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- Asplund, Stig-Börje, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Visualising the intended practical doing : Future-oriented movements in swedish vocational school workshop settings
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training. - : European Research Network Vocational Education and Training. - 2197-8638 .- 2197-8646. ; 8:2, s. 160-185
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: This article focuses on teaching and learning processes in a vocational classroom in Swedish vocational education. There are few studies within the field of vocational education that have a focus on how vocational learning is done in interaction in the vocational classroom/workshop, and what vocational learning content is displayed in the interaction between teacher and student, and thus made possible to learn. This article aims to fill this gap by exploring the future-oriented movements that take shape when a vocational teacher and vocational students negotiate how a practical task could, and should, be handled and solved in vocational teaching situations in vocational plumbing school workshop settings. An increased understanding of these processes can help to improve the actual teaching of a specific subject content to support students in their vocational learning, aiming for learning a professional trade. Methods: The data consist of video recorded lessons from the Sanitary, Heating and Property Maintenance Programme in Swedish upper secondary school. Through concrete empirical examples from video recorded lessons the article explores the interaction between teachers and students in vocational school workshop settings using CAVTA. CAVTA is based on Conversation Analysis (CA) and Variation Theory (VT) and is a theoretical and methodological framework that can be used together and integrated to reach understanding of both how- and what-aspects of the learning process in practice, when analysing teaching and interaction. Findings: Findings show how aspects concerning a specific vocational learning content that revolves around a vocational practical doing compete for the space with a vocational learning content of a more general nature. These general objects of learning are also related to work-specific vocational learning and knowledge in relation to the future profession, but on a more general level than the task specific vocational knowledge. Altogether, this illuminates how different layers of work-specific vocational learning are made visible in the interaction, and how they mutually contextualise each other in the here and now. Conclusion: This article illustrates that the specific and the general vocational learning content can complement each other and open up for a more in-depth vocational learning. In conclusion, this article emphasises the importance for vocational teachers to develop teaching strategies to navigate between helping the students in their problem solving here and now, and contextualising the specific vocational learning content and making vocational learning relevant for future vocational occupation and working life.
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| 2. |
- Ferm, Lisa, 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Gendered Vocational Identities – Female Students' Strategies for Identity Formation During Workplace-Based Learning in Male-Dominated Work
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training. - : European Research Network in Vocational Education and Training. - 2197-8638 .- 2197-8646. ; 8:3, s. 334-354
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: This article investigates female vocational students' strategies for becoming part of a workplace community, what these strategies are and how they are tied to the formation of vocational identities within male-dominated industrial work. Of particular interest is how female students enrolled on Swedish upper secondary industrial programmes experience workplace-based learning at industrial workplaces as part of their vocational education. The theoretical framework derives from Wenger's concept of community of practice, but his theoretical concept does not explicitly include gender dimensions. Therefore, the concept of community of practice is also combined with Paechter's assumption of gender, whereby femininity and masculinity can be considered as different communities of practice. Methods: The article draws on evidence from a Swedish study based on interviews with 20 female students enrolled on the industrial programme at six upper secondary schools. In this vocational programme, there is a distinct gender distribution and only a small minority of the students on the programme are girls. In the analysis, the focus is on the female students' strategies used during workplace-based learning to become part of the work community which consists almost exclusively of male workers.Findings: The female students deliberately negotiated vocational identities as female industrial workers to become accepted in the male-dominated work community. The findings highlight three specific strategies that the female students used: Acting like gender does not matter, acting like boys (not like drama queens), and acting tough and joking around. The female students' strategies were part of – and tied to – a complex vocational identity formation process that featured contradictory requirements. By taking individual responsibility, they identified relevant information for becoming industrial workers and chose to act like boys. The female students saw no problem with being a girl, yet they struggled with implicit, diffuse and hidden gender structures and prejudices in the male-dominated industrial companies. Nevertheless, they strived for what they perceived to be an attractive vocational identity as industrial workers; it was an alternative, atypically feminine way of being that attracted the female students. Conclusions: The study concludes that female students mostly rely on their individual agency when interacting with others in the male-dominated workplace community. A "gendered vocational identity" is formed which shows that the identity formation of female students is a complex double process, in which vocational and gender identities are formed simultaneously and in parallel within the male-dominated workplace.
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| 3. |
- Ferm, Lisa, 1984-
(författare)
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Vocational Students’ Ways of Handling the Academic/Vocational Divide
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training. - : VETNET. - 2197-8638 .- 2197-8646. ; 8:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The focus of this article is on Swedish vocational students’ own thoughts about different types of knowledge and how these thoughts relate to the forming of their vocational identities. The article reports on a study which investigates how vocational students handle the division between theoretical and practical knowledge as they learn to become skilled industrial workers. Theoretical and practical knowledge are often presented as dichotomies in a hierarchy, where theoretical knowledge is more highly valued than practical knowledge. The division between theoretical and practical knowledge is known in research as "the academic/vocational divide". This divide is particularly relevant to vocational students, as they need to deal with both types of knowledge as they navigate between the contexts of school and work.Methods: This study is part of a research project on vocational students’ learning and identity formation. The empirical material is based on qualitative interviews with 44 students enrolled on the industrial programme at Swedish upper secondary schools.Findings: The study revealed three different ways in which vocational students handled the academic/vocational divide: Placing higher value on practical knowledge than on theoretical knowledge, reinforcing the separation between school and work, and selecting theoretical subjects as useful tools for the future. Conclusions: Two conclusions drawn from the study are that students are aware of the status differences and divisions between practical and theoretical knowledge, and that they handle the academic/vocational divide in an active manner. Students make choices that will help them form a vocational identity or that will give them opportunities for further education and alternative careers. This article challenges and contradicts the image of vocational students as unmotivated and unintellectual, instead portraying them as knowledgeable actors who make strategic choices for their future and are active in forming vocational identities within vocations that require deep and advanced knowledge.
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