Boundary processes in connection with students’ workplace learning: Potentials for VET teachers’ continuing professional development

Abstract

This article reports on VET teachers’ engagements in boundary processes between schools and workplaces in connection with students’ workplace learning, the conditions for such boundary processes, and how these activities may enable VET teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD). Thirty VET teachers have been interviewed and their replies have been analysed in a theoretical framework of situated learning. The VET teachers described two main forms of boundary processes: boundary encounters and brokering by VET students. These processes support the occupational learning of VET teachers to different degrees. Teachers’ access to the workplace and their engagement and involvement in work and social interactions influence the potential for learning. Structural factors in school practices determine the nature of the boundary processes experienced by VET teachers and hence, the conditions for VET teachers’ CPD.