Maintenance or change - an analytical tool for studies of the Work-Integrated Learning in teacher education

Abstract

In Sweden, as in many other countries, work-integrated learning is an emphasized part of teacher education. In parallel with this emphasis, the conflict often emerging in students’ meeting with the profession is well known from previous research. In spite there seem to be few analytical tools for capturing the characteristics of work-integrated learning. The aim of this article is to construct, operationalize and try out an analytical tool to be used in connection with studies of the character of work-integrated learning. For the construction of the tool we rely on the conceptual pair of horizontal and vertical discourse, collected from Basil Bernstein’s theoretical frame. The horizontal discourse connects to an informal, everyday context whereas the vertical discourse is formal and school-oriented. In the article we divide these concepts into certain aspects related to work-integrated learning. We also turn to empirical material where student teachers were interviewed about their experiences, mainly from tutorial guidance. Our conclusion is that the analytical tool could serve as a useful instrument for analyzing such phenomena.