About berufsbildung

berufsbildung

berufsbildung — subtitled "Zeitschrift für Theorie-Praxis-Dialog" (journal for theory-practice dialogue) — is the German platform for developments and discussions in vocational education, published by wbv Publikation in Bielefeld. Appearing since 1947 and currently in its 80th volume (2026), it is one of the longest-running journals of vocational and business pedagogy. Published four times a year — in March, June, September, and December — each issue addresses a specific thematic focus. Its defining characteristic is the productive theory-practice dialogue: all participants in vocational education have their say — the current trends, the vocational-pedagogical innovations, and the education-policy questions alongside the experiences from innovative vocational-education practice and from research. Contributions undergo an editors' review by at least two professors. The journal addresses everyone interested in new developments: researchers, students, teachers in schools and companies, and practitioners in vocational education, continuing education, and counseling.

Overview

Vocational education is Germany's distinctive educational institution: the dual system of company training and vocational school, the chambers and associations, the federal and state institutions. berufsbildung is this system's discursive forum. Its program combines the two directions of the dialogue: the "practice to practice" discourse — the contemporary and forward-looking problem solutions in pilot projects and education-policy programs, in company and school as well as extracurricular contexts, communicated by the actors of vocational education in chambers, associations, political bodies, and state and federal institutions — and the science's report on the state of research.

The journal's thematic issues structure the field's agenda. Recent volumes show the range: the Ukraine issue (1/2024) — the functioning of Ukraine's vocational-education system in war and post-war periods, the integration of Ukrainian refugees into dual training; the smart-home issue — the home economists' future workplace; the cliché-free career-orientation issue — winning girls for craft professions; the inclusion issue — the international Inclutrain project. The journal's theory-practice dialogue addresses vocational education's characteristic tension. The researchers develop the concepts — the competence models, the didactics, the governance analyses — but the training happens in the companies and the vocational schools, under the chambers' supervision and the social partners' negotiation. A journal that spoke only to the researchers would miss the practice; one that spoke only to the practitioners would miss the reflection. berufsbildung's editorial method — the thematic issues in which the researchers' state-of-research reports stand beside the practitioners' pilot-project experiences, all reviewed by at least two professors — institutionalizes the encounter. The Ukraine issue (1/2024) exemplifies it: the researchers' analyses of the Ukrainian vocational-education system's war functioning beside the practitioners' integration work with the Ukrainian refugees in the German dual system — the international crisis rendered as the shared professional challenge. The open-access licensing of the contributions extends the dialogue beyond the subscribers: the field's knowledge as the commons.

History

berufsbildung was founded in 1947 — the post-war founding era, when the reconstruction demanded the vocational-education system's rebuilding. The bibliographic record traces the run: volumes 1 (1947) through 44 (1990), then from 1991 the new numbering (45.1991 = No. 1), continuing through the decades to volume 78 (2024), 79 (2025), and the current volume 80 (2026). Through the Federal Republic's educational history — the 1960s education expansion, the 1969 Vocational Training Act, the reunification's system transfer, the Europeanization, the digitalization and the skilled-worker shortage — the journal documented the vocational-education discourse.

The publishing home evolved with the specialist press: from the Eusl publishing house to the wbv Publikation — the Bielefeld-based wbv Media GmbH & Co. KG, the specialist publisher for vocational education, adult education, and social issues. The editorial care lies with Barbara Sloane (Eusl-Verlagsgesellschaft, Detmold); the editors are Prof. Dr. Marianne Friese of the University of Giessen — professor of educational science specializing in vocational pedagogy, researching vocational-education innovations, teacher training, gender research, and care work — and Prof. Dr. Dieter Münk. The wbv's specialization — the Bielefeld publishing house for vocational education, adult education, and the social professions — gives the journal its publishing home among its own: the publisher's program, from the textbooks to the research series, serves the same field the journal discourses. The editorial continuity — Barbara Sloane's long-standing editorial care, the Eusl tradition — preserves the journal's craft: the typesetting, the review organization, the author guidance. That a journal founded in 1947 still appears quarterly in its 80th volume, peer-reviewed and open-access, testifies to the vocational-education field's institutional stability: the dual system endures, and so does its forum. The journal's archive — from the post-war reconstruction through the educational expansion to the digital transformation — is the field's memory: the record of how Germany has thought about training its skilled workers for nearly eight decades.

Coverage and Content

Each quarterly issue follows its thematic focus through the vocational-education field. The research coverage reports the state of vocational-education research: the empirical findings, the conceptual developments, the international comparisons. The practice coverage presents the innovative vocational-education practice: the pilot projects, the model experiments, the company and school innovations — the "practice to practice" discourse. The policy coverage addresses the education-policy questions: the training regulations, the governance, the system reforms.

The thematic breadth reflects the field's scope: the integration of refugees into dual training, the digitalization of the occupations, the inclusion, the gender-sensitive career orientation, the teacher training for vocational schools, the commercial vocational training in the context of volatility and new work. The interviews — with the practitioners like the chamber officials — give the actors their voice. The combination — the science's research status, the practice's experiences, the policy's questions — makes each issue the field's complete forum: the researchers, the teachers, the chamber officials, and the policymakers meeting in the productive dialogue the subtitle promises.

Organization and Ownership

berufsbildung is published by wbv Publikation — the wbv Media GmbH & Co. KG of Bielefeld, seated at Auf dem Esch 4, 33619 Bielefeld — the specialist publisher for vocational and continuing education. The editors are Prof. Dr. Marianne Friese (University of Giessen) and Prof. Dr. Dieter Münk. The editorial care and the typesetting realization lie with Barbara Sloane (Eusl-Verlagsgesellschaft, Elisabethstraße 14, 32756 Detmold). Contributions are welcome and undergo the editors' review — read by at least two professors.

Commercially, the journal follows the scholarly-press model: subscriptions from the academic institutions, the vocational schools, the chambers and associations, and the individual researchers and teachers, plus the digital licensing through the utb elibrary. The readership — researchers, students, teachers in schools and companies, and practitioners in vocational education, continuing education, and counseling — is the vocational-education field's professional and scholarly community. The ISSNs 0005-9536 (print) and 2199-1944 (online) document the title's bibliographic standing.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is the wbv's journal portal (wbv.de/journals/zeitschriften/berufsbildung) with the current issues, the archive, and the topic preview — and the utb elibrary (elibrary.utb.de/journal/bb), which provides the digital journal platform: the volumes and issues browsable with tables of contents, the articles with DOIs, and the open-access licensing (Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike) for the contributions. The author guidelines detail the citation standards and the review process — the formal infrastructure of the scholarly dialogue the journal sustains.

After nearly 80 years — from the 1947 founding through the Federal Republic's educational history to the current volume 80 — berufsbildung operates as vocational education's discursive forum: the productive theory-practice dialogue, the thematic issues structuring the field's agenda, and the peer-reviewed contributions — four issues a year in print and continuously in the utb elibrary, for everyone shaping Germany's vocational education — the researchers, the teachers, and the practitioners in dialogue.