Educational success for all children highly concerns educational researchers and policy makers today. Most often, this is associated with school improvement. The arguments are still the same as in Howard Becker’s (1972) classic article, which compares the structural characteristics of schools and of on-the-job learning. Notwithstanding the  résumé that, due to inherent structural defects, schools are ‘a lousy place to learn anything in’, Becker argues that on-the-job-learning has still worse structural defects, as it provides, in its extreme form, only narrow skills (‘If a person can get a job doing one of the tasks of the bundle, he knows enough to be an acceptable member of the trade’ (Becker 1972, p. 102), whereas a school would teach the whole bundle). Moreover, on-the-job-learning depends ‘on contingencies unrelated to education or training’ (Becker 1972, p.99), such as ‘the press to do more important business’ (Becker 1972, p. 97). This presentation inquires into the modalities of organisation of on-the-job-learning and the effects they can give rise to, not by the example of Becker’s theoretical extreme case, but by the living example of the ‘dual system’ of vocational education and training (VET) in Germany with its focus on legally regulated in-company learning and with imaginary learners who value another than the deductive thinking transmitted in scholastic learning (cf. Höhns 2013, 2016). With concepts and models developed by the British sociologist Basil Bernstein and on the basis of empirical research, the presentation systematises interrelations between influences from the world of work and training in a company and so makes a contribution to a better understanding of in-company transmission.

The research presented here is part of a project to find out possible interrelations between experiences in German in-company VET and later career developments (Dorau, Höhns et al. 2009). Some of the structural defects Becker identified about on-the-job-training, such as narrowness of skills transmission, the ‘dual system’ tries to avoid by establishing in legal provisions a strong macro-social discourse (cf. Höhns 2016). Yet,as Bernstein points out, this macro-social discourse may well become distorted at the micro-level of transmission, in view of the permeable boundary between the transmission site ‘training-company’ and the world of work, so that Becker’s arguments against in-company learning would remain valid.  When external constraints prevent in-company teaching and learning, this may well lead to instable career developments after graduation. Therefore, researchers developed an instrument for the typification of phenomena emanating from the external world and interfering with in-company learning, which shall be presented here.

In Bernstein’s (1977, 1990, 2000) terms, the locus of control over these phenomena is called ‘external framing’. Bernstein’s structuralist-inspired theories usefully complement Becker’s reflexions about the structural assets and defects of transmission. Both authors use the same central concepts, such as transmitters/teachers, acquirers/learners, time and space of transmission, and Bernstein points to their interrelatedness. For example, pedagogic discourse for Bernstein is a specific interrelation of time, space and discourse, going along with particular assumptions about who transmitters and acquirers are and who they should become. Pedagogic discourse, in turn, for Bernstein is related, in a non-determinative way, to pedagogic practice, which, through the ‘code’, positions transmitters and acquirers, that is, it establishes a specific relation to other subjects and creates specific relationships within subjects (cf. Bernstein 1990, p. 10). ‘Framing’, alongside with ‘classification’, is part of Bernstein’s definition of ‘code’ and so contributes to learners’ positioning. ‘External framing’, referring to the control over influences from outside on the learning situation, here, from the world of work on the in-company transmission, also contributes to learners’ positioning. The presentation shows typologies of external framing of in-company transmission.

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