More morphostasis than morphogenesis? The ‘dual professionalism’ of English Further Education workshop tutors

Abstract

An international repositioning of vocational teachers in relation to knowledge and the workplace is reflected in English Further Education through the terminology of ‘dual professionalism’. Particularly in settings most closely linked to specific occupations, this discourse privileges occupational expertise that vocational educators bring from their former employment alongside pedagogic expectations of the teaching role. In a qualitative study of recently qualified teachers employed substantially in workshop settings, using the analytical framework of Margaret Archer, workplace skills and generic attributes provided a basis for claims to expertise, extending to a custodianship of former occupations. Further augmentation of educator roles, however, appeared constrained by market approaches to development and employment insecurity in the sector and beyond. In Archer’s terms, the current environment appears to cast ‘dual professionalism’ as morphostasis, drawing on former practice at the expense of teacher identity in the face of insecurity. Morphogenesis into enhanced professional teacher identities, for example, developing coherent vocational pedagogies informed by research into advances in knowledge, appears the less likely outcome in the current and emerging sector.

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Keywords:

• Dual professionalism
• vocational educators
• teacher education
• work-based learning
• vocational pedagogy
• critical realism