Developing students’ professional identities through work integrated learning: ‘small story’ research from an ethnographic perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT In order to prepare students for their future professional life, research has shifted from a skills-based approach to one that centres on their socio-cultural resources. In particular, how they evaluate their ‘social and cultural capital’, in relation to their developing professional identities, and how this can be facilitated through work-integrated learning (WIL), based on students’ initial forays into the labour market whilst still engaged with their studies. To date much research in this area has drawn on quantitative data, i.e. student surveys and questionnaires, although there has been a call for thicker descriptions based on a narrative approach. This article therefore proposes extending this research based on a ‘small story’ analytical perspective on data that emerges through student interviews and suggests ways it might enrich work-integrated learning approaches. Drawing on findings from initial research, it is argued that further similar ‘small story’ research might explore how students dialogically engage and evaluate their capital in a WIL context; evaluating the capital they see as being relevant from their initial work experience, among which the norms, values, and beliefs developed through professional socialisation, and comparing and contrasting that with what they find in the classroom.