In Swedish floristry education, it is possible to obtain a floristry certificate by testing skills in a vocational test. Recommended time for preparing the test is, minimum, 200 hours. Often, it is an integrated part of the floristry educational structure and curriculum, taking place late in the education. Even if the test is voluntary, it has become influential since it is a prerequisite to become a journeyman. In a sense, the test is a gatekeeper for students who want to become part of the community of practice (Wenger, 1998). Nonetheless, it is not connected to school curriculum in any compulsory sense.

Students perform the test during a day. The following day, teachers assess their work. Significant in this assessment process, is group discussions formed by understanding and interpretation of the grading scales in the Swedish Certificate in Floral Design. When assessing, teachers make personal judgments, followed by group assessment where personal judgments are transformed into a joint assessment. Noteworthy, is how the assessment actions involve lots of parameters where new understanding develops through relational knowing (Adiea et al., 2012; Lindberg&Löfgren, 2010; Carlgren, 2011). In this process, knowing becomes both defined and institutionalised through the assessment actions. Moreover, the process exemplifies how vocational knowing is part of an institutionalised handicraft movement and tradition, since the tacit dimension is frequently shown in teachers’ embodied actions (Polanyi, 1966).

By interpreting assessment actions performed between teachers and related to their students’ work; the issue of this paper is to discuss the content of floristry teachers’ assessment action of vocational knowing, and how it is exposed in embodied talk -in- interaction. The purpose of the paper is twofold. Primarily, to give an overview of floristry vocational knowing, seen from interpersonal performativity in assessment actions. Secondly, to line out critical incidents in the process that moderates floristry vocational knowing. The research question is: What is significant for relational floristry knowing – seen in a test situation – and how is it embodied in action?

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