Education or Training? Changes in vocational teachers’ conceptions of their work

Abstract

The introduction briefly characterises the recent situation in Finnish vocational education, in order to highlight the relevance and function of my own historical and critical research project on changes in vocational teachers’ conceptions of their work. In the second section reasons are given why teachers should be of special interest and what is meant by ‘vocational teachers’, explaining the methodological starting points and basic research questions in my project. Thirdly, some examples are given from the oral history part of the project relating to post‐war development in Finnish vocational education. In the final section some lessons, both substantial and methodological, learnt thus far, which seem important in continuing the project are discussed.