This paper shall provide a Bernsteinian analysis of classifications in the German dual system of VET as well as of some aspects of framing in the work-based learning part, and it shall contrast this with results from school-based Bernsteinian research.

For secondary vocational education in the German dual system, a Bernsteinian analysis approach has not yet been explored. Bernstein claims that the meta-language he developed to describe pedagogic relationships goes far beyond school-based learning. This paper shows to what extent the theory is able to give insight into the power and control relationships within German vocational education and the work-based learning part of it.

The complex relationships of agencies and agents involved in the  field of symbolic control of secondary VET in Germany, and the strength of boundaries between them - what Bernstein terms as classification - shall be explained with the help of a historic overview and based on the analysis of respective legal documents.

To describe the relations inside the field of symbolic control, Bernstein uses the category framing. It refers to the controls on two discourses of knowledge transmission: the regulative discourse, which is about the transmission of conduct, character and manner, and the instructional discourse, which is embedded in the regulative discourse and is about the transmission of specific skills. For the purpose of this paper, which concentrates on the systems’ level, the focus shall be on the regulative discourse, which according to Bernstein is the dominant one and constitutes the specific curricular identity. This discourse shall be examined on the basis of legal documents and of secondary analysis of two surveys conducted by BIBB (see methodology; Beicht et al. 2009; Ebbinghaus et al. 2009, Krewerth et al. 2009).  A special focus shall be on the external values of framing. Descriptions shall be illustrated with quotations from interviews with graduates from the dual system about how they experienced work-based vocational education.

Bernstein’s theory of sociology of education encompasses different levels of regulation: from the macro level, class relations and the state, through curriculum and pedagogy, down to the micro-level of the classroom and the individual subject with his/her social family background. A lot of Bernstein-based research has been done on the relationship between school performance and social background of pupils and also on the relationship of school structure on individual competences. For example, Daniels (1995) analysed school curricula with the help of Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing to determine the underlying principles of social division of labour and of social relations in different school contexts. He showed that strong values of classification and framing in the school context are helpful for any one child to recognise and realise the communicative competence held for specific subjects. This research shall be considered to draw some conclusions about classification and framing in the dual system.

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