Vocational Educators: Understanding Practice at Work

This chapter uses sociohistorical and sociocultural theory to understand and identify what comprises competence in vocational educators’ practice. In doing so, it does not aim to be prescriptive. Only when the perspectives that contribute to a view of what comprises the occupational practice in the particular cultural setting (e.g. nation, state, educational system) and the situational requirements arising from the particular manifestation of practice have been accounted for, can the requirements for competent performance be understood fully. Accordingly, this chapter aims to describe a means by which these requirements can be identified and described. The conceptual basis is founded within cultural-historical activity theory (Cole 1998) or what (1991) refers to as the sociocultural approach. An analysis based on two lines of social development are deployed in this account; one informing the occupational view and one the situational requirements. The culturally determined need for vocational educators is found in sociohistorical and sociocultural sources. Together, these sources provide the goals for, procedures and conceptions of vocational educators’ practice and inform how they have evolved into a particular sociocultural practice or occupation (Scribner 1985). The delineation of the occupation permits an understanding of how vocational educators’ practice is distinct from those in other educational sectors (e.g. compulsory or higher education). Moreover, it explains also how the occupational practice, and therefore what is required for performance, differs across countries according to their cultural needs.