Forum for pedagogy and vocational skills is an interdisciplinary research and development environment that gathers researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners to explore and discuss questions relating to vocational skills, vocational didactics, and vocational training.
The forum constitutes an arena for the higher education institutions that are part of the Lärosäten Syd collaboration and aims to strengthen and develop the knowledge basis for vocational training and vocational teacher training, and to play a key role in the establishment of complete academic environments for education, lifelong learning, and skills supply.
Our questions and topics
Governance and organisation of vocational training and teaching
How is vocational training governed? What special terms and conditions apply to vocational didactics? How is vocational teaching organised and designed? What is continuity and change respectively within vocational training from a historical perspective?
Professional identity and professional culture in school and working life
How are students’ professional cultures formed in vocational training? What norms and ideals stand out as essential in different types of vocational training and how do vocational teachers and students relate to these ideals? How are traditional gender patterns repeated and challenged in vocational training? How do vocational teachers prepare students for problematic professional cultures where, for instance, sexual harassment can be a normalised element?
Ongoing societal changes and emerging global policy discourses, new syllabi, and governing documents
How do these areas affect the conditions for vocational training, knowledge creation, teaching, and learning within the frame of theory and domain of practical knowledge? How do education and school reforms within vocational training interplay with teaching and learning in school and working life – with regard to industry-specific conditions and terms – and pedagogical practices?
Perception of knowledge
What is considered knowledge in school, teaching, and professional life? What values/skills are chosen as the basis for teaching within vocational training? How has this changed historically and why? In what ways has the relationship between theoretical and practical knowledge traditions and between different aspects of knowledge been portrayed in vocational training historically and how is portrayed today? What does knowledge and value mediation within the vocational training sphere look like?
Validation and assessment of vocational skills
What factors form the basis for assessment of students in connection with APL? What models and perspectives can be applied at the intersection between school and working life? How to create conditions for work-life integration that lead to learning? How can vocational skills and the assessment of these be qualified? What models for this can be tested? How can supervision on the basis of vocational skills be qualified?
Vocational teacher training
How can the content and organisation of the vocational teacher training be described and understood? How can the development of teachers’ vocational skills be seen in relation to the vocational teacher student’s basic profession? What possible models are there for conducting and developing the vocational teacher training? How can vocational learning in teacher training/the teacher profession be understood by being contrasted with other types of vocational training/other professions?
Skills and practices of vocational teachers
What is a “suitable/skilled” teacher? How has this changed historically? How do skilled teachers maintain a good balance between didactical intentions and actual conditions for their work? How can teachers make their work sustainable? What strategies do teachers use to handle external demands in relation to their professional autonomy? What terms and work conditions affect whether the teacher profession is experienced as feasible or not? How can these be changed? How can we prevent that skilled teachers quit their jobs prematurely?
Tools of change in the form of quality-oriented and process-oriented ways of working as well as robust thought models for (local) school development work
How can one create understanding for continuity and change in vocational training and school and explain different pedagogical processes and outcomes? In what ways can the interplay between general (theoretical) and local (practical) knowledge form the basis for development processes within, for instance, APL, programme teams, and vocational subjects? What role do vocational teachers play in school improvement work? How do vocational teachers act and present themselves as pedagogical leaders?
Third-cycle education
Graduate school for pedagogy and vocational skills
The graduate school focuses on the design of educational processes in relation to vocational skills, the content of the vocational training, and its social, historical, and professional context. It comprises joint work to develop and offer profiled third-cycle courses in pedagogy and vocational skills equivalent to 15 credits at third-cycle level.
Pedagogy and vocational skills, master’s programme
Are you a vocational teacher and want to acquire in-depth knowledge and specialise in questions linked to vocational training? The master’s programme in pedagogy and vocational skills can lead to more advanced work tasks, new career paths, or third-cycle studies. The programme is offered in collaboration between Malmö University, Linnaeus University, and Kristianstad University.
