This paper focuses on analysing and discussing learning about professional self among vocational teachers. Although the importance of vocational training for the competitiveness of companies and economies, and the significance of vocational teachers for developing the future skilled workforce are underlined in contemporary knowledge-based society and changing working life (Grollman & Rauner, 2007), we still have only limited understanding of how vocational teachers themselves learn through and at work. The present study therefore aims to investigate vocational teachers’ learning about professional selves within the constraints and opportunities of work practices. In theoretical terms, learning at work is seen as the process and outcome of a relational interdependence between individuals and the social practices that comprise their workplace (Billett & Smith, 2006). This means, that learning is understood as an active, ubiquitous and ongoing process, which occurs as individuals engage in workplace practices, daily goal-directed activities, and work communities (e.g. Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2004). Furthermore, learning is not seen solely as a matter of acquiring knowledge, developing professional competency or accumulating abilities and skills; it is also thought to be as related to individuals’ professional identities, subjectivities and sense of self (Billett, Fenwick & Somerville, 2006; Billett, Harteis & Eteläpelto, 2008).

To gain more insight into vocational teachers’ learning about their professional selves, thirty open-ended narrative interviews were conducted. In 2006, sixteen Finnish vocational teachers were interviewed from one vocational institution, and fourteen of these teachers were re-interviewed in 2007. The teachers varied by age (31-57 years), gender (10 men and 6 women), and length of teaching experience (4-30 years). The participants taught in various study programmes, covering various fields of initial VET. The data were analysed in accordance with narrative analysis approaches (Riessman, 2008).

Among the vocational teachers, learning about professional self is intertwined with both daily work activities and major events, such as career changes into teaching, burn out situations, educational reforms, and organisational changes. The individual learning processes involve that the teachers perceive their professional identities, agencies, competencies, and resources, and decide how to engage with and commit to work. On the one hand, this kind of learning seems to lead to a less involved approach to work, to leaving from organisation, or to the decision to take sabbatical leave, when there is a tension between individual requirements and social affordances. On the other hand, the teachers are strongly committed to their work and enthusiastically engaged with their work practices, when they perceive a balance between individual and social contributions. The paper discusses how individuals’ engagement with and commitment to work can be supported, and thematises the nature of workplace learning.