These last decades, in the field of education (and of social policies in general), some changes resulted both in a redefinition of the educational (and welfare) services and of the role of the governance of the State and in the emergence of new configurations for the participation of education in the social regulation. A case study on the vocational school subsystem created in 1989 in Portugal allows us to identify some of these recent alterations and to propose some interpretations about their meaning. The analysis of the launching of such a schooling modality and of some of the orientations and practices developed in two vocational schools suggests that this innovation testifies the experimentation of new educational institutions and processes related with the formation of a new regulation mode - distinct from that defined as Fordist in which the development of the Welfare State model(s) occurred.
Education and social regulation; Globalization, Europeification, and education policies; State action forms and education policies; Professional transition