Lene Tanggaard Pedersen

Apprenticeship rehabilitated in a postmodern world

In this article, it will be argued that in a postmodern society, there is a growing interest in apprenticeship. In a postmodern society, one of the issues dominating work life today is the need to learn local and pragmatic kinds of knowledge due to specialized, rapidly changing, and flexible forms of production. The resurrected interest in apprenticeships that we are witnessing is not due to mere chance or personal contributions to the field; additionally, they are not only a reflection of educational fads. Rather, apprenticeship learning is in line with current postmodern conceptions of knowledge. The change in production involves a relocation of knowledge, the importance and recognition of exemplary forms of acquiring knowledge, the primacy of pragmatic knowledge, knowledge as socially distributed, and knowledge as flexible, changing.

The research interview as discourses crossing swords - The researcher and apprentice on crossing roads

This article presents a conception of the qualitative research interview as discourses crossing swords. The article draws on examples showing how the researchers’ view on learning is challenged by the interviewed apprentices. The apprentices do not assume learning in itself to be an important aspect of their lives. They consider the process of becoming a competent professional the main motive of their working lives. In the presented interview situations, these differing assumptions of the researcher and the apprentices become apparent as competing discourses: learning versus professional competence. These discourses cross each other and become the context of a productive negotiation of meaning. In the article it is suggested that in such cases, the qualitative research interview can be understood on the background of a battlefield metaphor highlighting the antagonistic character of conversations in an interview setting aimed at research.