This book is the outcome of the 20th anniversary conference of the ‘VET&Culture’-Network, which took place in Tampere, Finland. It had two topics, myths and brands and historical development in vocational education, bringing together researchers from all over the world. Through discussions within the network and subsequent editorial work, a set of papers was selected and further developed into this publication. They show that a cultural perspective adds substantially to the understanding of how vocational education has been enacted in various historical periods, and that the dominating concepts of models and systems need to be questioned and reframed. We express our gratitude to all who contributed to making this publication possible, especially Mr. Markus Huhtamäki for proof-reading and editing of chapters and the staff of Cambridge Scholars Publishing for their advice and help in getting into print