Tracing the moving ‘target’ in Didaktik of vocational classroom instruction

Abstract

Reconciling broad educational goals of job-readiness with specific work task-related qualifications or competences poses challenges for vocational teachers. To assist efforts to address these challenges, this article explores knowledge practices of project-based vocational instruction in Swedish upper secondary vocational education and training, particularly how the teacher´s intentionality (expressed through choice of a target) responds to needs to develop integrative knowledge. Two specific research questions are addressed, using a conceptual framework incorporating Didaktik and Legitimation Code Theory. First, how do vocational teachers in this setting repurpose vocational knowledge during project work? Second, what educational goals do they target during project work? Secondary analysis of participant observation data indicates that fragmentation of occupation-specific knowledge into disparate work processes and work products resulted in a split target. Pursuing the split target, observed teachers enacted knowledge practices centred on student accountability for generic but highly restricted work processes. For example, the tangible task Devising a safety and security plan was recast as the more intangible task of social collaboration in group work. Targeting collaboration appeared to provide limited integrative knowledge-building opportunities, raising concern that qualifications-based curricula may offer insufficient structure for vocational teachers to plan their instruction accordingly, at least in the observed setting.