In this study I examine young vocational cook students’ negotiations during work-based learning. Learning in workplaces became an established part of Finnish vocational education and training (VET) at the turn of the millennium, (Virtanen & Tynjälä, 2008) and its role was further strengthened in the major VET reform in 2018. (Act on Vocational Education and Training, 2017). As a result, vocational cook students now spend a substantial share of their studies in restaurant and catering companies.

Work-based learning has been seen as desirable practice enabling students to acquire skills and competencies that are relevant in continuously changing world of work. However, from the students’ point of view, it is not always self-evident that the work-based learning supports their learning in a meaningful way (Rönnlund & Rosvall, 2021). For example, the quality of workplace communities and the pedagogical arrangements have found to be at the centre of successful professional learning outcomes (Fuller & Unwin, 2003; Virtanen et al., 2014). Furthermore, work-based learning is widely presented as a mechanism to support young people’s integration into vocational fields and labour market. In this paper I argue that it can paradoxically function as a mechanism alienating students form their vocational field. In such cases, the intended bridge between education and employment becomes a disrupted and unreliable passage into working life.

Drawing from interview data with young cook students I examine what kind of negotiations students engage during work-based learning. When entering workplaces, young people step into environments where expectations, hierarchies, and routines are already well established. For this reason, negotiation becomes a central mechanism through which they attempt to gain access to meaningful tasks, clarify expectations, secure support, protect their wellbeing, and construct a legitimate professional identity. These negotiations rarely take the form of explicit bargaining; instead, they unfold subtly in everyday interactions. Furthermore, I examine how do these negotiations shape students’ relationship to their vocational field. Rather than viewing work-based learning as a straightforward transfer of skills, this perspective captures it as a dynamic and sometimes fraught social process that can foster both belonging to and alienation from the field.

Following May (2011, 2013), students’ experiences of belonging and alienation can be understood not as static states, but as ongoingrelationalprocesses shaped through their interactions with people, material environments, and the social norms that structure everyday practices. Belonging, in this perspective, involves a felt sense of ease, comfort, and alignment with one’s social, cultural, relational, and material surroundings. Alienation, by contrast, can be understood as the absence or disruption of this ease. It is feeling unease, discomfort, or dissonance in relation to one’s environment or social position within it. Alienation reflects a situation in which the individual struggles to find a place within existing relational, social, or material arrangements. This may involve experiences of not being recognized as a legitimate participant, feeling out of rhythm with workplace norms or expectations, or a feeling that one’s values doesn’t align with work environment.

Restaurant and catering industry offer an interesting context to study the dynamics of alienation and belonging. In the industry, the precarization of post-industrial societies is evident (Kalleberg & Vallas, 2018). The work is often carried out in shifting, part‑time, and fixed‑term contracts. It is physically and mentally demanding and the pay is low. The working hours include evenings and weekends, and workdays can stretch into long shifts. Such conditions can generate a sense of alienation for young people entering the field, as the instability, exhaustion, and limited recognition associated with precarious work may undermine their sense of belonging and make it difficult to envision a sustainable future within the industry.

The paper draws from the data produced in two vocational institutions between autumn 2023 and autumn 2024. Methodologically, the study draws from feminist ethnographic approach where fieldwork, analysis and theoretical reflection are intertwined (Hammersle & Atkinson, 2019; Lahelma et al., 2022). For me, a feminist approach means recognising the importance of contextualise students’ experiences within the norms, values, and policies interwoven into work-based learning. Furthermore, I am also sensitive to students’ experiences of power dynamics in work environments. Specifically, the interviews of 27 young cook students are analysed. Of those students, 22 had been on a work-based learning period and five of them had other work or internship experiences from the field of restaurant and catering services. Thematic interviews covered themes of work-based learning experiences, wellbeing and future. Majority of the interviewed were second- or third-year students. They were between 15 and 24 years of age, and 14 of them were female and 13 were male. They had work experiences from industrial kitchens, fast food restaurants, fine dining and dinner restaurants as well as lunch- and buffet restaurants. Few had also been preparing food in supermarkets’ take away -counters. Before the field work, permission to conduct the research was obtained from the institutions. Informed consent was obtained from all interviewed students. The research complied with the guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity. The data will be coded and categorised in an iterative process as described by Hammersley and Atkinson (2007, 167-197). Iterative process means that there are movement back and forth between the data, theory and research literature. Insights from each stage inform the next, allowing the interpretation to gradually deepen and become more precise. First round of coding is informed by the first research question: the negotiations that students engage with in work environments are explored. Furthermore, the negotiations will be analysed in relation to students’ experiences of belonging and alienation towards the field.

Placing students’ experiences at the centre, this paper contributes to academic discussions on VET and work based learning, while also informing policy debates by illustrating how a system designed to integrate young people into vocational fields and the labour market can, at times, operate as an alienating mechanism. The expected results first illuminate the range of negotiations that young people engage in during work based learning. Preliminary analysis shows that students must negotiate access to meaningful tasks and learning opportunities, the availability and quality of guidance, everyday power relations, and the spaces for communication within the work community. They also navigate negotiations connected to values concerning ecological sustainability, professional pride, and the moral dimensions of their work. Second, the findings demonstrate how these negotiations shape students’ evolving sense of belonging or alienation toward their vocational field. Experiences such as being assigned only irrelevant or repetitive tasks, receiving insufficient guidance, or not being recognised as legitimate contributors can produce detachment from the occupation they are training for. Precarious, intensive, and physically and emotionally demanding working conditions further amplify alienating experiences. Conversely, when students are entrusted with relevant tasks, supported through constructive guidance, and engaged in meaningful interaction with co workers, a sense of belonging can emerge. Such encounters appear to anchor students more firmly within the vocational field and strengthen their commitment to their chosen career path. Following May (2011, 2013), these dynamics can be understood as relational processes in which negotiations over one’s social, cultural, and material surroundings are deeply intertwined with experiences of belonging and alienation. The study also indicates that young people are in an unequal position regarding the kinds of workplaces they are able to access, shaping both their learning opportunities and their emotional relationship to the field.

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