Staying in the comfort zones – Low expectations in vocational education and training mathematics teaching in Sweden and Finland

Abstract

Vocational education has a historical legacy of being low-status and aimed at producing skilled workers. Students with low marks in comprehensive school are still often guided to the vocational educational track. In this article we examine how mathematics teaching in a vocational educational context is framed (henceforth VET). Therefore, our aim with this article is to explore how teacher responses come into play in school mathematics classes, and the teacher–student interactions within those practices. The empirical material is based on educational ethnographic research, i.e. classroom observations and interviews, conducted in three upper secondary institutions, two in Sweden and one in Finland. The results indicate that both teachers and students seem to remain in what might be called their ‘comfort zones’, i.e. that pedagogic practices tend to strengthen the idea of a vocational learner as being practically oriented; using their hands instead of their heads and in need of care and surveillance. The analysis focuses on mathematics teaching rather than on the content and was chosen because it is associated with general qualifications and the notion of lifelong learning. In this respect it exemplifies the growing tension in VET between workplace and academic knowledge.

Keywords

Mathematics education vocational education teacher response educational sociology

Frida is still sitting with earphones on her ears staring straight forward with a serious and empty look. I have not seen her doing any tasks during the whole lesson. Rolf, the special education teacher in mathematics, walks up to Patrik, Karl and Frida. The students are chatting with each other, private talk. Rolf does not say anything, just stands quietly for a while, and then he walks around in the classroom, moving to other students. Patrik, Karl and Frida continue their private chat (Field notes, CR class).

Those field notes are from a class in mathematics within a Child and Recreation (CR) programme in an upper secondary school in Sweden. The CR programme is a vocational programme in which students, like others on vocational programmes, are often portrayed as uninterested in or opposed to what they consider theoretical rather than practical subjects, for example mathematics or language studies (Asplund and Prieto, 2013; Mendick, 2005). However, in addition to research containing such portrayals, we have argued through our own research, both individually (Hjelmér, 2011b; Lappalainen, 2014; Rosvall, 2011b) and in collaboration (Hjelmér et al., 2010, 2014) that this issue is much more complicated. Our earlier research, in which the focus was on students’ actions, shows that students can be quite critical about the quality of their education, especially in what are viewed as theoretical subjects, i.e. reduction of teacher-led time, low expectations, etc. (Hjelmér, 2011a; Rosvall, 2011a). The field note above (and others like it), describing how the teacher does not intervene when the students do not participate in learning mathematics the way which seems to be expected in the school system (cf. Beach and Dovemark, 2007), encouraged us to analyse our material with the aim of examining teachers’ and students’ actions, i.e. teachers’ responses to students’ actions and/or inaction. The point of our analysis is not to say whether teachers or students are ‘guilty’ but to examine how the practices seem to encourage people to act in certain ways. Our results and analysis are presented herein.

Vocational education is closely connected to several discourses, of which the theoretical and practical divide is one (Halliday, 2000), i.e. some students are described as being theoretical and others practical in essence. Elina Lahelma (2009) has analysed the theory–practice dichotomy in the context of comprehensive schooling. She has found a metaphoric dichotomy of ‘heads’ and ‘hands’, where head is related to school subjects considered theoretical, such as mathematics and languages, while the hands metaphor is related to subjects considered practical, such as handicrafts (Lahelma 2009: 499). ‘One with talented hands’ was used as a euphemism for a low-achieving student. The division between practically and theoretically oriented students appears when students are guided into post-compulsory education and those ‘with talented hands’ are easily guided to VET (Lappalainen et al., 2013).

However, later research also questions the discourse relating to students in vocational education being only interested in what are described as practical tasks and highlights the fact that workplaces demand more knowledge of school subjects generally considered to be academic. Accordingly, students in vocational education seem to have adapted their aspirations in those subjects (Korp, 2012; Rosvall, 2011b), even though anti-school attitudes traditionally associated with vocational education seem to co-exist (Asplund and Prieto, 2013). Wheelahan (2007) in Australia, Young (2008) in the UK, Gamble (2006) in South Africa and Korp (2012) in Sweden have reported that vocational education is often oriented towards low expectations and context-dependent knowledge, rather than reflecting and generalizing knowledge. Knowledge is useful in order to put workplace skills into a wider context, for example the capacity to improvise when things do not work out as expected, to formulate and carry out advanced trouble shooting, and to relate costs to issues of quality or environmental effects. It seems as if school practices in that sense have not been fully adapted to the aspirations of vocational students or the ‘new’ demands of the workplace (Nylund and Rosvall, 2016). If vocational students and workplaces have higher demands for more general knowledge in these respects, it is appropriate to ask what is being done within VET to meet these demands. In other words, there is a historical and ongoing tension in VET education about the extent to which VET is work-oriented or academically oriented, and this has an influence on subjects such as mathematics in relation to the academic/vocational divide (cf. Young, 2008). This tension is also visible at the European level and, as described by Pépin (2007), since the 1990s the European Commission has applied the concept of lifelong learning in order to address the notion of more knowledge-based societies. However, in VET at a European level the lifelong learning discourse is not uncontested. For example, Germany with its dual VET system with much workplace learning is held up as a good example by politicians in Germany and other countries to fight youth unemployment. The dual system is by others critiqued to give ‘here and now’ knowledge with short expiring date and to reinforce social stratification (Beicht and Walden, 2015). In addition, some plans that were implemented to prepare VET students for a changing labour market seem short lived, for example the introduction of the diploma goals in the UK, which were meant to give VET students access to higher education and a wider range of lifelong learning, were cancelled after only a few years (Hodgson and Spours, 2010). Also, recent reforms in policy relating to vocational education in the Nordic countries rather point to the opposite, since Denmark (Cort, 2010), Finland (Väyrynen, 2004; Isopahkala-Bouret, 2010; Lappalainen and Lahelma, 2015) and Sweden (Lundahl et al., 2010; Nylund and Rosvall, 2016) now place fewer demands on more general knowledge and more emphasis on workplace knowledge (the reforms were implemented in Denmark in 2000, Finland in 1999–2001 and Sweden in 2011).

The policy changes and implementation of such reforms have been applied in conjunction with arguments for vocational education to be more effective with respect to throughput and reducing the dropout rate. These arguments have focused on society as a whole rather than on the individual (López-Fogués, 2012). Researchers have also identified a trend of reducing the demands placed on vocational students in school practice, in what is referred to as the ‘therapeutic turn’ (Brunila, 2012; Ecclestone, 2004; Hyland, 2006). Education practices have been oriented towards (self) therapy rather than knowledge, with the arguments that those particular students lack (academic) self-esteem and motivation to study. The pedagogic practices, therefore, include ‘feel good’ activities in order to achieve motivation.

In this article, we analyse how constructed cultural expectations frame mathematics teaching in two national VET contexts: Sweden and Finland. We have chosen mathematics teaching because it is one of the so-called core subjects in both countries. Moreover, mathematics is a subject laden with great symbolic value. ‘The queen of science’ is associated with reason and a highly abstract level of thinking (Valero 2007; Wolf 2011) and is important in relation to the notions of lifelong learning, often acting as the ‘gatekeeper’ for access to higher education.

This article is organized as follows: a description of the Swedish and Finnish educational systems, followed by a section presenting research material and methods. The results and analysis section starts by describing the contexts, showing that it was common for students to be rather passive with respect to seeking support from teachers and school staff. The article then turns to the teachers’ reactions to the students’ passive approach, which is presented in three sections: 1) focus on emotional support rather than knowledge; 2) encouraging the unfocused; and 3) reduction of teacher-led lesson time.

Swedish and Finnish educational systems at the time of the studies

From a European perspective, the Nordic countries are known traditionally to emphasize educational equality with, for example, uniform, free-of-charge compulsory education for all children (Arnesen and Lundahl, 2006). However, in upper secondary education the will to even out social disadvantages and social routes between more general education and vocational education has, at a policy level, been somewhat more successful in Sweden in the sense of minimizing differences between vocational and general education curricula. Vocational and general upper secondary programmes are often delivered at the same institutions, while Finnish vocational and general programmes are taught at different institutions (Hjelmér et al., 2014). However, as a result of reform in 2011, differences between vocational education and general education in Sweden have increased, for example the obligatory courses in vocational programmes no longer automatically give access to higher education and the curricula are more workplace oriented. However, the different programmes are still generally delivered within the same institutions (Nylund and Rosvall, 2016). Moreover, mathematics in VET occupies a certain place in this educational equality discourse, and in Sweden until 1994, VET learners were educated by VET teachers. The arguments for letting VET students be taught more general mathematics by teachers with an academic degree in the subject instead of VET teachers were ones of equality, providing opportunities for lifelong learning and allowing VET students to participate in the ‘new’ knowledge society (Lindberg and Grevholm, 2013).

Research material and methods

The analyses undertaken here draw on ethnographic data relating to three programmes in the sectors of vocational education: Health Care and Social Services (HC) in one Finnish institute and the CR and Vehicle programmes (VP) in two Swedish schools. The CR and HC programmes are both female-dominated, while the VP is traditionally male-dominated and prepares students for jobs in vehicle maintenance and bus or lorry driving. The CR programme prepares students to work in preschools and supervising recreational activities for children of all ages, but changes in the employment market have resulted in a requirement for several years of higher education for most of these occupations (e.g. preschool teacher or leisure activity instructor). Having obtained qualifications as licensed practical nurses, the students from the Finnish class would be qualified for basic level work in the social and health care sector. Both the Finnish female-dominated HC and Swedish male-dominated VP provided good prospects for jobs in the target sectors immediately after finishing the programme, but this was not the case for the CR programme, following which, university studies are usually needed as a route to employment.

In the CR class there were 17 girls and 4 boys. The HC group originally consisted of 24 students, only 2 of whom were male. Most of the teachers of these two classes were also female. In sharp contrast, the Vehicle class consisted of 16 boys and all of their teachers except for mathematics were male. Most of the students in the three classes came from backgrounds that, on the basis of their parents’ occupation, can be broadly defined as working class or lower middle class (Hjelmér et al., 2010, 2014). The data obtained from all three schools consisted of field notes generated through participant observation, and interviews with students, teachers and other school staff. Data were collected in more subjects, but the analysis for this article focused only on mathematics lessons.

Our research was directed by earlier collaborative work (Hjelmér et al., 2010, 2014) in which we focused on the students. This motivated us to analyse the responses of teachers towards the students’ actions (or inactions). From our discussions, we identified mathematics as a critical context in which the expectations of the vocational students became highly visible. The subject of mathematics was chosen because it has been identified as the most important gate keeper when it comes to advancement in school and universities and securing the most attractive jobs. In this context of workplace demands and student aspirations, mathematics is known to be a stakeholder in relation to advancement in academia and is connected to highly paid work (Valero, 2007). Wolf (2011), examining the English context, concludes that knowledge in mathematics is ‘extremely important for labour market entry, and continue[s] to have a significant impact on career progression and pay’ (Wolf, 2011: 32). The same is valid for the Swedish and Finnish contexts, where mathematics is the most common subject in which students fail in compulsory education, making it difficult for them to attend the programme they want in upper secondary school (The Swedish National Agency for Education, 2014). As an example of mathematics affecting pay, a vehicle electrician earns more than a regular vehicle mechanic (Niemi and Rosvall, 2013). Mathematics is also known, more than other subjects, to create anxiety among students; indeed, ‘maths anxiety’ is a whole field of research (Berger, 2012; Bøe et al., 2011). Subject knowledge is not always what is asked for, but certain subjects also signal general skills, and mathematics is often associated with skills in reasoning and structurally advanced thinking, which are highly valued by employers (Valero, 2007; Wolf, 2011). However, this describes a hierarchy that does not necessarily highlight what is useful and makes sense for the student. For example, more academic or abstract mathematics can cause problems for students, and a pedagogy that shifts between the context-specific and the abstract is usually recommended (cf. Young, 2008).

Herein, pedagogic practices in mathematics classes in a VP, a CR programme and an HC programme are analysed. When discussing our data, we noted that, despite the different countries and organizations, the pedagogic practices in mathematics in the Swedish and Finnish settings were, with a few exceptions, quite similar. In our settings, students often seemed to focus on something other than mathematics during the lessons. Therefore, we decided to examine how teachers dealt with students who did not carry out assignments.

Our analysis technique can be said to be inspired by a sociocultural understanding (Nasir et al., 2008) with the aim of finding out what is actually going on – what it means to be and become a mathematics learner within a particular community (cf. Rosvall, 2015). In the analysis process we were inspired by Lerman’s (2001) ‘sociocultural approach to studying the teaching and learning of mathematics’. Lerman describes the approach as one that provides the opportunity to abandon the idea of analysing the learning of mathematics and coming to understand mathematics as a process that is not only cognitive and decontextualized but also as a process that happens in the practices and institutionally bounded ways of ‘doing’ mathematics teaching. It focuses on how students develop identities as speakers and actors in mathematics classes in which activities have been framed by the teacher, the texts, students’ previous experiences and history. The approach includes ideas about the function of discursive practices, including positioning and voice and the social relationships in the classroom (Lerman, 2001: 101). Our materials were analysed using this approach in relation to our aim of examining power relations: how teacher responses come into play in maths classes in school contexts, and the teacher–student interaction within those practices. In this article the three themes that we considered most important are presented.

The process of analysis included the following phases. First, we read through the field notes collected during mathematics lessons. Second, we identified those sections containing data collected when students’ focus was not on mathematics. In the third phase we focused on teachers’ actions, reading the notes through our theoretical lens.

Results

In this section, we begin with a description of how learners seek support during maths lessons. Subsequently, we examine three different types of teachers’ responses to the students’ actions or inactions: (i) focus on emotional support rather than knowledge of mathematics; (ii) encouraging the unfocused; and (iii) reducing teacher-led lesson time.

Students’ hesitation to seek teachers’ support

Here we present examples of students who, through their expressions, actions in the classroom and/or in interviews articulate what can be interpreted as a hesitation to use the teacher as a resource during lessons. We mentioned this previously, but it is important to reiterate that the point of our analysis is not to say who is to blame but rather to examine how practices seem to draw people into certain ways of acting. These practices were apparent, for example, with students like Zaida who, when she does not actively seek help, seems to be left without it:

Soon Zaida moves back to her previous seat. Riia: ‘You came back’. Zaida: ‘Yeah, I can’t manage without the teacher’. Both teachers have located themselves in front of the back row. Zaida goes to the front of the classroom without attracting the teachers’ attention, sits down at the teacher’s desk, rolling the chair close to the window then close to the desk, then takes the box where the teachers have left assignments (Field notes, HC class).

Even though Zaida expresses to her friend Riia that she cannot manage without the teachers’ help, she does not give voice to her need (Lerman, 2001) and does not ask for help from the teachers. However, she is not passive either. She drifts in the classroom, for a moment, even positioning herself in the seat that, in school, is reserved for the teacher (cf. Lerman, 2001). Zaida was one of those students who in her interview said she found it difficult to take responsibility for maintaining contact with teachers, for example asking for the results of an assignment. It can be argued that Zaida provides the teachers with an opportunity to intervene in her learning, although in the case cited, the teachers did not take advantage of this. The vocational route is especially promoted for those students whose achievements are considered to be low (Lappalainen et al., 2013), which means that many of the VET students have been exposed to few rewarding learning experiences. Therefore, it is not surprising that they hesitate to seek support from their teachers. This was a recurring pattern in all three classes; for example, in the CR class only a few students asked the teachers to help them during lessons, even though many of them experienced difficulties. In addition, some of these students referred to their experience of being a low achiever in mathematics in compulsory education, which led them to feel uncomfortable when teachers walked around in the classroom:

Jennika:

I’m so afraid of disgracing myself and making mistakes and so…

Irene:

Yes, me too

Carina:

Yes

Jennika:

and then I’m getting very nervous in the maths lessons when teachers or someone else stands behind my shoulder and looks at what I’m writing (laughs a little) (Group interview, CR class).

In the example above, it is the teacher standing behind her who is described as embarrassing. Standing behind without face-to-face interaction (for example asking whether Jennika needs help) can be seen as a monitoring activity: the teacher is monitoring and the student is monitored. However, in the Vehicle class there were intentions to seek support outside the classroom by going to the student support service. One third of the students in the Vehicle class had experience of being in special support groups in mathematics or had received individual teaching during their compulsory schooling. One of them was Magnus. He was aware of his problems and talked about how he would do something about it over the school year during which the study was carried out. However, there were no observations of Magnus actually doing anything about the issue:

The teacher goes over to Paul, Magnus and Emanuel and asks how things are going. They respond by talking about everything but their progress in maths. […] When the teacher has left, Magnus says to Paul and Emanuel that he wants to go down to the maths support classroom instead. The teacher comes by and Magnus continues to explain that he will probably go to maths support because he does not get anything done here. […] The teacher goes and Magnus tries again to convince the other two to go down to maths support. […] The lesson ends without Magnus going to maths support (Field note, VP class).

Magnus’ actions or inaction can be interpreted in terms of an asymmetrical power relationship, where he feels uncomfortable going to special support without his peers. It has been concluded previously that the students in the CR class and the VP class (Hjelmér, 2011b; Rosvall, 2011b) prioritized their relationships with other students in the class over their own potential achievements. It seemed to be more important to have good social relationships with peers than with teachers, even though they know that relationships and interactions with teachers could improve their achievements. If good relationships or interactions with teachers could compromise their social status among their peers, the learners consider they are not worthwhile (cf. Lerman, 2001). Those ambivalences were highly visible in the VP, where learners said that they wanted to succeed in their studies in order to get well paid positions, such as vehicle electricians; but on the other hand, peers were important and an anti-school culture seemed to give social status. Often, the struggle to challenge the anti-school culture discourse did not seem to be worth the effort.¹

Beach and Dovemark (2007) described the ideal student in present school practice as one who knows ‘where help is available, she seeks help when she needs it and uses all the resources available to her to, in a sense, work hard and produce her own future’ (Beach and Dovemark, 2007: 73). Students whose attributes are considered to meet these requirements are guided to academic educational paths. The few high achieving students did, indeed, pique the curiosity of teachers, making them wonder why they chose the vocational route, despite all the other educational options considered to be more promising being available for them (Lappalainen, 2016). We see the students’ actions in the classroom situation as a function of the discursive practices, including positioning, voice and the social interactions and relationships (cf. Lerman, 2001). In the following sections, data addressing those issues are presented and analysed.

Staying in the comfort zone?

Now we turn our focus to the teachers’ responses to students’ actions. One of the most common features regarding this issue was that the teacher became more focused on being ‘nice’ rather than providing spaces for learning. The example below, from the CR class, exemplifies the teacher becoming more of a facilitator than a teacher:

Hanna [the teacher] goes to Moa, Iris and Sofia. They have been sitting and chatting for a while. Hanna: What are you up to?

The students put on a smile.

Hanna to Sofia: Do you want a practice paper, Sofia?

Sofia:

Yes!

Hanna:

Do you want me to get one [laughs]?

Sofia laughs too: Yes! Hanna goes and fetches a paper for Sofia […] Hanna talks to Lisette and tells her that she should go and get a practice sheet and do some calculations.

Lisette:

I don’t want to.

Hanna laughs: You don’t want to get a paper? Without waiting for a response, Hanna goes and fetches a paper for Lisette who has not moved the whole time (Field notes CR).

As shown in our data, it seems that when teachers encounter problems in creating a learning environment for the student, they tend to take a companionable position, offering services (as in the example above) or chatting about issues, which they expected will interest students at that moment.

The data from all contexts contains many examples of teachers, in interviews or in their pedagogic practice, adjusting their teaching because they assumed a particular level of student ability. Arguments such as ‘you cannot put too much pressure on the student’ were used to justify letting the students do other things during lessons and shortening lessons. An interview between one of the researchers investigating the HC class and a study counsellor provides an example of institutional recognition in the form of comforting educational experiences:

Study Counsellor:

Then there is this course Medication mathematics in health and social care that everybody is scared about.

Interviewer:

Yeah?

Study Counsellor:

This should not be said aloud, I try to be careful when I talk with students that I do not raise medication maths as an issue.

Interviewer:

Yes?

Study Counsellor:

I let them raise it. Emphasizing that they will manage, but it is a kind of like big problem indeed. For some of the students it is a big deal, for some others it is more like a folklore, initiation rite (Interview, HC class).

With arguments about not putting their students under too much pressure, trying to manage the students’ emotions, the study counsellors do not mention things that might appear difficult to the learners, but rather wait until the students raise the question for themselves: ‘I let them raise it’. There are many similar descriptions by the teachers. In addition, teachers and school staff who also care for the students adapted their pedagogic practice to a lower level.

The teacher prepares the students for the test to come next week. The teacher points at the white board and says: ‘If you see this calculation you should think that it will be this kind of mathematical operation required to solve the problem. If you do it exactly like this, you will get the right answer’ (Field note, VP class).

Another similar example was observed in the CR class, when the teachers prepared the students for a national test. During preparation the teachers tried to help as many students as possible to pass, even though it meant that they focused on mechanically learning how to solve tasks, simplifying and only focusing on gaining enough marks to pass the test:

Rolf [the special education teacher]: You need to score 18 points to pass the national test. If you get 8 on the first page you will be well away. Karl [teacher]: Well on your way if all the answers are correct. Rolf also talks about the next page: ‘There you need at least 10 points’ [to pass]. Sofie asks Rolf: Do we need to know about that theorem for the national test? Rolf: Do you mean Pythagoras’ theorem? Sofie: Yes! Rolf: That is mathematics at the next level, the next course. Sofie: Will there not be any questions about that? Rolf: There can be, but if you answer those, you will pass with great distinction [the highest grade]. You can of course try to solve them, but I think it will be a waste of time. For you it is a matter of getting as many points as possible to pass (Field notes, CR class).

In the two examples above, the teacher’s concern for the students’ results in the upcoming test leads them to guide the learners so that they can identify a calculation and reproduce it in order to come to the right answer for the test. This, rather than trying to teach students how to reflect and analyse the task in order to be able to identify when to use the calculation in different contexts. In other words, the teaching is connected to a specific context, the test, and the knowledge achieved is likely to have little relevance or be difficult to link to useful areas outside that context. This might not be surprising since mathematics is known to be, more than other subjects, context-dependent (Billett, 2003) and reproducible (Mendick, 2005; Player-Koro, 2011). However, when the educational practices of vocational programmes are compared to more general study programmes, there are differences: even though general programmes contain few examples of reflexive mathematical reasoning, vocational programmes had almost none (Hjelmér and Rosvall, 2016).

All the three examples above represent different ways of caring for the student: facilitation, minimizing pressure and (over)-simplification.

Encouraging the unfocused

There were few comments by teachers when students’ actions delayed lessons or students’ work, or when students talked about things other than mathematics, as in this example from the CR class:

Moa and Iris go to the mathematics teacher (Hanna) and tell her that they are going to go and get something from a locker. Hanna laughs and says: ‘You girls are going to develop bad habits. When I met you in the corridor when I was on my way to the classroom, you said you would go to the locker and fetch a pen. And now again…’. Iris and Moa laugh and walk out of the classroom (Field notes, CR class).

The example above shows inaction by a teacher. However, it was not uncommon when students lost concentration on the subject of the lesson, that instead of trying to refocus the student the teacher encouraged the distraction by asking questions about it:

Special education teacher is chatting with Riia about Riia’s mobile. There’s something wrong with Riia’s mobile. There has been the same problem with the teacher’s mobile. Neither of them mentions the mathematics task (Field notes, HC class).

Instead of trying to redirect Riia’s attention towards mathematics, the teacher gets involved in a conversation about the malfunctioning mobile phone. The examples above can be interpreted as providing comforting experiences, through both the action and inaction of teachers. Comfort experiences are not interrupted, but rather encouraged by identification processes, involving sharing the same problem/error.

One argument for not redirecting the students’ focus given by teachers was that one could not force motivation on the student and that the student had to find their own motivation:

During the lesson the class was kind of divided into two groups, one that sat close to the teacher and used the teacher for guidance in their work, and one group who sat quite far from the teacher most of them without their workbooks and none of them using the books more or less the whole lesson. While walking I ask the teacher what she thought about the group of boys that had not done anything during the lesson. The teacher answered: ‘You cannot force the students to work. Sometimes they are not motivated to do mathematics when it is mathematics on the school timetable. They usually get motivated when the course is about to end and they are about to be given a grade’ (Field notes, VP class).

In the example, the teacher might not be said to be encouraging a lack of focus but, by not engaging with the students, their focus is not directed towards mathematics. In earlier research it has been found that schools that promote a discourse of ‘hard work is needed in order to achieve knowledge’ rather than ‘motivation is needed in order to achieve knowledge’ seem to be better at engaging low-achieving students with more effective learning practices (Persson, 2013). However, in our data the discourse of ‘hard work is needed in order to achieve knowledge’ seemed to be absent.

Reduction of teacher-led lesson time

An analysis of the students’ actions in relation to teacher-led time showed that students, on the one hand, negotiated to minimize time spent in school and, on the other, said in interviews that they wanted more out of their education (Hjelmér et al., 2010). However, when we analysed the material with a focus on teachers in mathematics, we found that there were several examples when teachers, without any pressure from the students, reduced teacher-led time, arguing that the students were too restless, could not maintain concentration for so long a time and rather wanted to undertake practical tasks (the last argument was especially common in the VP). In other words, even though the students were quite successful in negotiating lessons finishing earlier than expected, our analyses also show that teachers also sought to end lessons earlier:

Teacher: ‘Now they are so restless, no point in explaining any more’, the lesson finishes somehow ex tempore 13.40, although it was supposed to finish at 14.15 (Field notes, HC class).

However, there were also examples when it was not just the duration of lessons that was reduced, but entire lessons were cancelled or, as in the example below, when the whole mathematics course in the CR programme was withdrawn after their national tests in the spring term:

The teacher speaks in front of the class. ‘We were talking last lesson about how to continue now after the national tests. Those of you that passed and will not continue with the next course will get a work sheet. You do not need to come here. That makes it possible to work in a more focused way with the four of you that will continue with mathematics next term and prepare you for the more advanced course’. He continues and says that he understands if they [who will not continue] are not motivated towards the end of the term (Field notes, May CR class).

In other words, for those who did not continue to the more advanced level of mathematics, teacher-led lessons ended after the national test in the spring term and they missed about ten lessons. However, the lessons for those who had chosen to continue with mathematics did not work well either:

I ask Malin, who will continue with the more advanced course in mathematics in the autumn, how it works when they get special attention in order to be prepared for the next level. Malin tells me that not much has happened. On Thursdays, the class is at the end of the day without any lessons before so they decided not to go, this Tuesday they did only one calculation before the teacher told them that they could leave, ‘and this Monday we did some calculations on the level of the former course so we have not started with preparations for the more advanced course yet’ (Field notes, June CR class).

The teacher ‘understands’ that the students might feel unmotivated even without them telling him that this is the case. This assumption is turned into ‘care’ which manifests in a reduction in lessons.

The VP students were also subjected to a reduction in lesson time, but not because the teachers argued for student care or assumed a lack of motivation. Their permanent teacher often took leave to care for her sick children and at the school, due to economic pressure, permanent teachers were not replaced with a substitute on the first day of absence. However, the maths teacher shared caring for her children with her partner and worked alternate days; in consequence this teacher was never replaced by a substitute since every second day was counted as the first day of leave. Late in the school year this was discussed with the head:

More than 30 per cent of the lessons in mathematics had been cancelled. The head looked at the attendance rates for the students and said that those lessons would probably not be replaced since ‘they had not showed interest so far’. The low attendance was not very surprising since the students had more or less given up going to the lessons when the teacher seldom showed up, at least when the lessons were at the end of the day meaning that students who lived some distance away could catch an earlier bus (Field notes, VP class).

In this example, the students are again portrayed as being unmotivated even though they were never asked what they really wanted.

Analysis

Low expectations and a therapeutic ethos

The examples presented in the results section, in which teachers act as facilitators, not putting too much pressure on the students, (over)-simplify tasks, do not intervene when the students become unfocused and reduce teacher-led time, can easily be interpreted as teachers behaving unprofessionally. But when the results come from two countries and three sites we can also interpret the results in terms of a discourse attached to vocational mathematical classes (Lerman, 2001), a discourse of care or therapy. In light of Ecclestone’s (2004) argument that there has been a therapeutic emphasis associated with vocational education and that school staff members seem to see students as victims of their emotions, suffering from low self-esteem and being vulnerable, that interpretation does not seem far-fetched. Teachers and heads acted on the dominant discourse/voices in the classroom without asking the students individually about their ambitions (cf. Lerman, 2001).

Several researchers such as Brunila (2012) and Beach and Dovemark (2007) point to the dominant discourse of an entrepreneurial ethos inspired by the new public management and markets logics. In this case, as mentioned above, the ideal student is one who knows where help is available, who seeks help when required and uses all the resources available to them to, in a sense, work hard and produce their own future. However, Brunila (2012) argues that there is a discourse of therapeutic ethos following the entrepreneurial, i.e. the therapeutic ethos can free those who are not successful entrepreneurs from their psychological and emotional chains, or give those who work with individuals who are not entrepreneurs the opportunity to offer therapeutic environments. Our results contain several examples of this: ‘they are so restless’, ‘I can understand if you are not motivated’ and ‘everybody is scared [of course Medication mathematics in health and social care]’ for example (cf. Lerman, 2001).

The paradoxical consequences of caring for the students’ emotional status have at least two dimensions: one that concerns the teachers leaving their field of competencies and, instead, focusing on psychological aspects, and a second leading to counterproductive learning practices, where the low expectations seem to make the students even less active. Ecclestone (2007) discusses the consequences of such pedagogic practices. She argues that teaching in ‘comfort zones’ might lead to instrumentalism and reproduction of knowledge, exemplified in our results with the advice to students ‘If you see this calculation …’.

In addition, the pedagogic practices within vocational programmes seemed to be more detailed and oriented towards context-dependent knowledge (cf. Billett, 2003) than is the case in more general education programmes (cf. Hjelmér and Rosvall, 2016). Torrance (2007), in line with this, has found that one common action to address these students is to give more detailed assistance, which corresponds to one of our findings presented above. However, Torrance argues that detailed assistance probably allows more students to succeed, but asks ‘at what expense?’ At the expense of analysis and reflection? In line with Torrance, Nylund and Rosvall (2016) argue that more detailed assistance has to be followed by or integrated into teaching of more general and abstract knowledge structures in order to prevent knowledge becoming fragmented and only specific to a particular context.

Consequences for both high and low achievers

The pedagogic practices made it difficult for high achieving or more academic students to gain a higher grade than a simple pass. It also made it difficult for lower achievers to pass; they seemed to be regarded as needing to find the motivation by themselves even though they had encountered problems during their compulsory schooling (Magnus, Zaida). There seem to be few winners associated with these pedagogic practices. Eventually, some individuals passed the course, but this seems to be the result of prior knowledge in mathematics and in how to use the resources available, not because of the instruction given or the creation of a learning space as part of the courses that were observed. One exception was the preparation in the CR class before the national tests, which resulted in more students passing than in tests earlier in the same school year. However, as mentioned before, little effort was made in those classes to teach the students how to understand their calculations. Instead, they were presented with tactics to allow them to pass the test.

In general, vocational education is undertaken by students with low merits from their compulsory schooling; some of them have experience of study support. In that sense, vocational students are often described as lacking academic confidence, i.e. not being aware of what education means materially in our society and who succeeds (Beach and Dovemark, 2007). In addition, statistics (The Swedish National Agency for Education, 2014) and qualitative research (Mendick, 2005; Player-Koro, 2011) suggest that mathematics causes problems for many students. But by placing the problem in relation to the confidence of the learner, it is individualized and not considered in the context of the structures that uphold it (Ecclestone, 2004). That some vocational students are lower achievers and have problems, especially in mathematics, is widely acknowledged by teachers, head teachers and politicians, but little is done to support those students. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate (2014) has pointed to insufficient support being provided, and if it is, it usually comes (too) late.

Conclusions

In this article, we have presented examples that, together, highlight the power of mathematics education (cf. Valero, 2007). Approaching pedagogic practice with a focus on care rather than knowledge makes it difficult for the students to achieve their own goals or the goals of the curriculum. However, it is not our conclusion that the teachers are to be blamed, since our data represent three institutions in two countries. It rather seems that the discourse originates from teachers together with politicians and the media (Brunila, 2012; Lerman, 2001; Nylund and Rosvall, 2016) ascribing low self-esteem and poor motivation to this particular group of students (Ecclestone, 2004). According to our research, on many occasions, this seems to direct pedagogic practice to remain within the participants’ comfort zones rather than being focused on subject knowledge. However, we are also aware that since our focus is on mathematics teaching rather than content, our scope is restricted. We do not examine whether a greater focus on subject knowledge in mathematics could provide a broader understanding of mathematics that is useful at work and in wider society. However, several references that we use in this article consider it useful to examine problems associated with the selection and organization surrounding subject knowledge, i.e. researched pedagogic practices in maths classes seems to deliver mathematical teaching that is too academic and abstract and is not connected to the experiences of the students (Valero, 2007). From our research, we conclude that what is required is a practice where low self-esteem and poor motivation are not assumed in students, and in which content and organization are fully scrutinized. This is needed in order to address, for example, the European Commission’s notion of lifelong learning (cf. Pépin, 2007). Thus, this might be difficult to achieve since many studies that we refer to, both Nordic (Isopahkala-Bouret, 2010; Korp, 2012) and European (Ecclestone, 2007; Hyland, 2006), point to teachers, media and politicians associating the VET student with low self-esteem. It seems to be a difficult discourse to challenge in the Nordic countries as well as in Europe, despite the notions of lifelong learning and the knowledge society. As concluded by Cedefop (2015), ‘new curricula have been introduced with little attention to how teachers will deliver them to ensure success’ (Cedefop, 2015: 7). In other words, if politicians looked at the classroom practices, as in this study, they might try to improve the existing school-based practices instead of thinking of less school-based learning (as is the case in some European countries, in particular Germany).

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biographies

Per-Åke Rosvall is an associate professor with special reference to sociology of education at the department of applied educational science, Umeå University, Sweden. Rosvall is a member of the Nordic centre of excellence, Justice through education in the Nordic countries (JustEd).

Carina Hjelmér is an assistant professor with special reference to sociology of education at the department of applied educational science, Umeå University, Sweden. Hjelmér is a member of the Nordic centre of excellence, Justice through education in the Nordic countries (JustEd).

Sirpa Lappalainen is an associate professor with special reference to sociology of education, at the Institute of Behavioural sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Lappalainen is a member of the Nordic centre of excellence, Justice through education in the Nordic countries (JustEd).

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