Vocational Pedagogies: the Science of Teaching or the Teaching of Science?

Abstract

This paper draws on recent reports and articles concerning vocational education and training which in 2014 aim to offer a theoretical underpinning for vocational pedagogy and one that promotes a greater understanding of how the ‘practical knowledge’ within vocational education and training can be developed through a consideration of different pedagogic practices. What these reports fail to do however is to address a consideration of the ‘theoretical knowledge’ within vocational areas of study currently on offer. This article, therefore seeks to provide an alternative view of vocational pedagogy that arises from a practitioner perspective of teaching science to vocational ‘subjects’ for a number of years. Hence it is an attempt to reframe the arguments for vocational pedagogy into a consideration of the teaching of ‘science’ within vocational education rather than an analysis of the newly defined concept of vocational pedagogy which implies that teaching vocational subjects is an art in itself.