Barbara Duc

Power, Miscommunication and Cultural Diversity

This chapter explores the specific domain of what is commonly referred to as initial vocational education and training (VET). It focuses on apprenticeship programmes in Switzerland, where the dominant form of training consists of a complex combination of school-based and practice-based learning. In such a ‘dual’ system, apprentices experience a plurality of training sites. They move between vocational schools or training centres, where they are introduced to technical and general content, and ordinary workplaces, where they acquire practical skills and encounter the specific requirements of work tasks.

Success, Well-Being and Social Recognition: An Interactional Perspective on Vocational Training Practices

This article focuses on the relationship between trainers and apprentices within Swiss training centers and aims to highlight how interactional processes can lead to a legitimate, recognized and valued social position for learners within learning communities of practice. We consider this “successful” dimension an important component of learning processes and construction of learning trajectories. If social interactions contribute to knowledge, skill and identity construction, learning through collective practices and interactions is seldom settled linearly and harmoniously. Collective learning configurations involve heterogeneous and unequal forms of mutual participation and relationships amongst participants. By adopting an interactional and multimodal perspective on training practices our contribution captures the conditions of “successful” and “unsuccessful” transitions in vocational training programs. From recently collected audio-video data in a training center involving first year apprentices in industrial trades, two contrasting case studies are examined. The first one leads to valued forms of participation, the other one marginalizes the role of the apprentice within the community of practice.