Vocational students’ experiences of power relations during periods of workplace learning – a means for citizenship learning

Abstract

Students in vocational education may experience situations during on-the -job training in which power relations are strongly manifested, with considerable potential for learning about democracy that have been far from fully explored. Thus, here we analyse how Swedish vocational education and training (VET) students perceived and experienced power relations during their workplace learning periods in upper secondary education, and discuss their experiences in the context of learning democratic rights. Interviewed students perceived power relations at workplaces in various ways. Most of them did not perceive the power relations as problematic, but a substantial proportion did, and expressed a need to talk about perceived power structures. This need concerned both how they personally felt positioned in power structures, and their perceived position of the profession they aimed to enter. The findings are discussed in relation to earlier arguments that VET often focuses much more strongly on learning skills than on learning democratic rights. A conclusion we draw is that schools could advantageously use students' experiences of power relations as foundations for democratic learning.

Agency is an illusion

“…Teaching democracy and citizenship is comprehensive. Such teaching should ideally empower students in the growth of self-determination and agency (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2017;Skaalvik et al, 2020), address power relations (Rönnlund & Rosvall, 2021), facilitate consciousness of social justice and critical engagement, and stimulate political literacy (Westheimer, 2015(Westheimer, , 2020. In the framework for general competence in teacher education, the following is statutory:…”