Vocational subject-making and the work of schools: A case study

Abstract

The rhetoric of the new vocationalism is about creating a new type of person: an enterprising, flexible, portfolio-oriented, lifelong learner. The rhetoric of contemporary Australian government policy is that schools should be more vocational. This article focuses on schooling and a case study of a site where two vocational 'dual accreditation' subjects are being taught It argues (a) that different visions of schooling and vocational knowledge are evident at different levels of the system, but also between teachers involved in the same formal structure and between students within the same classes; (b) that the dual assessment regimes observed here embody not only different epistemologies, bu..