This study is part of a doctoral research project on school practices in vocational education and training (VET) in Iceland. The aim of the overall project is to explore school practices in VET in Iceland, with particular attention to recent shifts in student demographics.
The specific part of the project, presented hereafter, aims to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of three school practices for addressing the needs of an increasingly diverse student body, with particular focus on the role and autonomy of teachers. This is a work in progress.
Traditionally, vocational students in Iceland have been older than other upper secondary school students, with an average age of 25, compared with 19 for other students (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2014). Still, the number of 16–19-year-old vocational students has increased over the last few years. At the same time, the number of students aged 26 and older has remained high, while the number of students aged 20-25 has declined (Statistics Iceland, 2025), resulting in even greater diversity in students' ages and prior experiences. This is especially important in Iceland, where younger and older students in VET are often taught together.
Also, school practices have recently been changing in many VET programs in Iceland towards: (a) More project-oriented learning, even on an individual basis, and (b) Shorter length of study units, for example, with each unit lasting half a semester (with students taking 3 units at a time) or each unit lasting 3 weeks (with students taking 1 unit at a time).
Bernstein's (2000) code theory underpins the study's theoretical approach. It provides a means to examine the relationships between power and knowledge. This theory is suitable for this study because it offers the researcher a lens for examining and describing power relations within the social environment.
Morais and Neves’s (2004, 2010) pedagogic practice model is used to interpret the findings in this study. The model focuses on how teachers can optimize learning using Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing. Morais and Neves identified the characteristics of teaching methods used by teachers who create the best conditions for compulsory school students from diverse social backgrounds to acquire science knowledge and skills. Their studies demonstrated that effective school practices can mitigate or eliminate the impact of social background on academic performance. They emphasize the importance of clear boundaries and explicit instructional practices to support student engagement and achievement.
The main research question of this study is: How do different school practices affect the role and autonomy of teachers to address the needs of students? 

The study employed qualitative methods, including participant observations and interviews, across three upper-secondary VET programs in Iceland. A short-term ethnography (Pink & Morgan, 2013) was conducted within all three programs. Participant observations were conducted for approximately 10 school days over a month-long period, per program. The aim was to document evidence of school practices in action and to write field notes on the environment and field discourse. Field notes also included recorded examples (photos and drawings) of observed workstations and teaching methods. Participant observations involved being present for, preferably, the entire school day each time, following students’ daily schedules, and conversing with as many people as possible in the field. Pink and Morgan’s (2013) suggestion - that short-term ethnography shall maintain the ethnographer's firsthand involvement as a core element in how the researcher comes to know about other people's lives and experiences - was followed. However, as Pink and Morgan (2013) suggest, short-term ethnography takes a more deliberate, interventionist approach than long-term participant observation and is more theoretically engaged. For example, in this study, students and teachers were asked to demonstrate how they completed tasks or projects they were not currently working on. This could interrupt the usual workflow during the school day. Interviews were conducted with students, teachers, and administrators across the three programs, for a total of 30. In this paper, however, the focus is only on interviews with teachers and administrators (n = 12) and participant observations. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013, 2022). In constructing themes, the data were approached from two different directions. On the one hand, from above, through the lens of Morais and Neves’s (2010) pedagogic practice model. On the other hand, bottom up, not shaped by existing theory (Braun & Clarke, 2013, 2022).

The study's findings are organized into two main themes. The first theme explores how the school's practices enable teachers to control pedagogic practices and how they perceive their roles and autonomy. This theme is further divided into four sub-themes to examine the specific differences among the three programs. The first examines how different school practices influence communication between students and teachers. The second examines how the programs enable different types of control over the pacing of learning. The third examines how the selection and sequencing of subjects are controlled within the programs. Finally, the fourth sub-theme examines the evaluation criteria, especially for the aesthetic component of the studies. The other main theme explores how teachers address student collaboration, as another part of this doctoral study shows that students rely heavily on one another when deciding what to do and what is occurring day to day, whether in terms of individual tasks or overall school organization. This study contributes to our understanding of how various VET school practices affect teachers' autonomy. The study's results should inform VET policymaking and highlight the potential benefits and challenges of adopting different school practices.

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