What is vocational pedagogy and who is it for?

This paper examines the current debate around policy on vocational pedagogy in the United Kingdom and draws on the findings from an LSIS-funded research project which investigated the vocational pedagogy used in four different providers. Alison Wolf’s Report on Vocational Education (2011) is the most prominent contribution to the debate but there have been many others. Amongst them City and Guilds produced a report in 2012 (How to teach vocational education: A theory of vocational pedagogy) as did Learning and Skills Network in 2011 (Effective teaching and learning in vocational education) and the Edge Foundation in 2010 (Mind the gap: Research and reality in practical and vocational education). Most recently the government instigated the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning. As well as reviewing the related literature the researchers observed and interviewed vocational teachers in two colleges and two private providers to locate and analyse differing understandings of what vocational pedagogy means. Informed by the work of Michael Young and Leesa Wheelahan, the paper explores how understandings of vocational pedagogy relate theory and practice in ways that promote or limit access to abstract knowledge, with implications for social justice.