European Educational
Research Journal

ISSN 1474-9041

Volume 2 Number 1 2003

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

SPECIAL ISSUE European Educational Research Space: vocational and lifelong education research
Guest Editor: TONI GRIFFITHS
Toni Griffiths. Introduction. Learning and Context: issues for vocational and lifelong education research, pages 1‑5
Stephen Billett. Vocational Curriculum and Pedagogy: an activity theory perspective, pages 6‑21
Waldemar Bauer & Karin Przygodda. New Learning Concepts within the German Vocational Education and Training System, pages 22‑40
Alison Fuller & Lorna Unwin. Fostering Workplace Learning: looking through the lens of apprenticeship, pages 41‑55
Toni Griffiths & David Guile. A Connective Model of Learning: the implications for work process knowledge’, pages 56‑73
Jeroen Onstenk. Entrepreneurship and Vocational Education, pages 74‑89
Patricia Gielen, Aimée Hoeve & Loek F.M. Nieuwenheis. Learning Entrepreneurs: learning and innovation in small companies, pages 90‑106
Mats Lindell & Jan Johansson. Meeting the Demand? Students within Swedish Advanced Vocational Education Entering the Labour Market: reflections from an ongoing research project, pages 107‑125
Leif Chr. Lahn. Competence and Learning in Late Career, pages 126‑140
ECER Keynote
Philip Brown. The Opportunity Trap: education and employment in the global economy, pages 141‑179
EERJ Roundtable
Angelos Agalianos, Olivier Brunet & Barry McGaw. Is There an Emerging European Education Research Space?, pages 180‑188 VIEW FULL TEXT
RESEARCH NEWS
A European Research Council?, pages 189‑191 VIEW FULL TEXT
REVIEW ESSAY
Klaus Harney. Lifelong Learning under the Perspective of Functional Differentiation, pages 192‑196 VIEW FULL TEXT

Editorial

This special edition of the EERJ explores some issues which are central to the development of a European understanding of the relationship between learning and work, particularly in the context of vocational and lifelong learning research. The articles collected here reflect the assumption that learning has a social and cultural basis and they have been developed from some of those given during the VETNET programme at the European Educational Research Association (EERA) European Conference on Educational Research in Lisbon, September 2002. Together, they set out some of the challenges for this field of the European research area and suggest ways in which the particular research community associated with the EERA VETNET network may develop. This special issue also suggests that effective policy development at a European level will require attention being given to some neglected issues which have been highlighted by research.

One such issue is that the conceptualisation of both ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ has differed markedly between policy makers and researchers with the result that, in the policy domain, learning questions give way repeatedly to management questions or accreditation issues. Thus, the solutions promoted in the policy literature are over-definite; what they do not address is how people learn in general, vocational and lifelong education, particularly where they are introduced to different contexts of learning. Despite all the systemic and other policy reforms and a wealth of good intentions, the complex matter of learning as such is neglected. The problems which persist are evidence of this.

Another problematic issue is the tendency to view the question of learning in dualistic terms: practical experience and theoretical learning. For example, research (Griffiths & Guile, this issue and forthcoming) shows that models of work experience in both general and vocational education have attempted to address new issues about skill development through boosting the informal component of learning and simply offering greater recognition to workplace learning, rather than paying attention to the need for models of learning in the workplace which explicitly overcome this dualism by assisting learners to ‘connect’ both forms of learning. Consequently, the weight of policy measures still rests upon the traditional model of work experience as a ‘bridge into work’, albeit in its various reformed manifestations, a model which will not provide the form of learning increasingly necessary for the future. The concept of ‘connectivity’ (Griffiths & Guile, this issue and forthcoming) takes into account four interrelated practices of learning through work experience: acquiring theoretical knowledge, dialogic inquiry, boundary crossing and resituating knowledge and skill. They present big issues for educators in both educational institutions and the workplace but they constitute the foundations for supporting the ‘employability’ of individuals in the knowledge economy and for becoming lifelong learners.

Specific connection is made with research into Work Process Knowledge and, in another article, Waldemar Bauer and Karin Przygodda reflect upon the German pilot projects programme and its aim of identifying the content and form of work activity as a basis for curriculum development and its impact upon learning processes. The research programme sought to ‘close the transformation gap’, something which remains problematic and for which an adequate model procedure is a concern. The possibilities inherent in a ‘connective’ model may be a productive form of future research at a European level.

Bauer and Przygodda also offer interesting observations on methodological development during the course of research. They conclude, inter alia, that, in order to understand occupational areas and to gain indepth insight into work activities, the vocational education and training (VET) researcher should be a domain expert. If research results are to pass into practice, teachers and trainers need instruments for the design of work-related curricula; otherwise, they suggest that the innovation of the ‘learning field’ will not be realised. Mats Lindell and Jan Johansson describe in their article on the introduction of the Advanced Vocational Education programme in Sweden how the attempt to integrate school- and work-based learning appeared to have a positive effect upon the way in which graduates of the programme entered the labour market. Jeroen Onstenk concludes his account of research in entrepreneurship and vocational education by summarising the now widespread view that ‘learning in – and of – practical contexts is essential’. Further research may usefully illuminate the extent of the pedagogical implications for teachers. Onstenk instances a ‘very innovative and didactic pedagogic system which oriented around entrepreneurial competence development’. This connection relates to the core question of his research project: ‘what must happen in education in order to deliver good preparation for independence, self-employment and entrepreneurship?’ In this sense, as in others, the impact on pedagogy of changes which are sensitive to learning processes is necessarily significant. The full implications for teachers working in a connective model of learning may be considerable and are relevant to questions raised by these articles. Bauer and Przygooda indicate that there is interest in further VET research in the context of occupational analysis and curriculum development. In this area, and others explored in this issue, the possibility of mutual learning within the broad research community is apparent.

Several articles refer in some way to the importance and significance of ‘mediation’. Stephen Billett’s activity theory perspective reflects the idea that learning is a mediated process which occurs as individuals learn how to engage with different kinds of practice in coming to terms with the world. For Vygotsky (1978), of course, learning was a ‘complex mediated act’ which took place in a ‘zone of proximal development’. Billett emphasises that interactions with others and the social world can enrich the learning experience or simply assist in the learning of hard-to-learn knowledge that would otherwise not occur. ‘This then leads to a consideration of the important role of experiences in vocational colleges mediating experiences gained elsewhere’. Billett raises the questions of how variations in the same sociocultural practice can best be understood and the interest of an individual in engaging in transfer to another and differently constituted practice. Future research in this area would be helpful: as Billett suggests, these and other ideas need greater elaboration, qualification and critical appraisal.

They link to others concerned more generally with the idea of consequential transition (Beach, 1999). (The term ‘transfer’ is often used in this context but it is usually given an unhelpfully simplified meaning). The development of the capacity to make transitions, to ‘cross boundaries’, constitutes a very profound form of learning and development, involving the construction of new knowledge, identities and skills or the transformation (rather than the application or use) of something that has been acquired elsewhere. A transition of this form involves the idea of progress and is best understood as a developmental process. In his article on ‘Competence and Learning in Late Career’, Leif Lahn suggests that a theory of late career should reflect consequential transitions within and between communities where ‘consequential’ refers to a process of identity change. Lahn is sensitive to the diversity of European countries in urging a conceptual structure for exploring the interaction between trajectories in work organisations and a larger cultural and institutional framework.

At the level of the individual, Billett writes that ‘The capacity to adapt what has been learnt to different situations is a key benchmark of rich learning and a goal to which vocational education aspires ... The reason to focus on practice is the failure of the skilful thinking approach to transfer knowledge from one situation or circumstance to another ... many of the prescriptions flowing from the cognitive view place a reliance on processing capacity, rather than enriching experience.’

The idea of simple ‘transfer’ is at the heart of the problem with the idea of generic skill. While competence can be understood as the capacity to operate efficiently in a particular domain, Billett argues that securing the bases of adaptability to a wider domain of activities (transfer) has largely remained unrealised. Despite this, policy makers have ubiquitously promoted generic competences although such measures have been neither effective nor realistic. The broader the generic competence, the less likely it is to be useful except at the most general level. Without embedding in a particular context, the process, argues Billett, is ‘fanciful and flawed’. Like other contributors to this issue, Billett concludes that a more situational approach to curriculum development and the framing of goals and content is required.

Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin have explored the adequacy of situated learning theory for understanding learning at work more generally. In their article on apprenticeship, they build on Engeström’s work in a conceptual framework for analysing the range of learning environments or cultures experienced by employees. They also refer to the work of Lave & Wenger (1991) and their situated view of learning and end up questioning some of the assumptions underlying their conceptualisation of the ‘novice to expert’ journey. They show how even young employees such as apprentices are regularly involved in ‘teaching activities’ in the workplace, indicating that pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older employees may be more complex than Lave and Wenger suggested. Further, although elements of the ‘novice to expert’ model may still be found in apprenticeship programmes today, Fuller and Unwin observe that contemporary workplace conditions and cultures challenge the model’s simplicity. In the German Dual System, for instance, apprentices are increasingly called upon to undertake work tasks which involve a combination of easy and difficult elements and this often cuts across traditional vocational profiles (Bremer, 2000; Heisse, 2001). This is relevant to the growing awareness in German VET that it is important to introduce a more explicitly ‘contextual’ dimension into the cognitive-based VET curriculum to ensure that knowledge and skill are taught in ways which reflect more closely the actual problems and challenges which arise in work processes.

Read together, the articles propose a new agenda for research in the European VETNET research community, an agenda which continues to question the innovative work which has almost become the new orthodoxy (like the questions raised of Lave and Wenger by Fuller and Unwin). There is a concern too for genuine interdisciplinarity and multi-perspectives. Lahn suggests that his arguments support the need for an integrated framework that places the field of cognitive ageing in relation to human capital models, career theory and workplace learning: ‘Conceptual explorations into issues of late career should also include competing perspectives.’ Patricia Gielen, Aimée Hoeve and Loecke Nieuwenhuis take this further in a different context in suggesting that interactive learning and innovation should be analysed from a perspective of uncertainty. Writing of ‘Learning Entrepreneurs’, they say: ‘The impulses for learning cannot be predicted or planned, as is the case in the linear approach.’ They see innovation as the result of an informal learning process in which social networks play an important role.

The strength of research in the broad VETNET area is growing and the development of the European research area is timely. Progress towards genuine and rigorous interdisciplinarity is an exciting and challenging prospect which could involve much closer research collaboration and mutual learning than has been the case hitherto. VETNET is a strong research network within EERA and there is every sign that it is ready to respond to the encouragement to explore research development in new ways and from different perspectives.

Finally, I should like to thank Martin Lawn for inviting me to edit this special issue and all who responded to the initiative or assisted, particularly Jittie Brandsma, David Guile and Anne McGee.

References

Beach, K. (1999) Consequential Transitions: a sociocultural expedition beyond transfer in education, Review of Research in Education, 28, pp. 46‑69.
Billett, S. (2001) Knowing in Practice: re-conceptualising vocational expertise, Learning and Instruction, 11, pp. 431‑452.
Bremer, R. (2000) A Portrait of a Pilot-Project Called GAB in Co-operation with Schools, an Enterprise and the ITB. Bremen: Universität Bremen, Institut Technik & Bildung.
Engeström, Y., Engeström, R. & Kärkkäinen, M. (1995) Polycontextuality and Boundary Crossing and Expert Cognition: learning and problem-solving in complex work activities, Learning and Instruction, 5, pp. 319‑336.
Griffiths, T. & Guile, D. (forthcoming) Work, Knowledge and Learning: issues for research, policy and practice. Luxembourg: CEDEFOP.
Griffiths, T. & Guile, D. (this issue) A Connective Model of Learning: the implications for work process knowledge, European Educational Research Journal, 2, pp. 56‑73.
Heisse, W. (2001) Business- and Work-process Orientated Vocational Training in Selected Industrial Training Profiles. Unpublished paper presented at meeting of the GAB Project, ITB, University of Bremen, May.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vocational Curriculum and Pedagogy: an activity theory perspective

STEPHEN BILLETT Griffith University, Nathan, Australia

This article advances a scheme that proposes how curriculum goals and content might be conceptualised for vocational education. The scheme is founded in socio-historical activity theory. An account of the social sources of vocational knowledge (sociogeneses) comprising history, culture and situation is discussed to illuminate how both the canonical requirements of vocational practice and its manifestations in actual practice need to be accounted for in curriculum goals and content. Currently, curriculum frameworks for vocational programmes focus on the sociocultural level of practice (e.g. national competencies, national skills standards). Yet, these fail to account for the actual manifestations and requirements of the vocational practice and how judgements are made about performance. An emphasis on practice as a basis for considering curriculum goals and developing adaptable outcomes is proposed.

New Learning Concepts within the German System of Vocational Education and Training

WALDEMAR BAUER & KARIN PRZYGODDA University of Bremen, Germany

In 1997, a new curricular framework for vocational education and training (VET) schools – ‘learning fields’ – was implemented in Germany. As a result, vocational curricula with their elements and contents had to relate to work and business processes and be described on the basis of competences. Regarding the German tradition of curricula, a paradigm shift can be observed, because earlier curricula were organised according to disciplines. In 1998, a pilot programme was launched which focused on ‘new learning concepts within the dual vocational education and training system’ and involved projects in the construction of learning fields, which were implemented in VET schools. These projects developed concepts for the empirical analysis of work processes or tasks and identified the competences required as a basis for curricula, in order to link qualification research with curriculum development. By analysing the different approaches, it became clear that an integration of the analysis of work and the transformation of the empirical results into curricula was necessary. This work also implies a model of competence development, because the focus of this VET research is ultimately teaching and learning practices in VET schools. Research in these areas has to be domain specific because it deals with the content and expertise in an occupational field and therefore requires an in-depth understanding of knowledge and skills in these fields.

Fostering Workplace Learning: looking through the lens of apprenticeship

ALISON FULLER & LORNA UNWIN University of Leicester, United Kingdom

This article argues that researching the lived reality of apprenticeship in contemporary workplaces provides a useful lens through which workplace learning more generally can be examined. Drawing on data from a 3-year study of the social and pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older workers in the English steel industry, the article proposes that, building on Engeström’s work, an ‘expansive’ as opposed to a ‘restrictive’ approach to apprenticeship will not only deliver the broader goals being set for apprenticeship programmes around the world, but will also foster workplace learning. The article offers a critique of Lave and Wenger’s novice to expert conceptualisation of apprenticeship and, using data from employee learning logs, argues that pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older workers need to be better understood. A conceptual framework for analysing the relationship between organisational culture and history, work organisation, and workplace learning is provided.

A Connective Model of Learning: the implications for work process knowledge

TONI GRIFFITHS University College London, England
DAVID GUILE Institute of Education, University of London, England

This article draws upon research in the field of Cultural Historical Activity Theory in order to provide a new theoretical and methodological framework for analysing work experience and identifying the social and cultural practices which support the production of new knowledge. In doing so, it builds upon recent work (Griffiths et al, 2001; Guile & Griffiths, 2001) which has explored knowledge development and learning, raising questions for research, policy and practice. The article describes the potential of a ‘connective model’ of learning as a way of reformulating and addressing questions of learning and knowledge development in and between different contexts. There are, for example, implications for the idea and development of ‘work process knowledge’.

Entrepreneurship and Vocational Education

JEROEN ONSTENK CINOP, Den Bosch, Netherlands

Entrepreneurship is an important European Union objective for education and lifelong learning policies (European Community, 1999). This article reports the results of a research project on entrepreneurship competencies in higher and vocational education commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. A three-layered concept of entrepreneurship competencies is presented. The way in which innovations in higher and vocational education develop competencies for entrepreneurship, enterprising behaviour and employability is analysed. The views of students and teachers in entrepreneurship-oriented education are presented. The article ends with recommendations on promoting entrepreneurship competencies in (vocational) education and lifelong learning.

Learning Entrepreneurs: learning and innovation in small companies

PATRICIA M. GIELEN, AIMÉE HOEVE & LOEK F.M. NIEUWENHUIS Stoas Research, Wageningen, Netherlands

This article concerns agricultural entrepreneurs involved in organising their learning so as to develop innovative and learning enterprises. In hi-tech sectors, such as Dutch agriculture, this learning and innovative capacity is particularly essential for economic survival. Reviewing the literature, we conclude that innovation can be seen as informal learning processes, in which social networks play an important role. Workers learn by sharing knowledge in the working team and employers learn by creating networks of colleagues and advisers. The results of two research projects suggest that interactive learning and innovation should be analysed from a perspective of uncertainty. Learning skills for interactive innovation, as part of the entrepreneurial craft, should comprise the capability of selecting impulses and combining newly selected impulses with existing skills and routines. Paradoxically, they need new impulses from weak, unknown networks to be continuously innovative. Innovative learning involves balancing the chaos of uncertainty with the old grooves of experience. Knowing how to escape this paradox forms the core competence of innovative entrepreneurship.

Meeting the Demand? Students within Swedish Advanced Vocational Education Entering the Labour Market: reflections from an ongoing research project

MATS LINDELL & JAN JOHANSSON Luleå University of Technology, Sweden

This article considers an ongoing research project concerning the outcome of the Swedish reform of advanced vocational education (AVE) from a graduate perspective. Launched in 1996 as an experimental post-secondary reform meeting the advancements within working life, several new educational features were introduced. In January 2002, AVE became a regular part of the national education system with 12,500 education places per annum. From start to present, over 6,100 students have graduated from the approximately 350 different national AVE programmes available. The purpose of this article is to present results from three sets of questionnaires collected in 1999, 2000 and 2001 surveying over 5,400 of the graduates concerning their opinions and experiences on how AVE corresponds to the demands and requests made of them when entering the labour market. The aggregate results suggest that a majority of the graduates (82%) had a job 6 months after having completed their AVE programmes and that approximately 80% of them were working, with regard to their educational focus, within a ‘target’ field of profession.

Competence and Learning in Late Career

LEIF CHR. LAHN University of Oslo, Norway

Issues of late career have recently attracted much political and public interest but contributions from research have been meagre. In this article, a review is made of the literature on cognitive ageing and learning abilities in an occupational context. Multidimensional and non-linear perspectives are increasingly replacing models of late career as a period of declining expertise. Data from an European Union Framework Programme 4 research project ‘Working Life Changes and the Training of Older Workers’ (WORKTOW), supports such a redefinition. Also, the optimistic scenarios for late career that are held out by the literature on ‘boundaryless careers’ are challenged. A sociocultural framework that is more sensitive to the institutional and cultural context of age differences in learning at work is asked for.

The Opportunity Trap: education and employment in a global economy

PHILLIP BROWN Cardiff University, Wales

This article is based on the Keynote Address to ECER, Lisbon, Portugal, 11‑14 September 2002. The opportunity to make a better life is enshrined in democratic societies. In recent decades the growth in personal freedom and the rhetoric of the knowledge economy have led many to believe that we have more opportunities than ever before. We are told that the trade-off between efficiency and justice no longer holds in a global knowledge-driven economy, as the opportunity to exploit the talents of all, at least in the developed world, is now a realistic goal. This article will challenge such accounts of education, opportunity and global labour market. It points to enduring social inequalities in the competition for a livelihood and an intensification of ‘positional’ conflict. Our ‘opportunities’ are becoming harder to cash in. The opportunity-cost is increasing because the pay-off depends on getting ahead in the competition for tough-entry jobs. Middle-class families in competitive hot spots are adopting increasingly desperate measures to win a positional advantage. But the opportunity trap is not only a problem for individuals or families. It exposes an inherent tension, if not contradiction, in the relationship between capitalism and democracy. It will be argued that the legitimate foundations of opportunity, based on education, jobs and rewards, are unravelling. Within education, this not only represents further symptoms of the ‘diploma disease’ but a social revolution that fundamentally challenges our understanding of education, efficiency and social justice.

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