An ethnographic study of VET teachers’ instruction regarding the documentation practices of the construction site

The notion of quality management has increased pressure in most trades to document work tasks through documentation practices, sets of sociocultural literacy practices (Barton, 2007; Hamilton, 2000) of reading, writing, or talking about documentation. This demands Swedish VET teachers to simultaneously teach about documentation and document their educational work. Consequently, previous research highlights the risk of discursive conflict in VET, for instance by assignments aiming to document and evaluate students’ progress rather than preparing them for future work practices (Hellne-Halvorsen, 2019). Such potential conflicts need to be further explored considering different national contexts and trades.
This study aims to explore vocational teachers’ instruction regarding workplace literacy practices by contrasting documentation practices in the contexts of construction sites and VET. The analytical question being asked is, what can signify documentation practices in both contexts, and are there differences that are relevant to highlight regarding VET teachers’ instruction about workplace lit eracy practices?
Data consisting of field notes, transcriptions of interviews and naturally occurring speech, pictures, and texts, were assembled through ethnographic fieldwork along with supervisors and construction workers at a major Swedish construction site and teachers and students of the Swedish Building and Construction programme. The documentation practices will be analysed deductively departing from the categories participant, activity, artefact, and setting (Hamilton, 2000) using Barton’s (2007) ecological view on literacy in combination with additional components as a framework .
The study is yet to produce results but is expected to add new knowledge about documentation practices in the Swedish construction context and add to previous research about VET teachers’ instruction regarding workplace literacy practices .

Referenser
Barton, D. (2007). Literacy : an introduction to the ecology of written language (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
Hamilton, M. (2000). Expanding the new literacy studies: Using photographs to explore literacy as social practice. In M. Hamilton, I. Roz, & D. Barton (Eds.), Situated literacies: Reading and writing in context (pp. 16-34).
Hellne-Halvorsen, E. B. (2019). To kontekster - to skrivepraksiser? Skriving i skole og bedrift i fag- og yrkesopplæringen: [Two contexts – two writing practices? Writing in school and enterprises of Technical and Vocational Education and Training]. Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 9(1), 43-65. https://doi.org/10.3384/njvet.2242-458X.199143