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This article examines three school-to-work initiatives developed in the 1990s in Alberta, Canada as reflections of a new vocational discourse that challenges traditional academic/vocational divisions. Our purpose is to consider whether new initiatives have the potential to be more progressive than earlier approaches. Drawing on policy documents and interviews with representatives from government, industry, education, and organised labour, the article focuses on the extent to which the policy discourse appears to support the kind of progressivism envisioned by more critical or reflective proponents of new vocationalism. Findings suggest that policy debates in Alberta surrounding vocational high school education continue to be largely focused on employer expectations and workplace socialisation, while more progressive perspectives that focus on the integration of academic and vocational learning as well as a deeper exploration of the social relations at work generally remain unexplored.