Reconstructing Learner Identity in VET. The Effect of School Experiences and Learning Cultures on Identity Construction

Abstract

Upper Vocational Education in Spain remains as a poorly developed and prestigious training path, despite the significant progress made in recent years. Its levels of supply and demand are much lower than those of the Academic path -the Baccalaureate. In addition, in global terms, VET courses enrol a much higher percentage of working class’ students as well as young people with trajectories of school failure. The objective of this article is to analyse how VET students construct their identity as learners based on their educational experiences – both past and present – and their projections for the future. The analysis develops a qualitative methodology based on 42 in-depth interviews with students in the first course of upper secondary VET in Barcelona. The results show, on the one hand, that the learner identity of VET students is constructed upon on a mostly negative experience of compulsory schooling. This, in turn, is grounded on a public conception of them as bad students. On the other hand, it proves the emergence of processes of identity ressignificance when they enrol in VET, based on the recognition and dignifying of the practical knowledge that articulates the teaching and learning cultures of this training path. In whole, the article contributes to advancing to the study of learner identities as a key element in understanding educational inequalities.