TY - CHAP A1 - Graf, Lukas T1 - Country Size and Educational Change: Comparing Reforms of Skill Formation in Germany and Switzerland T2 - Pathways in Vocational Education and Training and Lifelong Learning. Proceedings of the 4th Crossing Boundaries Conference in Vocational Education and Training, Muttenz and Bern online, 8. - 9. April 2021 N2 - This conference paper argues that country size can play a crucial role in shaping the type of gradual change observed in collective skill formation systems. Collectively governed dual-apprenticeship training has its base in the industrial and crafts sectors of the economy and builds on the decentralized cooperation of multiple public and private stakeholders. As a result, it tends to be strongly path dependent, which favours gradual over radical forms of change. However, in recent years, dual-apprenticeship training has been increasingly challenged by the rise of the knowledge and service economy and the growing popularity of academic forms of education. In this context, I compare policy responses in Switzerland and Germany, which represent one small and one large collective skill formation system respectively. The historical-institutionalist analysis finds that the dominant trajectory of change is conversion in Switzerland but layering in Germany, with different implications for the future viability of collective skill formation. Y1 - 2021 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-hsog/frontdoor/index/index/docId/3895 ER -