Session Information
02 SES 12 B, Learning V: Knowledge & Competence
Paper Session
Contribution
In some European countries, the initial vocational education and training (VET) programs in school consist of vocational subjects and academic subjects, such as science, mathematics, language, etc. Policy reports and research studies have consistently shown that vocational students often find these academic subjects of little interest and relevance (Bell & Donnelly, 2009; Gjelstad, 2015; Iversen et al., 2014; Niemi & Rosvall, 2013). The concept of relevance can be seen as having individual, societal as well as vocational dimensions (Stuckey, Hofstein, Mamlok-Naaman, & Eilks, 2013). Moreover, such disinterest has been explored in terms of student disengagement, e.g. students asking frequently for breaks (Hjelmér, Lappalainen, & Rosvall, 2010), the lack of preparing for citizenship (Nylunda & Rosvall, 2016) and early school leaving where one of the reasons for students leaving VET early is that the students expect more practical tuition (Cedefop, 2016). To remedy this situation, several initiatives and curriculum reforms have intended to make the subjects more relevant for the students. However, in many of these initiatives, “relevance” is located in the content of the subjects.
This paper uses an ethnographic study of a building and construction program in Norway to suggest that a focus on curricular content only, might not be sufficient to understand why vocational students tend to find academic subjects of little relevance. Instead, we propose that a focus on knowledge practices provides a fruitful approach to question this in more depth. We approach practices as “embodied, materially arrays of human activity centrally organized around shared practical understanding” Schatzki (2001, p. 2). This implies that practices take place in physical space and time. Human activities are restrained by structures, in this case, imposed by the school as an institution – and the nature of the school subjects. However, the people involved in the knowledge practices have the possibility to shape their activities.
The emphasis on how knowledge is organized, constructed and arranged, what Knorr-Cetina (1999) calls “the machineries of knowledge construction”, allows an analytic focus that moves us beyond content. Knorr-Cetina contends that these machineries are organized and operate differently in different fields of knowledge. However, these structures and the dynamics, values and assumptions that drive them are often implicit and tacit parts of a practice – unless different fields are contrasted. Building on amongst other Knorr-Cetina’s Epistemic cultures (1999), the concept of knowledge practices has been explored and operationalized within the field of professional education. There, knowledge practices is a concept that denotes the ways in which knowledge is approached, developed and shared among the actors in a setting (Jensen, Nerland, & Enqvist-Jensen, 2015, p. 869). Thus, a focus on knowledge practices allows us to move beyond the traditional emphasis on ‘knowledge as content’ to knowledge as investigative processes, modes of inquiry and principles for verification as part of the school activities. Furthermore, a focus on knowledge practices allows for the incorporation of tacit forms of knowledge – knowledge that is performed bodily without being accompanied by language (Collins, 2001).
We suggest the usefulness of bringing knowledge practices as a theoretical and analytical approach to VET. When the students engage in traditional academic subjects as well as vocational subjects, there will be a range of different activities that might have different epistemic qualities and approaches. The concept knowledge practices can be used to explore the patterns in how knowledge is approached, developed, validated and shared within the different subjects embedded in the vocational program we studied.
Method
The empirical material stems from an ethnographic case study conducted in a building and construction program in a Norwegian upper secondary school. The research team conducted participant observation of a group of 12 students who were in the first year of the program. The team observed, and partly participated in, the class’s activities for 20 days in the period from January to May of 2018. To simplify a complex context, we focused on contrasting knowledge practices in the vocational subjects, which tend to take place in the workshop and knowledge practices in the academic subjects where teaching and learning for the most part take place in the classroom. However, the actual practices might vary also within – as well as between – the workshop and the classroom, depending on the task and knowledge content at hand. In this presentation, we pose the following research question: How can knowledge practices in the school workshop and classroom be described and compared? The research team designed a template for field notes to ensure that notes would be comparable. The field notes focused on descriptions of everyday school practices and knowledge activities the students engaged in. The research team compared notes to calibrate our observational focus and to compare our understanding of various events and moments. In addition to the field notes, we conducted two focus group interviews with students and one with the teachers. Standard procedures for informed consent and anonymity were followed. A few of the students declined to be interviewed, so the interviews represented only a sample of the students who participated in the overall study. The analysis of our data is inspired by Knorr Cetina’s (1999) comparison of epistemic cultures and Nerland’s (2018) analytical scheme in outlining constitutive elements of knowledge practices. We adjusted the scheme somewhat to account for time and space in the practices (Schatzki, 2010) and thus ended up with the following dimensions: types of knowledge tasks, types of knowledge processes, actors, sequence and duration in time, use of physical space and use of material objects. By comparing the knowledge practices in the school’s workshop and classroom, we are able to mirror and question each of the practices. Preliminary analyses were presented to students, teachers, and leaders of the school after data collection and initial coding and analysis had been completed for feedback and discussion.
Expected Outcomes
The table below outlines the results of a preliminary analysis of our data across all the dimensions of our analytical framework. We will be using this table as a starting point for more fine-grained analyses of the individual dimensions and of relationships and of co-occurring patterns between different dimensions in different subjects. The purpose here, then, is to show the potential inherent in this approach, rather than results for particular subjects. Classroom(C) Workshop(W) Knowledge content -task: (C:)Various. (W:)Various. Knowledge process: (C:)Finding and presenting info, remembering, applying general principles to specific instances. Wide range of acceptable solutions to and outcomes of problems. (W:)Application of technical knowledge, assessment and problem solving, solving specific instances, less explicit discussion of general principles. Some range of acceptable solutions to problems, but also instances of finite solutions/outcomes: unacceptable outcomes require students to start over. Actors: (C:)Mostly individual. (W:)Groups – collaboration (often one leader). Sequences – duration: (C:)Clear transitions, sometimes partly linked. (W:)Many small operations that make a visible difference (progression) in making a large concrete object over a long period of time. Use of physical space: (C:)Students are at desks, little movement. (W:)Students in constant movement. Use of material objects: (C:)Mostly passive use (some use of PC to find and look at info) (W:)Tools used all the time – to produce and assess operations. Based on this preliminary analysis, we suggest that a focus on knowledge practices has the potential to provide a richer and more precise analytical understanding of the problem of “relevance”, or lack of such, within the different subjects in VET. We end by asking how a more explicit understanding of how the differences in knowledge practices can be used in pedagogical practice to make the different subjects more accessible and relevant for students as future professionals and citizens.
References
Bell, J., & Donnelly, J. (2009). Applied Science in the English School Curriculum: The Meaning and Significance of "Vocationalization". Journal of curriculum studies, 41(1), 25-47. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00220270802527138 Cedefop. (2016). Leaving education early: putting vocational education and training centre stage. Volume I: investigating causes and extent. Retrieved from Luxembourg: Publications Office. Cedefop research paper; No 57. http://dx.doi.org/10.2801/893397 Collins, H. M. (2001). What is tacit knowledge? In T. R. Schatzki, K. K. Cetina, & E. Von Savigny (Eds.), The Practice Turn in contemporary Theory (pp. 107-119). Oxon: Routledge. Gjelstad, L. (2015). Skoleverkstedet som frigjørende handlingsrom. Yrkesfagelevers vilkår for faglig og sosial deltakelse i det post-industrielle Norge [The school workshop as an emancipating place. Vocational students' contitions for subject matter and social participation in post-industrialized Norway]. Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning, 18(1), 18-33. Hjelmér, C., Lappalainen, S., & Rosvall, P.-Å. (2010). Time, Space and Young People’s Agency in Vocational Upper Secondary Education: a cross-cultural perspective. European Educational Research Journal, 9(2), 245-256. Iversen, J. M. V., Haugset, A. S., Wendelborg, C., Martinsen, A., Røe, M., Nossum, G., & Stene, M. (2014). Yrkesretting og relevans i fellesfagene. Hovedrapport med sammenstilling og analyser [Relevance of the common subjects. Main findings]. Retrieved from Trøndelag Forskning og Utvikling AS: Jensen, K., Nerland, M., & Enqvist-Jensen, C. (2015). Enrolment of newcomers in expert cultures: an analysis of epistemic practices in a legal education introductory course. Higher Education, 70(5), 867-880. Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures. How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Nerland, M. (2018). Knowledge practices and relations in professional education. Studies in Continuing Education, 40(3), 242-256. doi:10.1080/0158037X.2018.1447919 Niemi, A.-M., & Rosvall, P.-Å. (2013). Framing and classifying the theoretical and practical divide: how young men’s positions in vocational education are produced and reproduced. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 65(4), 445-460. doi:10.1080/13636820.2013.838287 Nylunda, M., & Rosvall, P.-Å. (2016). A curriculum tailored for workers? Knowledge organization and possible transitions in Swedish VET. Journal of curriculum studies, 48(5), 692–710. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2016.1138325 Schatzki, T. R. (2001). Introduction. Practice theory. In T. R. Schatzki, K. Knorr Cetina, & E. von Savigny (Eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London: Routledge. Schatzki, T. R. (2010). The timespace of human activity. Plymouth: Lexington Books. Stuckey, M., Hofstein, A., Mamlok-Naaman, R., & Eilks, I. (2013). The meaning of ‘relevance’in science education and its implications for the science curriculum. Studies in Science Education, 49(1), 1-34.
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