VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries
The age at which young people leave education for the labour market has increased in recent decades, and entering upper secondary education has become the norm. As a result, the diversity of the student population has increased, for instance in terms of students’ academic merits and achievements at...
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crsagepubl:10.1177/1474904119830022 2024-06-23T07:54:03+00:00 VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries Eiríksdóttir, Elsa Rosvall, Per-Åke The Swedish Research Council The Swedish Research Council NordForsk The Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474904119830022 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474904119830022 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/1474904119830022 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license European Educational Research Journal volume 18, issue 3, page 355-375 ISSN 1474-9041 1474-9041 journal-article 2019 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904119830022 2024-06-11T04:32:26Z The age at which young people leave education for the labour market has increased in recent decades, and entering upper secondary education has become the norm. As a result, the diversity of the student population has increased, for instance in terms of students’ academic merits and achievements at school. Increased diversity seems to affect vocational education and training more than tracks preparing students for higher education, because entry into vocational education and training (VET) programmes is rarely selective. In this article we analyse a series of interviews with VET teachers regarding VET practices in upper secondary schools in Sweden and Iceland. We examine how policy plays out in practice in VET by looking at how VET teachers navigate the sometimes-conflicting educational goals of employability and civic engagement, while simultaneously teaching a highly diverse group of students. In both countries, pedagogic practices are dominated by individualisation with a focus on task-related skills. Those practices are important in VET, but can exclude broader understandings of civil and workplace life, because general knowledge about areas such as ethics, democracy, equality, and environmental issues is difficult to obtain if education gives students few opportunities to interact with others, such as through group work or classroom discussions. Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland SAGE Publications European Educational Research Journal 18 3 355 375 |
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English |
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The age at which young people leave education for the labour market has increased in recent decades, and entering upper secondary education has become the norm. As a result, the diversity of the student population has increased, for instance in terms of students’ academic merits and achievements at school. Increased diversity seems to affect vocational education and training more than tracks preparing students for higher education, because entry into vocational education and training (VET) programmes is rarely selective. In this article we analyse a series of interviews with VET teachers regarding VET practices in upper secondary schools in Sweden and Iceland. We examine how policy plays out in practice in VET by looking at how VET teachers navigate the sometimes-conflicting educational goals of employability and civic engagement, while simultaneously teaching a highly diverse group of students. In both countries, pedagogic practices are dominated by individualisation with a focus on task-related skills. Those practices are important in VET, but can exclude broader understandings of civil and workplace life, because general knowledge about areas such as ethics, democracy, equality, and environmental issues is difficult to obtain if education gives students few opportunities to interact with others, such as through group work or classroom discussions. |
author2 |
The Swedish Research Council The Swedish Research Council NordForsk The Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Eiríksdóttir, Elsa Rosvall, Per-Åke |
spellingShingle |
Eiríksdóttir, Elsa Rosvall, Per-Åke VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries |
author_facet |
Eiríksdóttir, Elsa Rosvall, Per-Åke |
author_sort |
Eiríksdóttir, Elsa |
title |
VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries |
title_short |
VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries |
title_full |
VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries |
title_fullStr |
VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries |
title_full_unstemmed |
VET Teachers’ Interpretations of Individualisation and Teaching of Skills and Social Order in two Nordic Countries |
title_sort |
vet teachers’ interpretations of individualisation and teaching of skills and social order in two nordic countries |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474904119830022 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474904119830022 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/1474904119830022 |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_source |
European Educational Research Journal volume 18, issue 3, page 355-375 ISSN 1474-9041 1474-9041 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904119830022 |
container_title |
European Educational Research Journal |
container_volume |
18 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
355 |
op_container_end_page |
375 |
_version_ |
1802645987927261184 |