Graduate school for pedagogy and vocational skills

The graduate school for pedagogy and vocational skills is part of Forum for pedagogy and vocational skills at Lärosäten Syd. This forum 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.

Forum for pedagogy and vocational skills constitute an arena for the higher education institutions that are part of the collaboration Lärosäten Syd. It is intended to strengthen and further develop the knowledge basis for vocational training and vocational teacher education, and to play a key role in the establishment of complete academic environments for education, lifelong learning, and skills supply.

Develop and offer profiled doctoral student courses

The graduate school focuses on questions and critical perspectives in relation to vocational skills, the content of vocational training, and its social, historical, and professional context. It comprises joint work to develop and offer profiled doctoral student courses in pedagogy and vocational skills equivalent to 15 credits at third-cycle level.

The graduate school rests on the same foundation for collaboration as other collaborations within Lärosäten Syd. This means that the collaboration is to result in increased quality, better utilisation of resources, and better contacts with the trade and industry and society, for students as well as for universities/university colleges, and the surrounding society. Through its interdisciplinary and practice-oriented focus, the graduate school creates unique conditions for developing the knowledge field of vocational didactics, that is characterised by an interdisciplinary way of working in the borderland between theory and practice.

Today, Kristianstad University, Linnaeus University, and Malmö University offer programmes that lead to a Higher Education Diploma in Vocational Education, for which the field of vocational didactics is central. Since autumn 2022, the three higher education institutions collaborate on a common master’s programme in pedagogy and vocational skills (120 credits).

Five doctoral students

The graduate school for pedagogy and vocational training has five doctoral students:

• Håkan Johansson, Kristianstad University
• Marcus Johansson, Linnaeus University
• Christina Linderos, Malmö University
• Annika Olén, Malmö University
• Josephine Sandberg, Linnaeus University

We arrange joint doctoral student courses, meet regularly for seminars and meetings with overnight stay, and take part in research conferences.

The following are key parts for the doctoral students:

• to work towards the objectives of the doctoral education
• to develop into critical and independent researchers in the scientific community
• to learn to communicate their research results, and, not least,
• to establish national and international networks that help push research on vocational training and vocational didactics forward.

The graduate school has links to the research group Research on pedagogical professions and practices (PEPP) and to the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment Education in Change.

Steering group

The graduate school is led by a steering group with representatives from the three higher education institutions:

• Daniel Alvunger, Linnaeus University
• Victoria Johansson, Kristianstad University
• Peter Koudahl, Malmö University (convener)