Conference Agenda

The presentation investigates the intrinsic logics of the (learning) outcome orientation in vocational education (VE) through a linguistic analysis. The paper focuses on the Finnish term osaaminen, which is commonly used as an equivalent to competency, skill, and (learning) outcome. Notably, osaaminen does not denote learning, nor does it collocate with learning in Finnish VE policy. This explains the brackets in (learning) outcome. The ambiguity surrounding osaaminen illustrates a broader tension in its association with education.

Theoretically, the paper draws on the sociology of education, particularly research on competency-based training (CBT) and policy transfer in VE. The use of skill and competency as central descriptors of CBT in VE originates in the Anglophone world but has travelled successfully across contexts (Wheelahan, Moodie & Doughney 2022). Over recent decades, these (learning) outcome models have been adopted in EU and member state policies, thereby framing VE through concepts such as competency (Lassnig 2012). Consequently, Finnish VE is strongly oriented towards (learning) outcomes through the application of CBT (Rosenblad 2023; Pietilä 2025).

However, although EU policy aims for coherence through the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) remain embedded in national contexts. During policy transfer, finding satisfactory equivalents for key concepts has proven difficult, and in some cases unsuccessful, due to cultural, historical, and institutional differences in how VE and central concepts are understood (e.g., Clarke & Winch 2006; Brockmann et al. 2008).

In national policies, the (learning) outcome materialises as sequences of letters—that is, words in national languages. This process is far from merely technical; it has significant implications for educational policy thinking. Nevertheless, we possess limited knowledge of how these translated concepts function in national contexts. This paper therefore examines osaaminen as one linguistic vehicle used in Finnish policy transfer. It addresses the following question: How, why, and in what ways does osaaminen operate in the VE policy context?

Vocational education and training (VET) plays a pivotal role in the initial socialisation and professional integration of young people into the workforce and into society. “Early contract dissolutions” (Huismann & Hippach-Schneider, 2023) are therefore considered problematic for the young people concerned, for companies and for society. Research on this topic has grown considerably over the last ten years (Böhn & Deutscher, 2022). This applies primarily to questions about the structural determinants of early contract dissolutions (Krötz & Deutscher, 2022; Kriesi et al., 2016), including the perspective of the apprentices themselves (Bosset et al., 2022) and the individual consequences for career development at an individual level (Stadler & Schmid; 2016, Schmid, 2010). Early contract dissolutions are a widely discussed topic internationally, including the associated conceptual and terminological differentiation (Cedefop, 2016; Huismann & Hippach-Schneider, 2023).

Although the political problematisation of this phenomenon seems to be subject to its own rationales, it was already in the 1970s attributed to function as a “thermometer for identifying existing strengths and weaknesses in vocational education and training” (Nigg & Gelb, 1979). In VET research, this period is regarded as the “decisive years” in the development of dual VET in particular (Bonoli & Gonon, 2023). During these years, VET had to respond to several key challenges, including meeting the very high demand for skilled workers and responding to new social expectations. The debates of the time focused on the need to put “all available reserves” to work and enable all “talents” to access higher-level education and training. In this context, early contract dissolutions, a phenomenon that has always existed in VET, take on renewed significance. To grasp this renewed significance, it is crucial to examine the structural development of early contract dissolutions and how they were referenced in contemporary discourse.

For this reason, this paper offers a new lens on the development of dual VET. First, the data and debates surrounding early contract dissolutions are used analytically as a “thermometer” to examine these “decisive years” for VET. To date, the historical development of early contract dissolutions has hardly been considered in VET research. Second, adopting a historical approach to the phenomenon of early contract dissolutions allows for a more nuanced perspective on today’s controversies surrounding their political, educational and economic significance. While existing studies have generated a rich body of knowledge on the definition, the background and the consequences of early contract dissolutions in VET, they rarely consider how their significance depends on changing historical expectations towards VET.

We are therefore asking two questions: (1) How have early contract dissolutions and the political debates surrounding them changed during the period of educational expansion in the 1960s and 1970s? (2) What does their renewed significance reveal about changing expectations of VET?

In response to the growing needs associated with an ageing population, the training and competencies of care and support staff in long-term care institutions have gained renewed prominence in Switzerland (Merçay et al., 2024). Public swiss french authorities have recently demonstrated a strong commitment to enhancing the skills of a workforce that is highly experienced yet formally underqualified. In this context, federal training programmes are being offered to professionals, many of whom have migrant backgrounds and lack formal qualifications. These programmes aim to develop and broaden their competencies, particularly in care, support and social care activities, while fostering reflective capacities that may ultimately enable them to access professional status recognised at a federal level. We were commissioned to evaluate these training programmes through a research-intervention project.

To respond to this evaluation, and support participants' professional development, we encouraged professionals to analyse their own practices through video-based interaction analysis.This method has been increasingly recognised and understood in the social sciences as both a research method and a 'pedagogical institution' that supports learning and development (Harris et al., 2012; Stevanovic & Weiste, 2017; Stokoe, 2014). Recent experiments have explored the potential for 'data sessions' based on conversation analysis principles to facilitate the development of interactional competence in vocational training contexts (Filliettaz, Garcia & Zogmal, 2022).

Our contribution focuses on this practice collective analysis approaches inspired by the principles of interaction analysis (Filliettaz, 2018; Filliettaz et al., 2021) and on how it can foster the interactional competence of the professionnals participanting. All language coordination involves the mobilisation of interactional competence, defined as the set of abilities enabling interactants to participate effectively in an interaction by coordinating their actions and accomplishing the social activity in which they are engaged (Young & Miller, 2004). Shaped by the socio-historical context of the activity in question (Pekarek Doehler, 2006) and visible through the behaviour of the participants, interactional competence is subject to continuous evaluation and regulation throughout the interaction (Mondada, 2006). Our contribution will focus on how participants use filmed footage to coordinate their efforts in describing their professional activity and indentify their professionnal competences. It also examines how they mobilise, share and co-construct knowledge and expertise related to their professional activity, and how this enables them to define themselves as professionals.

The aim of the study is to understand the meanings general upper secondary students (hereafter: gymnasium) in Estonian context attribute to their work experience and how students and employers perceive/recognise the interrelations between school and workplaces.

The rationale behind the study is twofold:

first, the share of students working alongside the school studies in general education programmes is growing in Estonia. Over half of students up to 17 years old worked during the school year (Ministry of Social Affairs, 2020) and over 60% of students had work experience outside the school, whether short-term, temporary paid work, voluntary work, family businesses etc. (Erss et al., 2024).

secondly, while work experience of vocational students in formal vocational programmes is rather well addressed by researchers, significance of work experience of general education students in authentic work environments is rather underestimated.

Furthermore, gymnasium has traditionally been viewed as a gateway to academic education and preparation for university education; however, the question of how to establish a connection at earlier stages of general education between what is learned at school and the skills required in the labour market has become increasingly important (Education Strategy 2021–2035). The earlier studies have shown that practical work experience of general education students in authentic environments significantly develops skills that are important both in working life and more broadly in life, such as social, self-regulation skills and other generic skills. Such experiences also shape young people’s career awareness and competencies related to learner agency and therefore, makes easier coping with the vulnerability of working life (e.g Billett and Ovens, 2007, Erss et al., 2024; Loogma et al., 2024). Nevertheless, the acquisition of these types of experiences largely remains outside the formal curriculum of general education and is weakly interrelated with and may remain invisible in the school. (Peterson et al., 2025).

However, the trend that more gymnasium students want to acquire work experience alongside the school studies reflect the wider learning ecology, emphasising that students in formal education programs learn in various ways in various environments (e.g Selliov, 2017), such as web-environments (incl AI), social media networks, museums etc being simultaneously involved in a complex set of institutions, interrelations, activities, and social actors (Weaver-Hightower, 2008). However, workplaces are continuously one of the most important learning environments in these learning ecologies, to cope better with the fragile, unsustainable world and in the world of work (Jackson, 2023). At the same time, access to various learning environments can be uneven, depending on many factors, such as family situation, location, academic abilities and others that may create experience gaps and new inequalities (Barron & Bell, 2015).

We approaching the issue from the viewpoint of social ecology to understand better interrelations between school and workplace learning in the context of general secondary education emphasising on two main aspects: 1) students´ meanings of the competences they develop at work and 2) interrelationships between learning at school and workplace.

Thus, the research questions are: Which competences and abilities general education students think they develop through work experience? How do students and employers perceive the interrelations between general upper secondary schools and workplaces?