The paper is a case study about literacy school subject following competency-based curriculum in vocational education and training (VET).  The analysis discusses vocationalism and labour focus which draw on ‘work relevant’ competencies – or ‘skills fetish’, as Wheelahan, Moodie & Doughney (2022) problematise competency-based education. Situated in competency-based qualification curriculum, we analyse how literacies manifest as (not) important and (not) useful knowledge during literacy lessons in VET, and how these perspectives associate gendered and classed meanings.The theoretical background of the paper lies on problematisations of theoretical knowledge in competency-based education (Wheelahan 2010), and sociocultural understandings on literacies as social practices (e. g. Barton & Hamilton 2000). We explore curriculum as it ‘realises’, meaning to comprise of everyday processes which intertwine institutional curriculum, its interpretation, interaction in the classroom, and students’ understandings (Doyle 1992). Two research questions guided our analysis: How does the curriculum for literacy realise during the lessons? How do literacies become framed during the literacy lessons?

In Finland, which is the context for the study, VET qualifications’ competency-base was reinforced in a policy reform in 2018. The qualifications should train students for vocational work but also ‘provide skills for active citizenship and tertiary study’ (§ 2, Act 531/2017). From the literacy point of view, the educational goal is to manage labour context specific literacy tasks but also gain agency in more decontextualised literacy settings and understand how these are related (cf. Ivanič, 2003). Currently, the focus of VET literacy curriculum is on situated practices in the world of work (e. g. using manuals, taking notes, jargon), (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2019). However, these situated literacies do not necessarily facilitate access in other complex textual worlds (e.g., reading/writing extensive texts, argumenting). 

We draw on ethnographic fieldwork covering VET literacy curriculum, with upper secondary car mechanics and construction program students’ literacy lessons. These VET programs represent male dominated fields with low intake criteria and overrepresentation of working-class-based youth (Education Statistics Finland, 2022a; 2022b). A body of ethnographic studies conducted in such male-dominated fields rephrase students’ lack of motivation for schoolwork that stem from group situations and cultural beliefs of working-class ‘lads’ (Rosvall, 2015). In the Nordic educational policies, Mattias Nylund and colleagues (2018) found that core subjects (such as literacy, mathematics, and languages) are often not seen to be of interest to VET students. On the other hand, policies posit VET students as interested in their field of vocation and eager to start working life. The study suggests that these notions arise from ‘class prejudice’, related to VET students’ often working-class backgrounds. Our aim is to provide nuanced analysis on how literacies, including perspectives on them, are constructed during literacy lessons.

From our feminist ethnography perspective (Skeggs, 2001), educational interests and study do not happen in a vacuum but involve social meanings and hierarchies. Culturally, there is some incoherence with literacy situated in VET. Literacy associates with theoretical, and VET in general associates with practical, and these are often seen analogous with students’ educational interests. Overall, the dichotomy of theoretical and practical, and the relating dichotomised concepts, is persistent in upper secondary education in the Nordic countries. A choice between vocational and academically oriented general upper secondary education is often and stereotypically understood as a choice between ‘making’ and ‘thinking’. These dichotomies ground in classed stereotypes and simplified view on students, education and world of work (e. g. Lahelma 2009). Theoretical knowledge, represented for example by literacy, and its suitability for VET students is one layer of these dichotomies.

Methodologically, the paper draws from feminist ethnography (e. g. Lappalainen et. al. 2022; Skeggs 2001), and the analysis focuses on language use analysis of recurring classroom events. We use ethnographic data produced with car mechanics and construction programs’ literacy lessons (fieldwork of 43 days, during the academic year of 2018–2020). The ethnographic data consists of fieldnotes from the literacy lessons and some vocational lessons, audio recorded interviews with students and teachers and other discussions in the school cafe, yard and staff rooms. In this paper, we focus on literacy curriculum, which Pietilä followed in three terms, during the period of 43 days. In conducting this research, we rely on language use analysis. We see language as social, and part of the hierarchies which tie situations and events together (Blommaert & Jie, 2020). More precisely, language use is profoundly indexical, as it codes context specific social meanings and hierarchies and circulates discourses. We follow the literacy curriculum during literacy lessons to see how and which contents are constructed as the standards, draw from teachers’ reasonings and contextualise our analysis with policies. As a result, we present an analysis on ‘realised curriculum’ meaning curricular contents, processes and logics (see Doyle 1992). Secondly, we analyse how teachers and students negotiated literacy and schoolwork during the lessons. For closer analysis, we chose fieldnotes covering talk on literacy. This talk consists of various meta commentaries on the relationships between students, teachers, literacy and VET (about meta commentaries in talk, see e. g. Winchatz 2018). We interpret how literacies are constructed as ‘suitable’ for the present students and therefore, the (textual) horizons that are constructed in the realised curriculum of literacy, respectively.

Our findings highlight vocationalism and labour focus in the curriculum. In Finland, the aim of VET is to adopt necessary ‘competencies’ for work to qualify. The value of literacy manifested as market oriented and work relevant ‘usefulness’, and the literacy curriculum realised as delimited to labour contexts and topics. Core subjects, such as literacy, are expected to educate students for work but also for active citizenship and tertiary studies. However, in the followed classrooms, the curriculum for literacy realised as limited to work-related and context specific matters. Related to ‘useful’, instrumentality characterises the way literacy was explained, argued and valued in VET. Furthermore, for becoming a credible instrument for labour, literacy itself was negated, thus creating a paradox of literacy-not-literacy for literacy-for-labour. During lessons, students and teachers framed literacies with gendered and classed meanings as they negotiated schoolwork. There was an imperative of motivation for conducting literacy schoolwork which draws on stereotypes of students not interested in literacy but in longing to labour. We were able to interpret an idea of ‘longing forlabour’ serving as background rationale in literacy study. These ideas lean on (presupposed) vocational interests, and an idea of a lack of interest in literacy, both based on notions of anti-school masculinities (Rosvall, 2015). Literacy is regarded as academic and feminine, which stereotypically does not fit with the masculine, working-class and anti-school VET student stereotype (Pietilä et al., 2021). Consequently, valuing labour over literacy offers a way to ‘mind the gap’ between working class VET students and educational objectives that are considered to be academic and therefore not of interest to VET students (see also Nylund et al., 2018). According to our analysis, the focus on labour draws also on competency based logics which comprises ideas of work relevancy and fragmentary competencies for qualifications.

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