Dealing with diversity in vocational education and training

Background and Problem

With its overarching goal of ‘structural development for vocational school teacher education’, the SteBs project addresses both collaboration within university-based teacher education and cooperation across the Bremen vocational education and training (VET) landscape. In the research sub-project ‘Dealing with Heterogeneity in Vocational Teacher Education’ (WP 4), existing difference-sensitive approaches from educational science for general schools are interwoven with the academic engagement with heterogeneity in the field of vocational pedagogy. In addition, the specific nature of the needs in the VET context is surveyed. Concepts from general and vocational teacher education relating to the topic of ‘dealing with heterogeneity’ are made productive for one another. Through concrete pedagogical concept development on the basis of theoretical engagement with dealing with heterogeneity, questions of subject didactics and educational science are further developed for the VET context. Furthermore, a concept for the sensitive and reflective preparation of prospective vocational school teachers for the challenges of heterogeneous learning groups is being developed and linked to the overall strategy for teacher education with regard to dealing with heterogeneity, by implementing the concept in university courses and integrating selected module content into the preparatory teacher training phase (Referendariat).

Research question

• How can learning modules that aim to convey discrimination-critical and power-reflexive perspectives on social relations be designed for the specific context of teacher training in vocational education and training?

• How can (future) teachers in vocational education and training be sensitised to the connection between relations of inequality and constructions of difference, and how can they be encouraged to engage in critical reflection processes as part of their pedagogical professionalisation?

Approach

Completion and revision of a concept for the appropriate preparation of prospective vocational school teachers for the challenges of heterogeneous learning groups (incl. T4)

• Revision of the learning modules following piloting and evaluation

• Expansion of the content to 17 modules

• Definition of 12 learning objectives for power-critical professionalisation in teacher training for vocational education and training, based on the Critical Diversity Literacy method (following Melissa Steyn)

Further development of the e-portfolio p:ier into a reflection portfolio on dealing with heterogeneity (incl. evaluation) and linking it to the Bremen learning platform

• Use of p:ier as a reflection portfolio in seminars on ‘Diversity in Vocational Education and Training’. Feeding the concept back into the overall strategy for teacher education with regard to dealing with heterogeneity

• Digitalisation of the learning modules through the successful establishment of the OER learning platform www.berufsbildung-divers.de

• Further work on an accompanying OER handbook

Implementation and evaluation of the concept within university courses

• Implementation and piloting of further learning modules within seminars on the topic of ‘Dealing with Diversity in Vocational Education and Training’

• Evaluation of the reflection sheets on their personal learning journey produced by students in the seminars

• Adaptation and revision of the learning modules on the basis of student feedback

• Further development of the structure of a handbook for delivering the course

• Piloting of the digital learning platform with students

Results

(1) For many student teachers, engaging with relations of inequality initially triggered the impulse to want to be ‘good’ and to protect disadvantaged pupils from discrimination. (2) The desire always to do everything ‘right’ had a more ambivalent effect. To avoid early resignation, it was important for students also to confront the impossibility of always doing everything ‘right’ for everyone involved within hegemonic institutions. They needed to learn to tolerate this impossibility without abandoning the effort to reproduce as little discrimination and disadvantage as possible. (3) It became necessary to reflect on the overall situation in which the teaching and learning processes took place. What constraints, for example, did hierarchical and graded settings impose on the critical-reflexive professionalisation of student teachers? (4) Learning processes touched students on an affective level that extended far beyond the seminar itself and also influenced them in their private lives.

Dissemination

Heinemann, Alisha M.B.; Reinsberg, Myrthe (2022): Machtkritische Reflexionen und differenzsensible Professionalisierung im Lehramtsstudium der gewerblich-technischen Bildung, in: bwp@, Zeitschrift für Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik-online, Ausgabe 42 Soziale Ungleichheit und Bildungsgerechtigkeit in der Berufsbildung.

Presentations

Heinemann, Alisha M.B.; Reinsberg, Myrthe: ‘Spannungsfelder der diskriminierungskritischen Lehre in der universitären Lehramtsausbildung der beruflichen Bildung’, presented at the 11th Kolleg Reflective Practice at the University of Bremen, 5 May 2022

Heinemann, Alisha M.B.; Reinsberg, Myrthe: ‘Ich bin immer dort, wo ich sein will’ – Zur machtkritischen Reflexion von Differenzverhältnissen in der Lehramtsausbildung der beruflichen Bildung, 2nd Symposium: Diversität in der beruflichen Bildung (Pädagogische Hochschule Wien), 20 January 2022