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Due to the global outbreak of Covid-19, Swedish teachers in upper secondary education were forced to conduct emergency remote teaching. As of today, there is a stream of research that addresses digitalization in education in light of the pandemic. Previous studies show that the challenges with the sudden intensification of digitalization have been particularly challenging in practical and aesthetic subjects. The research question is as follows: What challenges did vocational teachers experience during the emergency remote teaching caused by Covid-19 and what emergent tactics can be identified in vocational teaching practice?

The empirical data consists of (1) interviews with two vocational teachers and, (2) workshops with 25 teacher students from different vocational programmes that addressed vocational teaching during the Covid-19 crisis.

Emergency remote teaching meant challenges due to the changed socio-material environment that cannot easily be transformed to a vocational teaching setting. The challenges were related to authentic situations and material, problem solving and dexterity. Tactics that emerged as a response to the challenges were mainly connected to attempts to mimic vocational practices.

Contributions include explaining specific challenges and possibilities in developing vocational competence when teaching is digitalised. Furthermore, it increases the understanding of the relationship between theory and practice in vocational education. By adopting a socio-material perspective on vocational competence, the authors enhance the understanding of the importance of a shared socio-material environment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate vocational teaching behaviours in facilitating pedagogical practice concerning students' classroom engagement.

A mixed-method approach with quantitative classroom observations and qualitative field notes was conducted at two higher vocational institutions in Guangdong province, south of China. Sixty lesson observations were rated combining with supplementary field notes from 20 teacher participants analysed through a comparative coding process.

Means of dimensions of teaching behaviours and student engagement were calculated based on taking the averages of the means of items theoretically associated with each dimension. Through thematic analysis of observational notes, vocational instructions and students' engagement in vocational learning environment were more diversified in terms of vocational teaching practice, which manifested that vocational teaching behaviours focused more on adjusting students' practical learning.

The limitation is shown that the quantitative sample is small, yet affords greater depth of data for further discussion.

This study develops its setting and orientation by applying the classroom observation instrument into the Chinese high vocational context and offers more in-depth insights and exploration of the characteristics of teaching practice in vocational classrooms.

This study aims to explore vocational teachers' perceptions regarding workplace learning that align with students' training models and collaborative teaching involving specialised professionals within the context of industry-university collaboration.

Using a qualitative approach, the study conducted nine semi-structured interviews from three subject areas to better understand how vocational teachers’ work-based learning enhances their pedagogical practice in guiding students’ professional training. Thematic analysis was adopted to identify patterns that emerged from concepts and theories related to coding categories.

The authors identified three key components: vocational teachers’ workplace learning in connection with students’ training models, collaborative teaching with specialised professionals and teachers’ regular interactions with enterprises. The findings demonstrate that vocational teachers’ engagement in workplace learning pertaining to specific subjects provides a valuable avenue for enhancing curriculum design with collaboration with industry experts. This is key for supporting vocational students’ transitions into the workplace and ensuring their knowledge and skills are tailored to the industry-standard practice.

The data are limited to the review of interviews from three vocational subject areas as the representative sector in the study. However, this research implies effective knowledge transfer between workplace settings and vocational institutions, and vocational teachers need to integrate work-based vocational knowledge and skills in a relevant and applicable way across diverse classroom settings.

Fostering collaborative partnerships with local industries and professionals can be a primary way to facilitate authentic learning experiences that are linked to a specific vocational field and bridge the gap between diverse classroom learning and real-world work scenarios.

This study combines contemporary workplace learning theories with the conceptual understanding of vocational teachers’ involvement with industry-specific practice. Connecting teachers’ knowledge to the industry extends the input and collaboration from professionals and field experts to the diverse vocational classrooms.

The concept of “career” has become the dominant mode of thinking about the “lifespan” of one's working life in contemporary late capitalist society. The research literature on the concept of “vocation” and/or “calling” has grown in recent years, but has not yet received extensive treatment in the area of management career development. The purpose of this paper is to address this lacuna by outlining and describing the practice of vocational ideation (or considering one's work as calling, as opposed to a career or a job) in relation to its potential utilization in contemporary management and career development.

The paper is essentially conceptual and is informed by an extensive review of research literature and theory which examines how the concept of the “calling” has been integrated with learning, educational and developmental activities.

The paper discusses the implications of the return to the concept of “vocation” in HR and Management Development theory and demonstrates why “calling” is a small but significant nuance which can change the way in which managers engage with career development practices. The literature on introducing the concept of vocational ideation to career development activities has grown in research years. However, the literature review found that this body of work tends to focus on pre-experience college students, which indicates that it has not often been considered as a viable avenue for management development practice or research.

As the paper is purely conceptual, and most of the literature in this field tends to focus on pre-experience students, potential implications for practice and avenues for future research are outlined. One of the two main categories of research need which emerged from the conceptual work described in this paper in relation to vocationally oriented career ideation was concerned with developing an understanding the dynamics of introducing the concept of vocational calling into management career development interventions.

A template for “doing” for vocational ideation in a management career development or management development context was offered. This outline may be altered to assist management development practitioners to develop and augment vocational ideation initiatives as part of their work and professional practice.

Another area of research need emerging from this work was concerned with understanding changing perspectives on non-economic aspects of work as a social practice, the impact of culture on how vocations are understood, and the relationship between spirituality and meaningfulness and career behavior. In summary there appears to be a need for more studies which demonstrate how changed understandings of the vocation is reflective of broader social change.

The concept of vocational ideation is original and does not exist as a concept or a practice in the professional or research literature. It is discussed here in the context of the growth of interest in spirituality and religion in workplaces. Specific attention is given to how it can be applied in contemporary workplaces and organizations as part of management development practices.

To provide information and insight into the potential of reforms in full‐time vocational education and training (VET) (practice firms in vocational colleges) in contrast with apprenticeships against the background of training market frictions in Germany.

Structural information on the German VET system; empirical study (2006) within a research project to illustrate the didactical and social benefits of practice firms.

Underlines that vocational colleges and practice firms within them are part of a “preparatory” system which predominantly serves further education needs and the follow‐up intention to undertake an apprenticeship; confirms preceding research which put them in line with the “typical” full‐time VET system.

Limitations are due to the focus on one type of full‐time VET and the specific conditions in the federal state of Baden‐Württemberg.

Provides useful information to understand the nature of VET in a given country; insight into the limitations of full‐time VET can help teachers to rethink co‐operation with companies in general.

Useful contribution to rethinking VET policy and to understanding limitations in the wake of an implementation of new forms of vocational learning against the background of culturally‐rooted tradtions.

An attempt is made to illustrate the multi‐faceted and multifarious nature of human resource development worldwide, following a definition of it and a description of how it operates in a number of countries throughout the world, including the US, the EEC countries, India, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The roles and functions of HRD practitioners are examined, and the competences required listed. A short history of the International Federation of Training and Development Organisations is offered and a list of conferences described.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how vocational teachers’ everyday practices can constitute innovative learning spaces that help students to experience engagement and commitment towards education and thus increase their possibilities for completing their studies despite notable difficulties.

Based on two ethnographic field studies, we analyse vocational teaching situations in which teachers and students engage in daily remaking of the vocational educational training practice. It is argued that these everyday situations can be understood as innovative transformation of participation and practice.

The exploration of teachers’ practicing new learning spaces sheds light on innovation potential embedded in everyday educational practices. The paper thus challenges the celebration of radical innovation and argues that innovation emerges from everyday activities in which teachers succeed to balance continuities and discontinuities. Studying innovation as a balance between change and stability thus involves emerging, negotiated processes of learning and participation in everyday practices where people talk, interact and conduct their work and studies.

Based on the analysis, we argue that students’ engagement in education can be enhanced by transforming the educational settings on various parameters such as buildings, artefacts, emotions and experiences. Thus, innovation should be recognised as emerging everyday activities in which frontline workers like vocational teachers are drivers for innovation.

Innovative everyday activities are often invisible; however, we suggest that they can be studied and thus become visible by use of the analytic term: “boundary-pushing“.

The purpose of this paper is to bare the peculiarities and challenges of the dual training (DT) of the future primary school teachers in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The above-mentioned problem is quite urgent, as the system of VET and DT is a rather new experience for Kazakhstani system of higher education. Thereby, the paper makes an effort to demonstrate the forms of organization of DT at teachers’ training university.

The instruments for gathering information (data) for this study were various primary school teachers’ training curricula adopted by Kazakh State Women’s Teacher Training University; in particular, curricula of teaching practice. Various types of teaching practice during the entire learning period are provided by the state educational standards of higher professional education. Therefore, the research utilized a retrospective analysis that allows identifying the nature and specifics of the primary school teachers’ training curricula.

The paper points out the necessity to strengthen practical orientation of future primary school teacher through the synthesis of academic and educational processes (in school). It also presents the differences between the organization of teaching practice based on traditional and dual approach.

The authors suggest project curriculum of continuous teaching practice during the entire learning process on the example of the specialty 5B010200 Pedagogy and methodology of primary education in the context of DT and some results of its implementation.

Analyses the development of vocational knowledge through two contrasting approaches which are referred to as the “instructional media” and everyday practice. The former is the text‐based approach currently favoured by government and the latter is an approach to learning through participation in everyday activities. Using data from a study conducted in the workplace, appraises the processes and outcomes of these two approaches to learning. Indicates that everyday practice offers the greatest likelihood of securing vocational knowledge. Concludes that access to, and ongoing engagement with, authentic learning activities are significant attributes to this approach to the acquisition of vocational knowledge.

Discusses the problem of “creating” a vocational education and training profession in Europe. In approaching the problem, national and cultural differences of vocational education and training must be recognized. Typical ways of comparing and analysing them may, however, be limited for reflecting on the topic of vocational education and training (VET) profession. Suggests that an analysis on the “education functions” of different categories of vocational educators and trainers in different cultures is needed. To promote further discussion, gives an example from Finland. In the Finnish case, vocational teachers have become the proponents of vocational education.