02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Paper
"From Apprentice to Learner” - On the Perception of Young People in the Course of the Transformation of Vocational Education
Lena Freidorfer
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Presenting Author: Freidorfer, Lena
Apprentices, as working and learning actors, are an integral part, or rather the main protagonists, of the Swiss dual VET system (Wettstein 1987, p. 8; see also Freidorfer 2020). Despite their important key role, relatively little is known about them and apprentices have only been marginally addressed as a research object in historical VET research (see: Berner 2019, Bonoli 2017 or Wettstein 2020). In this respect, they represent a "neglected category" (Berner 2019, p. 311).
This drove me to learn more about apprentices and the development of their social representation as part of my already completed doctoral dissertation.
How were apprentices in the cantons of German-speaking Switzerland thematized and perceived by the public? How were they judged by people involved in vocational education and what publicly or socially constructed external representations of apprentices can be derived from this?
The concern of the paper is to identify and analyze constant or changing accumulations or bundles of opinions (continuities and change) of propositional events (discourses) and to derive from them single, different apprenticeship images that constitute the core of the present paper. The focus is on the years from 1950 to 1970, the most important years for the development of Swiss vocational education and training (e.g. first revision of the Vocational Training Act, expansion of education, strong promotion of young people and rapid economic development) (Becker & Zangger 2013; Gonon & Freidorfer 2022; Rieger 2001).
By means of historical discourse analysis, about 600 articles in the opinion and daily press as well as in the trade and trade union press in which apprentices were the subject of discussion were analyzed, as well as complementary apprenticeship studies and advice literature on apprentices.
On the one hand, different theoretical concepts of the public sphere serve as a theoretical background. These include the deliberative public sphere (Habermas 1990, 1992), ideas about the media public sphere (Strohmeier 2004), since this article focuses on the print medium newspaper, as well as ideas about the public sphere in vocational training (Sloane 2016), which are only available in marginal numbers. It should also be emphasized that vocational education does not seem to have its own theory of the public sphere. Broken down to the present paper, this means that the public sphere emerges through the communication, the need to communicate, of those persons who participate in VET-related or apprenticeship-related questions, debates, or in a "public" discourse of VET and, more concretely, about apprentices. In addition to the various theories of the public sphere, the historical discourse analysis not only serves as an analytical tool, but also as a theoretical foundation. The focus is on the primary concern of being able to understand history. The following questions seem to be guiding - How can we know something? How do we succeed in gaining certainty about our own reality and in putting our own reality to the test?
The aim of this paper is to describe the central findings of the research project and to show to what extent the transformation of the apprentice from a conformist apprentice to a protesting apprentice, who stands in the light of publicity and is no longer perceived only as working, but above all as learning, could take place. Finally, I argue that in the digital age of the 21st century, an autonomous apprentice image will become increasingly important.
This is a question that seems to be of utmost relevance not only for Switzerland but for all vocational education systems in Europe and beyond. Who are the apprentices? How do we perceive them? And where are they currently heading?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedFrom a methodological point of view, historical discourse analysis was used as an analytical tool. The analysis tool focuses on the question of the emergence of different forms of knowledge and reality. Language is understood as the most important medium that allows history to be understood as action.
By means of discourse analysis, the aim was to find out to what extent society wrote about the apprentice in the years from 1950 to 1970 and to what extent changes occurred in how apprentices were described at different points in time. Unchanging and changing socio-political statements or views about apprentices are combined and structured into bundles of statements. Smaller and larger text structures, in the sense of written statements, are analyzed.
A total of 600 newspaper articles from different daily and opinion press of the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland (serial sources) were analyzed, which were published in the period from 1950 to 1970 on topics related to vocational training and which dealt specifically with apprentices.
The following requirements were placed on the selected texts:
- the text was written in German and published in a Swiss-German newspaper (daily or opinion, trade or union press) in the years from 1950 to 1970
- the author refers to young people in vocational training with regard to one or more German-speaking Swiss cantons
- apprentices or young people in vocational training are referred to conceptually - primarily the apprentice (as protagonist) is reported on
- the apprentice is not only a marginal topic, but is in medias of the reporting
A few months after the analysis of the newspaper articles of the daily and opinion press, reports of the trade union press as well as the Swiss trade newspaper were subjected to an analysis in the sense of a control group.
In addition to the daily and opinion press, the viewpoint of the trade press as well as the trade union press was included in the investigation insofar as it concerned two of the major associations and two major players in vocational education and training within the selected period of investigation. In addition, the reports in the trade and union press also partially covered the commercial and industrial perspectives of vocational education and training. The aim was to find out whether what was written about apprentices in the daily and opinion press corresponded to what was written in the trade union and industrial press, or whether differences emerged here.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsBy means of a discourse-analytical approach, three images of apprentices could be typified, suggesting that at different points in time, different things were written and thought about the apprentice/apprentice daughter at the interface of society and politics. In the years from 1950 to 1960, youth in vocational training were predominantly discussed as a "factor of production" or a "factor in the national economy." Apprentices were not perceived as subjects with individual needs, but, to exaggerate, were subjected to (verbal) objectification. Inconveniences and grievances were not brought to public attention in the course of protest actions, but were accepted out of a conformist attitude corresponding to the generation of the postwar period. Around 1960, at a time when vocational education was increasingly dealing with psychological and sociological findings, the tide turned and the apprentice was increasingly seen as a young person in mental and physical development who needed to be protected. In view of the lack of educational offers and opportunities, young professionals were declared to be at a disadvantage compared to secondary school students. The years from 1967 onward then represented a turning point and a kind of contrast program, insofar as apprentices now gradually broke away from structures of conformism and began to have their say in public, in the print media and on television. Protest actions and street battles that occurred from 1968 onward should consequently be seen as outlets for that discontent that had accumulated in the preceding years due to accepted grievances and inadequacies.
An outlook shows that starting in the 1970s and with an increase in the proportion of school-based training, apprentices were more strongly perceived as learners and accepted in their multiple roles (working, educating and learning).
The development of the apprentice from a working to a learning subject is emerging.
ReferencesBecker, R., & Zangger, C. (2013). Die Bildungsexpansion in der Schweiz und ihre Folgen. Eine empirische Analyse des Wandels der Bildungsbeteiligung und Bildungsungleichheiten mit den Daten der Schweizer Volkszählungen 1970, 1980, 1990 und 2000. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 423–449.
Berner, E. (2019). Der „Lehrling“: Qualifizierung einer Kategorie im schweizerischen Rechtsdiskurs (1870–1930): Die „Economie des conventions“ in der Bildungsforschung. In C. Imdorf, R. J. Leemann, & P. Gonon (Hrsg.), Bildung und Konventionen: Die „Economie des conventions“ in der Bildungsforschung. (1., S. 311–340). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Bonoli, L. (2017). An Ambiguous Identity. The figure of the apprentice from the XIX century up to today in Switzerland. In F. Marhuenda (Hrsg.), Vocational Education beyond Skill Formation. VET between Civic, Industrial and Market Tensions. (S. 31–49).
Freidorfer, L. (2020). Vom „Lehrling“ zum „Lernenden “ – Zur Wahrnehmung Jugendlicher in Ausbildung im Zuge der Transformation der beruflichen Bildung. bwp@, 38, 1–34.
Gonon, P., & Freidorfer, L. (2022). Education and Training Regimes within the Swiss Vocational Education and Training System. A Comparison of the Cantons of Geneva, Ticino and Zurich in the Context of Educational Expansion. Education Sciences, 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12010020
Habermas, Jürgen. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Suhrkamp, 1990.
Habermas, Jürgen. Faktizität und Geltung: Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats. Suhrkamp, 1992.
Rieger, A. (2001). Bildungsexpansion und ungleiche Bildungspartizipation am Beispiel der Mittelschulen im Kanton Zürich, 1830 bis 1980. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Bildungswissenschaften, 41.
Sloane, Peter F. E. „Öffentlichkeit und Berufsbildung.“ Zeitschrift für Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik., Nr. 112 (2016): 3–14.
Strohmeier, Gerd. Politik und Massenmedien : eine Einführung. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2004.
Wettstein, E. (1987). Die Entwicklung der Berufsbildung in der Schweiz. Sauerländer.
Wettstein, E. (2020). Berufsbildung—Entwicklung des Schweizer Systems. (1.). hep.
02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Paper
Top Dead Center. The Transformation of a Lexical Item into Practical Work in Bilingual Vocational Education
Janne Kontio
Stockholm University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Kontio, Janne
The present study focuses on second language users in the language learning environment of an English-medium content and language integrated learning (CLIL) workshop at an auto mechanics class in a Swedish upper secondary school. Data are drawn from video-ethnographic work during two years in a Vehicle engineering program taught in and through a foreign language; English.
The settings of Swedish schools of auto mechanics have recently been defined in various studies as a very rich soil for researchers to dig deeper into issues of language, learning and the productions of identities due to very rapid changes undergone by the program in the last decade (cf. Kontio, 2016; Nehls, 2003; Rosvall, 2011). Traditionally the students of auto mechanics in Sweden have leaned heavily on very normative masculine understandings of what learning in school in general is and specifically manifested in a disinterest in second language learning (Beach et. al., 1999).
The analyses here concern how and in what ways a certain second language lexical is transformed from teacher-impelled learnables, into the contextualization and visualization of the concept, and finally as actual professional practice, and how this can be seen to play an important role in building an English-speaking classroom community of becoming professionals of bilingual auto mechanics.
A linguistic ethnographic approach (Rampton, 2007) is taken in order to explore how teachers’ and students’ second language teaching and learning activities are organized. It is found that teachers introduce the lexical item first as a learnable, then how it can be used to engage in complex understanding, and finally how to implement the item in actual practice. It is here argued that engaging in these lexical learning trajectories should be seen as conditional for language learning and peer group participation at the English medium instruction Vehicle program.
The study also demonstrates that second language learning in vocational CLIL classrooms is orderly, it is related to the progression of learning trajectories, often made explicit by humorous interaction.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe interactional approach used here to understand second language learning, language use and professional identity work, is an eclectic combination of linguistic ethnography as a framework for studying language use (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Rampton et al, 2004; Rampton, 2007); ethnomethodological conversation analysis with a focus on participant perspectives and identities (Gafaranga, 2001; Garfinkel, 1967; Stokoe 2012); and the concept of communities of practice (Eckert & Rickford, 2001; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Common to the three different orientations is an overarching aim of pursuing to understand language use and identities as both locally produced and situated in interaction, as well as socio-historically coded.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWhen analyzing the trajectory of learning in the extracts pulled out to this presentation, it has become clear that the work done by the teachers, to introduce a lexical item and putting it into work to expand an understanding for a complex vehicular process, can be traced to have an important impact on how the students then use and reproduce professional knowledge in practical work.
Furthermore, this chapter tries to expand CA in VET research by the way of analyzing the trajectories of activities that develop and extend beyond the immediate sequential context. The longitudinal data collection has allowed for analyses of how learning trajectories are produced and how the participants progress along these trajectories, that lead not only from not-knowing into professional and practical learning, but also from peripheral into a fuller participation and growth. The conceptualization of learning as changing participation has been formulated differently by researchers. I tend to lean more towards Hellermann’s understanding that it is important to analyze members’ change in participation in activities within a community of practice over time (2008:13). Learning is not done in any one of these three extracts, one could argue, but rather, learning can be seen in a change in participation when analyzing the entire learning trajectory over time. In these extracts we can see that the students are introduced to a lexical item, then conquer its meaning, and finally they own the lexical item, even changing its pronunciation.
ReferencesKontio, J. (2016). Auto Mechanics in English : Language Use and Classroom Identity Work. (Diss.) Uppsala university, Uppsala.
Kontio, J., & Evaldsson, A. C. (2015). ‘Last year we used to call it a man’s hammer’:(un) doing masculinity in everyday use of working tools within vocational education. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies,
10(1), 20-38.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University press.
Lave, J. (1993). The Practice of Learning. In Seth Chaiklin & Jean Lave (Eds.),
Understanding Practice. Perspectives on Activity and Context (pp. 3-32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Præstmann Hansen, R. (2009). Autoboys.dk: en analyse af maskulinitets- og etnicitetskonstruktioner i skolelivet på automekanikeruddannelsen. (Diss.) Copenhagen, Copenhagen University.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Paper
Meaningfulness in Third Learning Environment in VET
Vibe Aarkrog1, Anne Katrine Kamstrup2
1Aarhus University; 2Copenhagen University College
Presenting Author: Aarkrog, Vibe;
Kamstrup, Anne Katrine
The abstract concerns a current research project about students’ creation and perception of meaningfulness in different learning environments in vocational education and training (VET). In a pilot study conducted in 2022-2023 we combined a literature review about meaningfulness in VET with a minor qualitative empirical study including focus group interviews with students in four VET programmes.
The results from the literature review shows that the concept of meaningful is frequently used in VET research. However, the concept is not defined and seems to be perceived as an automatic consequence of specific activities in VET. Thus, meaningfulness is related to training and learning in authentic environments (Nordby, Knain & Jónsdóttir, 2017; (Andersen, Benthien, Hersom, Hjermov & Pedersen, 2022). Authentic environments can be established through digital simulation (Brito, Almeida & Osório, 2021) e.g., in ‘third learning environments’ (author, 2022a) Meaningfulness is related to the students’ goal orientation (Author, 2022b; Hacıeminoğlu, 2021; Schmid, Jørstad & Nordlie, 2021). Meaningfulness has also been shown to be related to negotaing how to solve practical task (Asplund, Kilbrink & Asghari, 2021) and to teachers’ feedback on students’ work (Johannsson, Wärvik & Choy, 2019).
Inspired by Ausubel’s concept of ‘meaningful learning’ (Ausubel, 1968), Jonasson et al have found that meaningfulness is strengthened through students’ active reflection as part of the learning process (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). Howland, Jonassen, & Marra propose five dimensions of meaningful learning: the students should collaborate, be active, relate learning to the real world, relate previous learning to current learning, and formulate own learning goals (Howland, Jonassen, & Marra, 2012).
The empirical qualitative study of the pilot study showed that the students related meaningfulness to close interrelation between theory and practice, to social interactions with fellow students or with colleagues in the work-based training, and to committed teachers.
Based on the results from the pilot project, the main project (April 1-December 31, 2023) will focus on defining and operationalising meaningfulness and on studying meaningfulness in relation to authentic learning environments and situations of social interaction among students.
Third learning environments have become increasingly important due to lack of real apprenticeships, to a limited scope of tasks and consequently training opportunities in real workplaces, and to the expenses related to making mistakes in real apprentices. Assuming that a third learning environment combining simulating authentic tasks with reflection will enhance students’ opportunities for creating meaningfulness, the main project will mainly focus on third learning environments. Third learning environments can be situated in school workplace contexts, serving as a supplement to training in real workplaces.
The main project concerns the following research questions:
- What does meaningfulness mean to VET students?
- How do the students create meaningfulness in VET?
- Concerning creation of meaning, how do third learning environments distinguish themselves from the learning environment in school-based respectively workplace-based part of VET?
- How can meaningfulness be strengthened in third learning environments?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe project combines a mapping of third learning environments nationally and internationally with qualitative cases based on observation and interviews with students and trainers about creation and perception of meaningfulness in third learning environments. Furthermore, the interviews should include eliciting ideas about opportunities for developing third learning environments that underpin meaningfulness. Development of the research methods is in progress. However, the study is expected to include 3-4 different types of third learning environments. In the pilot project we have tried out methods in the interviews with the students that activate the students. Apart from choosing focus group interviews with 4-5 students the students have been asked to take notes about their perception of meaningfulness and to select photos that they perceive as showing meaningful aspect of the education and the future profession. These methods having been proved to activate the students, we plan to continue using these methods in the main project.
Concerning the theoretical framework, psychological needs having been shown to influence sense of meaningfulness (Martela, Ryan & Steger, 2018), the theoretical frame will include self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Furthermore, the tradition from David Ausubel (Ausubel, 1968) is expected to be useful as well as John Dewey’s concepts of action, reflection, and experience (Dewey 1933).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe design of the study is currently being developed. The study is expected to shed light on the following assumptions:
1. Sense of meaningfulness is related to the psychological needs of feeling autonomy, competence, relatedness, and beneficence. These needs can be particularly strengthened in third learning environments avoiding the work load of real work practices.
2. Meaningfulness is not only a question of relating to authentic tasks and practices; the perception of meaningfulness depends on reflecting on authentic tasks.
3. Compared to school-based training and workplace-based training, third learning environments will be particularly suited for strengthening the students’ perception of meaningfulness, because the students can combine action and reflection, performing in environments that allow for making mistakes.
ReferencesAndersen, O.D., Benthien, F.L., Hersom, H. Hjermov, P. & Pedersen, L. (2022) Stem-relaterede grundfag i erhvervsuddannelserne. En undersøgelse af motiverende, helhedsorienteret undervisning. (Eng: Stem-related general subjects in VET. A study of motivating, holistic education) NCE, KP.
Ausubel, D. P. (1968) Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. New York: Grune and Stratton.
Author 2022a, 2022b
Brito, L. P., Almeida, L. S. & Osório, A. J. (2021). Seeing in believing: impact of digital simulation pedagogical use in spatial geometry classes. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning, 17(2), 109-123.
Dewey, J. (1933) How we think. a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. D.C. Heath & Co.
Hacıeminoğlu, E. (2021) Factors Predicting Middle School Pupils’ Learning Orientations: A Multilevel Analysis. Education Quarterly Reviews Vol.4, No.3, 409-423.
Johansson, M.W., Wärvik, G.-B. & Choy, S (2019) Vocationalising Specialized Concepts: Appropriating Meanings Through Feedback. Vocations and Learning (2019) 12:197–215.
Jonassen, D. H., Howland, J., Moore, J., & Marra, R. M. (2003). Learning to solve problems with technology: A constructivist perspective. New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Martela, F., Ryan, R. M., & Steger, M. F. (2018) Meaningfulness as satisfaction of autonomy, competence, relatedness, and beneficence: Comparing the four satisfactions and positive affect as predictors of meaning in life. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 19(5), 1261–1282.
Nordby, M., Knain, E. & Jónsdóttir, G. (2017) Vocational students’ meaning-making in school science – negotiating authenticity through multimodal mobile learning. Nordina: Nordic Studies in Science Education 13(1), 52-65. doi:10.5617/nordina.2976.
Ryan, R. M., and Deci, E. L. (2017) Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Schmid, E., Jørstad, B. & Nordlie, G.S. (2021) How schools contribute to keeping students on track: Narratives from vulnerable students in vocational education and training. NJVET, Vol. 11, No. 3, 47–65.
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