analysis of the social construction of reality. (p. 517)

Hence, we are confronted with institutionalism theory, which explains how social institutions emerge and develop over time and space. Institutionalism theory developments (e.g., Parsons, 1940; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1991; Scott & Meyer, 1994; Scott 2008; Rogers, 2017) lead to several insights about processes and principals that control the common pattern of the behavior of actors to solve fundamental problems (Turner, 1997) and hence construct reality. Fligstein (2001) highlighted the importance of socially skilled actors for such processes, e.g., actors that empathetically interact with others to strengthen the common pattern of behavior and, in the end, the social institution (Miller, 2019). Fligstein (2001) saw these actors as a relevant force in the construction process of social reality.

Because it is difficult to capture VET programs’ peculiarities without understanding the interplay of actors and institutions, to solve fundamental problems (Turner, 1997), it is necessary to develop a theoretical and methodological concept that helps to identify comparable functions in VET processes. By explaining the theoretical foundations of the different construct forms, Sismondo (1993) took a necessary step towards understanding socially constructed concepts. However, it is not sufficient to compare VET programs and understand their proper functions without a profound theoretical understanding of social institutions and their field-specific application. Renold et al. (2019) developed a theoretical and methodological framework based on theoretical foundations and conceptual derivations of institutionalism theory to measure the robustness of social institutions and provide a field-specific theoretical approach for applying the generic framework to social institutions in education and training. The authors hypothesized that robust social institutions are robust in all properties (function, structure, culture, sanction) and dimensions (temporal and spatial) and that robust VET programs are composed of individual robust social institutions. The limitations of the authors’ approach lie in the fact that empirical results are not yet available that can show what the interplay of institutions and actors looks like in various real programs. However, their framework provided a theoretical framework necessary to capture socially constructed concepts.

Type b) applies to social constructs that are used in empirical research. If researchers are unaware of the different socially constructed concepts behind data, the results can be misleading. The empiricist construction metaphor addresses the construction of “images, accounts, or theories given the data” (Sismondo, 1993, p. 516). Van Fraassen (1980) summarized construct empiricism as follows: “I use the adjective ‘constructive’ to indicate my view that scientific activity is one of construction rather than discovery: construction of models that must be adequate to the phenomena, and not discovery of truth concerning the unobservable” (p. 5). According to Knorr-Cetina’s “theories of cocoons,” in which “objects [are] made to facilitate empirical success, but not goals in and of themselves” (Sismondo, 1993, p. 528), science functions as a construct. Patterns appear as observation points generated from practice. Hence, to understand the empiricist constructs, one has to understand the process behind empirical research, which is why Knorr-Cetina’s work is important for VET constructs.

Knorr-Cetina wanted to learn more about the way in which successful scientific practice comes about. How do we know what we know (Knorr-Cetina, 2002)? Therefore, the selection of research steps and models in the process became important for her. The “constructed” is equated with the “decision-impregnated” (Knorr-Cetina & Harré, 2012, p. 28). Knorr-Cetina argued that if the products of science are context-specific constructions drawn by the situation specificity and interest structures from which they were generated, then the process of knowledge generation is not irrelevant to the outputs generated from it. Knowledge products must be regarded as highly internally structured due to the process of their production. Knorr-Cetina claimed that scientific results, including empirical data, are the result of a manufacturing process and involve a chain of decisions and negotiations that require selection. This selection process (Luhmann, 1991) also requires a series of criteria. Scientific work consists of the realization of selectivity in a space constructed by previous selection. What is reproduced is the selectivity cycle itself. This form of autocapitalization in terms of selectivity appears to be a prerequisite for the accumulation of scientific results (Knorr-Cetina & Harré, 2012). Hence, this form of construction metaphor does not necessarily deal with “causal processes existing in reality” (Luhmann, 2010, p. 10) but with the “constructed models that must be adequate to the phenomena” (Van Fraassen, 1980, p. 5).

Understanding the differences in these two construction metaphors may help readers to see the opportunities and limitations of specific published research results. While the first tries to uncover “unobservables” through theoretical processes, and frameworks, the second constructs science through models of existing images, accounts, or data. Both approaches are necessary but limited in their generalization scope. In some ways, the trade-off between the two forms of construct metaphors is reminiscent of a drunk looking for lost keys under a lantern, instead of where he lost them, because it is bright under the lantern. If real problems in the field of VET have to be solved, concepts, strategies, and theories must be developed to find the key in the dark.