Learner Identity and Apprenticeships- A Question of Social Justice?
Author(s):
Michaela Brockmann (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

02 SES 05 C, Transitions: Apprenticeships, Learning and Sense of Self

Paper Session

Time:
2015-09-09
11:00-12:30
Room:
238. [Main]
Chair:
Vidmantas Tutlys
Discussant:
Leif Christian Lahn

Contribution

Apprenticeship policy in Britain has long been marked by a curious and unresolved conflict. While successive governments have sought to ‘scoop up’ so-called low achievers so as to address low participation rates in education, a critical aim has been to produce intermediate skills for the purpose of economic competitiveness (Fuller and Unwin, 2003; Avis, 2007; Simmons, 2013). 

The debate has been underpinned by the vocational-academic divide and assumptions of the ‘disaffected learner’ which have characterised vocational education and training (VET) in Britain (Simmons 2013; Roberts, 2012). It is based on the conception of VET as a form of learning that is separate and distinct from academic learning. The divide has been reinforced in much academic research depicting vocational learners as being ‘socialised’ into what are seen as low-skilled jobs, suggesting natural and abiding identities (e.g. Shildrick and MacDonald, 2007).

In recent years, commentators have increasingly challenged the variable quality of apprenticeships and, in particular, the scant attention afforded to theoretical knowledge on much provision, while the focus has been increasingly on measurable workplace skills (e.g. Bathmaker, 2012). Writers from the social realist tradition have argued that, in the interest of social justice, vocational education should provide both, disciplinary (‘powerful’) knowledge and workplace-specific knowledge and skills (e.g. Young, 2011; Wheelahan, 2010)

The paper is based on the author’s two ethnographic studies of apprentices in Britain and Germany, the aim of which was to gain an understanding of the construction of learner identities in ‘mainstream’ (motor mechanic) and ‘high-quality’ (engineering) apprenticeships. The first study (on motor mechanics) found that apprentices were not ‘naturally’ ‘practical learners’ but had been constituted as such through the discursive regimes of learning environments that privilege certain forms of knowledge. Apprentices performed the identity of the ‘practical learner’ which was crucially reinforced through the learning cultures of the various learning sites of the apprenticeship by, for example, privileging practical skills at the expense of theoretical knowledge, ultimately restricting young people’s life chances and raising questions about social justice. By contrast, in Germany, theoretical knowledge played a much more important role and identities were based on the integration of theory and practice.

The second study looked at engineering apprenticeships, commonly held up as examples of ‘high-quality’ provision in Britain, and explored the biographies and construction of learner identities of young people and of learning cultures within these programmes. In particular, the research questions were:

  • How do young people construct their learner identities over time and within the different learning cultures of the workplace and the college?
  • How do the experiences of apprentices differ in the two contrasting contexts of England and Germany?
  • To what extent do the learner identities and learning cultures differ between the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘high-quality’ apprenticeships?

The paper draws on Judith Butler’s (1990) work on performative identities. According to Butler, identities are discursively produced: rather than reflecting or expressing an enduring identity, it is the actions of individuals that constitute identity. As people strive for social acceptance by their peers, regulatory discursive regimes are upheld. The notion of performatively constituted identities emphasises that these are inherently unstable and subject to transformation. They appear to be enduring only insofar as they continue to be cited.

Michael Young’s (2008; 2011) concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ is applied to examine the nature of British VET, much of  which is restricted to context-specific knowledge that cannot easily be applied elsewhere and ties apprentices to their workplace. By making comparisons with the German system, the paper will question common assumptions of apprentices as ‘naturally’ ‘practical learners’ and thereby challenge the very principles of VET in Britain.

Method

Both studies were designed as multi-method ethnographies. These were based on individual case studies of British and German apprentices. The first study was based on 4 motor mechanic apprentices per country, who were recruited through colleges in Germany and Britain. The second study comprised a sample of 5 apprentices each in the British and German sites of a large engineering company. The design and methodology was the same in both studies. Biographic-interpretive interviews of up to 2 hours were conducted with the apprentices. The biographic-interpretive method is an ideal tool for soliciting the interviewee’s own frame of references, without imposing the researcher’s assumptions and meanings (Wengraf, 2001). Starting with a single question (‘I’m interested in the life stories of apprentices, would you like to tell me yours’), the young people were encouraged to develop their ‘story’ of experiences of learning, their career decision-making and of the apprenticeship. The interviews were recorded, subsequently transcribed and analysed according to the biographic interpretive methods, ideally suited to discern the inter-relationship between agency and structure. The interviews were complemented by participant observation (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007) in the two learning sites of apprenticeship – the college and the workplace, and by semi-structured interviews with key actors in these sites, such as college tutors and instructors. The observations were undertaken during two days each in the workplace and the college and were recorded through field notes. The resulting ‘thick description’ and interview data, together with documentary research, allowed for an analysis of the learning cultures or discursive regimes, including the structure and content of the apprenticeship programmes, the assumptions that underpinned them, and the meaning making by the key actors in these environments in interaction with each other. Through the various data sources it was possible to reconstruct the young people’s biographies and school-to-work transitions, their identity formation over time and within the particular learning environments of apprenticeship. In particular, it provided insight into the role of structural forces, such as is the institutional context of schools and apprenticeship, in the negotiation of the young people’s learner identities. Through the comparative design, it highlighted the different institutional structure of the British and German (vocational) education system and the impact this has on learner identities and young people’s life chances.

Expected Outcomes

In the study of engineering apprenticeships, commonly cited as examples of high quality provision in Britain, a somewhat ambivalent picture emerged. The British apprentices all had successful school careers, albeit that they preferred applied work, such as the natural sciences. While they had also pursued informal learning careers, these were not in opposition to their school experience. For these apprentices, their academic ability went hand in hand with an interest in ‘hands-on’ work. They had achieved high GCSE grades and all but one had originally intended to go to university (two had held conditional places at university). Their decision to do an apprenticeship instead was triggered above all by the rise in university fees. Apprenticeship was therefore a second choice. The learning culture in the engineering apprenticeship was again marked by the academic-vocational divide, although more ambivalently so, and the apprentices’ learner identities sat uneasily with the construction of apprenticeship as largely ‘practical’. As with the motor mechanic apprenticeship, the engineering programme was largely based on contextualised knowledge (knowledge ‘how to’), restricted to a narrow field of activity, rather than on disciplinary knowledge (knowledge ‘that’) within a comprehensive occupational field. The workplace required apprentices to do routine work on the factory shop floor. All apprentices indicated they wanted to move on after the apprenticeship, with two expressing regret of having started it. By contrast, the German programme was of extremely high quality and the young people’s first choice (including those with university entry qualifications). The higher status and recognition afforded to the German apprenticeship system resulted in smoother transitions and ‘secure’ learner identities in the context of a comprehensive occupational field. The paper argues that if apprenticeship in Britain is to constitute a genuine alternative to university, the academic-vocational dichotomy needs to be addressed.

References

Avis, J. (2007) Education, Policy and Social Justice, London: Continuum Bathmaker, A. (2013) ‘Defining ‘knowledge’ in vocational education qualifications in England: an analysis of key stakeholders and their constructions of knowledge, purposes and content’, Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 65 (1): 87-107. Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2003) 'Creating a 'Modern Apprenticeship': a critique of the UK's multi-sector, social inclusion approach', Journal of Education and Work 16(1): 5-25. Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (2007) Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London: Routledge. Roberts, K. (2012) ‘Education to work transitions: How the old middle went missing and why the new middle remains elusive’, Sociological Review Online, 18 (1): http://www.socresonline.org.uk/18/1/3.html (accessed 5/1/15). Shildrick, T. and MacDonald, R. (2007) 'Biographies of exclusion: poor work and poor transitions', International Journal of Lifelong Education 26(5): 589-604. Simmons, R. (2013) ‘’Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, Mr Macfarlane’: Further education after the coalition, in: Education beyond the Coalition: reclaiming the agenda, M. Allen and P. Ainly (eds), London: Radicaled Books, 82-105. Wengraf, T. (2001) Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage Wheelahan, L. (2010) Why Knowledge Matters in the Curriculum, London and New York: Routledge. Young, M.F.D. (2008) Bringing Knowledge Back In: From social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education, London: Routledge. Young, M.F.D (2011) ‘The return of subjects: a sociological perspective on the UK Coalition government’s approach to the 14–19 curriculum’, Curriculum Journal, 22: 265–278

Author Information

Michaela Brockmann (presenting / submitting)
University of Southampton
Education
Southampton

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