In floristry teaching, flowers, human actions, and tradition are intertwined as constitutive features that all need to be taken into account when analysing subject-specific knowing. Indeed, material (flowers) carries meaning as they represent a way to communicate knowing in teaching. In this paper, the concept of imitation is used to understand material as mediators of action in teaching (e.g.Wertsch, 1989). When making, imitation requires presence – a reflective practice – between seeing a model and acting upon visual representations (e.g.Molander, 1996). Moreover, imitation is a complex activity involving embodied structures of human interaction that maintain the quest for a shared seeing – and conceptual codes. The aim of the study is to discuss transaction of specific knowing of what is being known and how that reflects cultural values and ideas about hierarchy of material within a certain product. By focusing on concrete objects in-depth, marginalised knowing within floristry as subject in school becomes visible. This motivates this study, and is of special interest since it entails tensions between the consumer perspective and the shopkeeper perspective, in teaching the subject according to the tradition. The overall research question that leads the path through the paper is phrased in the following words: What is imitation in action – as a mediated tool – and what characterises appropriation of seeing flowers as meaning making?

An analytical distinction is made between the system of representation (Hall, 1997) and disciplined perception as an answer to mastery and appropriation in an educational setting (e.g. Wertsch, 1998). The distinction is of importance when discussing imitation as part of the teaching tradition – a didactic tool. Indeed, one can claim the problematic features of imitation, however, it might also be considered as being a goal of action in itself. The latter is understood as mediated actions. This relates to considering perception as collective rather than individual and how representation operates as symbols. By putting emphasis on shared attention when learning cultural stereotypes in the format of a ceremonial product, categorisation is being discussed as a question of learning to ‘see’.

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