Researching graduates’ lived experiences of vocational learning

Abstract

The aim of this article is to exemplify the value of using a phenomenological approach when investigating graduates’ lived experiences of vocational learning. For this study, qualitative data was obtained during a series of email interviews with 35 participants. As a group they are highly aspirational and, during their graduate studies, were employed as teaching or higher-level teaching assistants in schools. The importance of this group lies in their potential contribution to the wider, international discourse concerning vocational learning and graduate employability. The research underlines the extent to which organisations are ‘sites of struggle’ wherein opportunities for vocational learning arise as part of people’s everyday collective work, and when ‘acting up’ an absent person’s role. Likened to a ‘lived’ apprenticeship in participant narratives, vocational learning is seen to be negotiated within, and at, the boundaries of working groups, and played out through the dynamics of human relations.

Keywords:

• vocational learning
• communities of practice
• ‘lived’ apprenticeship
• job demand/job control
• psychological contract
• managing change
• phenomenological perspective