Normally I am writing on this blog about my work as researcher in vocational education and training (VET) and on learning experiences while working with practitioners in VET. However, as we all know, researchers and educators are not working in a societal vacuum. Therefore, issues of social awareness and social responsibility are always there to be considered and discussed. And historical anniversaries trigger such discussions in the media and in public debate. Yesterday, two historical anniversaries were ‘celebrated’ with such discussions – one at the international level and another one in my home country Finland. I will start with the Day for Remembering the Victims of Holocaust and the Nazi Regimes.

What does the the Day for Remembering (Gedenktag) stand for?

As an expatriate Finn living in Germany I have got used to the German culture of remembering the atrocities of the Nazi regime and showing solidarity to the victims. Many TV-channels show documentary films that give insights into the dark history and into the role of different societal actors who were involved. One of the peak points has been the 27th of January – the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau – the very place where the industrialisation of genocide and mass murders was brought to perfection.

Indeed, years and decades have passed from those dark days. Therefore, some people may think that one could leave that sad past behind. Some people may think that one could take a different view on the German military past – as if it were something separate from the genocide and mass murders of civilians of that time. And furthermore, migrants are coming to Germany from such areas in which the remembering of holocaust is not present.

This all has now been brought into discussion – once again – by the news updates and commentaries on the Day of Remembering. Below I have selected some examples that emphasise, how and why we need to keep the culture of remembering alive and ready to respond to whatever challenges.

The Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau as an advocate for the cause of the victims (also in the Internet)

My first example is the report of the leading German TV-channel ARD on the different activities of the Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. Whilst the museum emphasises the importance making your own impressions there, on site, they also keep an eye on the discussions in the media and Internet. And, when they see something inappropriate (from the perspective of the victims), the intervene. Read more from the report:

Auschwitz-Museum in sozialen Medien – Anwalt der Opfer im Netz

Insights into historical facts as means to challenge the present-date antisemitism

The reason why I emphasise the active engagement of the museum in Auschwitz is the worrying tendency in Germany and elsewhere towards antisemitic violence and hatred vis-à-vis Jewish people. To some extent this is connected to the right-wing populist movement in Germany but to some extent also to migration from the Middle East or from Eastern Europe. Here it is not my intention to make false generalisations. Instead, I want to emphasise the importance of a culture of remembering and solidarity for the victims. To me the following contributions of the radio channel Deutschlandfunk bring this to the point:

Letzte Briefe von NS-Opfern vor dem Tod (Last letters from the victims of Nazis)

This report informs of an exhibition of the last letters of holocaust-victims to their relatives. It makes transparent the human beings and human lives that suddenly became victims of a brutal terror regime.

“Hass bekämpft man durch Bildung” (We have to fight against hatred with means of education)

This is an interview with the leading Jewish rabbi in Paris. He reflects on newer tendencies towards antisemitism, xenophobia and racism in Europe. But he also emphasises the achievements of intercultural education in promoting solidarity and understanding between people with different cultural backgrounds.

—

I think this is enough of this historical anniversary. To me it is important that the message of remembering and understanding is passed forward. As the Prime Minister of the German Federal State Thüringen, Bodo Ramelow has formulated it: “Never again means never again!” The lessons from the history have to be learned.

More blogs to come …

Dear readers, let me first wish you all a happy and successful working year 2017!

And having said that, I can share with you a great piece of news. Already before the ITB office building was opened to start the new working year, our professor Michael Gessler had a great message to us: The brand new IJRVET Yearbook is available as an online version and as a print version. Now, for the European and international research communities in the field of vocational education and training (VET) this is such great achievement that it merits to be discussed in a specific blog post. So, I will start my working year with this topic already before I have come to my office.

The early initiatives to create an international journal for research in VET

As I remember it, the idea to set up a genuinely international research journal in the field of VET was brought to the agenda of the board of the European VETNET network in the year 2000. There had already been a predecessor initiative (independently of VETNET) that had been turned down by a commercial publisher. In the next phase the original initiator and the VETNET board joined forces and approached another publisher, who reacted positively. Thus, in the VETNET assembly in the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) 2004 in Rethymnon, Crete, we had an optimistic report from the working group that was preparing the initiative. Also, we had a representative of the publisher attending the conference and observing our work. Everything seemed to work into a good direction.

However, several intervening factors brought the initiative to a different direction. The publisher that VETNET had contacted was merged to a larger publishing house, and that put our initiative on hold. Secondly, disagreements emerged within the working group, and the original initiator left the working group of VETNET and started to promote the initiative independently of VETNET. This led to a creation of a new journal but with different characteristics than we had expected.

This led to a period of latency and reorientation, bridged by a feasibility study that identified several hurdles regarding the relaunching of the journal initiative. Luckily enough, the VETNET board did not give up. By the year2 2013/2014 several things came together that encouraged new start:

• There was more know-how in the VETNET board to set up the editing procedures for an open access online journal independently of publishing houses.
• There were advanced open source online services to support the publishing of such journals.
• The scientific communities were ready to recognise publishing in such journals as academic merits and the global databases were ready to index them.
• Whilst the European VETNET network had already long ago become consolidated as ‘the’ umbrella network for European VET research, a parallel network initiative (IRNVET) had been launched under the auspices of the World Educational Research Association (WERA) to bring together a wider international VET research community.

The launch of the IJRVET  (2014) and the emergence of the support activities

In the light of the above and given the hard preparatory work between ECER 2013 and ECER 2014, the VETNET General Assembly at ECER 2014 in Porto, Portugal, was happy to make the decision to launch the new journal as “International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET)”. It was accepted as the official organ of the VETNET and IRNVET networks and it had a rather strong backing in Europe and in other global regions. By the end of the year 2014, two regular issues were published and from that point on three regular issues and eventual special issues.In 2015 we had a special issue on ‘Vocational didactics’ and in 2017 on ‘Returning to VET’

In the course of the years the IJRVET has become increasingly attractive also to authors working outside Europe and we have been able to share information and research contribution from practically all global regions. Among these highlights we can include the fact that IJRVET is now fully integrated and indexed in CNKI (Headquarter: Bejing), AIRITI (Headquarter: Taipeh) and ERIC (Headquarter: Washington). Furthermore, IJRVET has  established cooperation  with the ILO (International Labour Organization) and its regional agency Cinterfor (Centro Interamericano para el Desarrollo del Conocimiento en la Formación Profesional). (See more at http://www.ijrvet.net and at the IJRVET-related updates on the Vetnetsite of the VETNET network.

Shortly afterwards new arrangements could be made that the production of the journal could be supported by several conferences, in addition to the annual ECER and its VETNET programme. From 2015 on a biennial conference tradition was started with the theme “Crossing boundaries in VET research” in Bremen and continued in Rostock in 2017. At the VETNET General Assembly  at ECER 2017 in Copenhagen the VETNET Board could inform of a new working agreement that these conferences will be scheduled for Spring months and that they will rotate with the Baltic Sea cruise conferences hosted by the Stockholm university. In 2019 the ‘Crossing boundaries’ conference will take place in Valencia, Spain (the call for papers will be published in a short while). In this way the conferences that are supporting the IJRVET will not clash with each other but complement each other. More information on these conferences and on their proceedings also on the Vetnetsite.org and on the IRNVET/VETNET  ‘project space’ on the research portal ResearchGate.

The idea of the IJRVET Yearbook

After all the progress that had been achieved so far, the editorial team of the IJRVET had the feeling that something was missing. Indeed, one should appreciate the fact that there was the online journal that was appearing regularly and that readers had an open access to the archives of previous issues. Also, the proceedings of the conferences were available via Vetnetsite and ResearchGate. Yet, there was a need to get an overview on the progress with the journal. And the solution for that was the annual yearbook. Here again, the services were available for producing such a yearbook independently of publishing houses, either as printed publication via Amazon (see Vetnetsite) or downloaded via ResearchGate.

So, in a relatively short time the IJRVET and the supporting European and international VET research communities have taken major steps forward. We are looking forward to further steps during the year 2018 and from that year on.

More blogs to come …

At the end of November we had the kick-off meeting of the new Erasmus Plus project “TACCLE 4 – CPD” hosted by ITB at the University of Bremen. This project is a new kind of follow-up of a series of projects with the brand name ‘TACCLE’. So, let us firstly have a look at the development of these projects.

The TACCLE projects as support for teachers who are developing online learning

TACCLE 1 took the pioneering task to prepare a handbook as “Teachers’ aids for creating content for e-learning”. The result was a generic handbook that informed of basic web tools and online learning resources and equipped teachers to use them.

TACCLE 2 shifted the emphasis to work with online handbooks that were targeted for teachers in different subject areas as well as to primary school teachers.

These projects were also supported by specific TACCLE courses funded by the Comenius and Grundtvig programmes.

TACCLE 3 shifted the emphasis to teaching programming and coding for school children and worked mainly with the project website.

More information on the two first generations of TACCLE projects is availble on the video interviews with Jenny Hughes (recorded for the Coop-PBL in VET project in 2012):

Jenny Hughes on TACCLE 1 project: Getting teachers to produce their own web content (Part1)

Jenny Hughes on TACCLE 2 project: Reaching out to new teacher groups and subject areas (Part2)

TACCLE 4 project as support for teacher trainers with focus on technology-enhanced learning and online resources

Looking back, the earlier TACCLE projects have been successful and even more the TACCLE courses. This had created a demand for courses, workshops etc. based on the projects and their materials. This gave rise to a new project that focuses on practitioners who are developing  Continuing Professional Development (CPD) initiatives for teachers and trainers in different educational sectors. From this point of view the TACCLE 4 – CPD project was shaped to draw upon the prior experiences and to expand the work from school-based education to other educational sectors – Adult Education (AE) and Vocational Education and Training. From this perspective the project was based on a limited number of partner organisations, some of which had been involved in the previous ones and some bringing new countries and/or educational sectors into the picture.

For our institute – ITB – this project is an opportunity to draw upon the experiences of multimedia training and co-design of digital tools (mainly for construction sector) in the Learning Layers project (2012 – 2016). In the kick-off meeting we presented the work with the Learning Toolbox (LTB) and the follow-up activities in different contexts:

1. In the initial VET the HAKS project with craft trade companies and by the informal working groups of Bau-ABC trainers;
2. In the continuing vocational training by the DigiProB project that is developing a new software ecology that links together the course management and (via moodle) the trainers’ curriculum design platform (WordPress) and the learners’ interface (LTB):
3. In the designed project ProBauKo and in a prior feasibility study the ITB team and the LTB developers have explored the possibility to link the use of LTB to company-specific knowledge processes and learning opportunities.

In the TACCLE 4 – CPD project we have to see, how to link these working perspectives (and the role of vocational schools) to the way in which the TACCLE projects have supported training of teachers and trainers. I am looking forward to an interesting period of work.

More blogs to come …

Yesterday morning I got from Finland the sad news that my former boss, professor Juhani Kirjonen – Jussi, as we used call him – had passed away. It so happened that his life span came to end just one month before Finland celebrates the 100th anniversary of its independence. To me, there is another striking coincidence with the news of Jussi. At the end of October I had just written out my memories of the period that I had worked together with Jussi at the University of Tampere in the years 1986-1987.

At that time Jussi took the initiative to develop a post-graduate Master programme with focus on ‘Work Sciences’ (interdisciplinary consortium for research on working life). This was an interesting pilot initiative to engage researchers into cooperation with practitioners – HRD professionals, Health and Safety professionals, Training professionals. The aim was to get the participants shape developmental projects with conceptual and methodological support. Jussi, who had a long track record in interdisciplinary research on health and safety issues in working life, was convinced that the time was ripe for such a novelty – at that time there were hardly any postgraduate Master programmes in Finland (except the worldwide spread MBA programmes).

Jussi had got funding for a planning project from the Ministry of Education and the rector of the University of Tampere had set up an interdisciplinary planning committee consisting of researchers from different faculties and of external experts from the competent bodies for Health and Safety. In the year 1986, just after graduating as an MA from educational and social sciences, I started as the curriculum planner for this initiative. That period – one and a half year – was quite an adventure for both of us. We didn’t take this just as a ‘local’ curriculum initiative but as an intellectual mobilisation to get a better institutional backing for research on working life. From this point of view I was exploring also international models and made a lot of use of the German innovation programme “Humanisation of Work” of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Also I provided information on the German debates on integrative approaches to ‘work sciences’ (Fürstenberg: Konzeption integrativer Arbeitswissenschaft) and on the efforts to bring conflicting views from ergonomy vs. work psychology together. This work with literature was important for my further career development.

Alongside the planning work Jussi and I had several contacts with other interested researchers and with Social Partners. Also, after we had submitted the final report, we got involved in the discussion on launching a special research unit for research on working life. In that phase the initiative to set up a postgraduate Master programme got sidelined. Instead, the idea of a new interdisciplinary “Work Research Centre” got wide support and a this new centre was set up in record time bypassing all other earlier priorities of the university. However, in this final phase other researchers got the lead and Jussi retreated and took other duties. For me the new centre provided new opportunities to work in the research field “education and working life” and to create new international contacts – firstly in the joint initiatives of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) and then with German research institutes – in particular with ITB. And this then brought me deeper to European cooperation in the field of vocational education end training (VET). And from 1994 on I worked several years in Cedefop (the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training).

– – –

Looking back, I could not have dreamed of making such career steps without the pioneering work with the curriculum planning initiative with Jussi. Also, during that period I enjoyed his strong support. Surely – there were also periods when we were not quite on the same page. But, what was more important, we got over those periods and we were happy to conclude our work with a good spirit. And, although the launch of the Work Research Centre was not a direct follow-up of our initiative, something of the good spirit was taken over during the ‘golden’ pioneering years. Therefore, I feel the loss of my former supervisor, but at the same time I am thankful for having experienced that interesting period of work with him.

Jussin muistoa kunnioittaen

Today (11.11.2017)  I noticed by chance that I had started my career as a Pontydysgu blogger exactly ten years ago. The start was not great and there were periods of hibernation. Although I renamed my blog I didn’t quite get the swing immediately. But then, about exactly five years ago (16.11.2012) I started blogging on the Learning Layers (LL) project – and became a regular blogger. Now, almost one year after completing LL project I have kept myself busy with reporting on the follow-up activities. And indeed – during these active years – I have also learned to write on other topics alongside the work-related blogs. These anniversaries call for a brief reflection on my ideas during the earlier phases and during the active project-related blogging and in the follow-up phase.

I-Europe – The difficult beginning

I first named my blog as “I-Europe”. This needs an explanation. In the ECER conference in 2003 in Hamburg there was a special session of the VETNET network under the heading “Open meeting”. Alan Brown had initiated it to discuss different options for European cooperation (independently of EU-funding). He was at that time working part time as a programme director for a national research programme and had the opportunity create networking among similar research councils. Alan presented a preliminary framework “Learning in Knowledge Society (LinKS)”. I came up with a parallel initiative “I-Europe” – to promote knowledge development on international, innovative, integrative and inclusive developments in European vocational education and training cultures. Obviously, I didn’t have institutional backing or resources for supporting any practical measures based on such framework (I had just recently ceased to work as Cedefop project manager). However, my initiative had some positive feedback, but there was very little that we could have done.

Four years later I thought that I could start a new round of discussions. I had got settled to ITB in Bremen and started working on transnational projects that included fieldwork. At that time the European policy processes were geared to the framework processes – the Bologna process promoting the European Higher Education Area and the Copenhagen process pushing forward the European Qualification Framework (EQF). A working group in ITB had prepared a critical discussion paper on the EQF. I wanted to take the discussion further – to positive ideas on thematic knowledge development at the European level. But once again I had to observe that I was floating high up – and couldn’t get my ideas properly grounded.

Working & Learning – a new start (but shaky)

After some time and some self-critical reflections I decided to try a new start with a renamed blog. “Working & Learning” seemed to me an appropriate title because it referred to my research context and to the way I wanted get my blogging grounded. I was hoping that I could rely strongly on the projects of that time – Consultation seminars (on teachers and trainers in VET) and the network ‘Trainers in Europe”. However, the blogs for the Consultation seminars had to published exclusively on the project website, whilst the Trainers in Europe network allowed publishing on multiple websites. That already caused a split in the project landscape and made it difficult to reflect on the work in parallel activities. Two further projects of that time – the Politics project and Coop-PBL in VET – required content creation on the respective project websites. At that time I didn’t see any added value in posting on multiple websites. Therefore, I ended up with another period of hibernation with my blog.

Working & Learning gets a new swing with the Learning Layers project

The start of our major EU-funded research & development project Learning Layers (LL) changed the situation radically. We (ITB) had joined in the consortium at the late phase of preparations and we had the responsibility to coordinate the work with application partners in the Construction pilot in Germany. So, we had to work ourselves in and position ourselves as a research partner with genuine research contribution. And the project schedules pushed us into a rapid start (the initial interviews, the Application Partner Days, the preparation of the User Stories, the Helsinki Design Conference …). All this brought me back to blogging – and I got accustomed of regular blogging.

In the beginning this was just quick documentation on activities and events. But gradually there was more in it – reflection on lessons learned in the fieldwork, discussion on working issues, reorientation in the co-design work, introduction of training activities … In addition to this we redefined some aspects of the work as ‘development projects’, had a consortium-wide “Theory Camp” and prepared sustainability plans. The ‘hot’ phases of the work started when the idea of Learning Tool started to take shape, when the multimedia training was expanded to the “Theme Room” campaign and when the Learning Toolbox was piloted in the field. Furthermore, much of the discussion on the final reporting was supported by numerous blogs posts. At the end of the day, the annual logbooks of LL-related blogs were rather massive documents.

Working & Learning continues with follow-up activities of the Learning Layers project

When the Learning Layers project had reached the stage of final review and completed the final-final reporting duties, this could have been the end of the story – both for the project and for the project-related blogging. But it was not the case. Instead, the main actors in the Construction pilot – ITB, the application partners and the developers of the Learning Toolbox were keen to move on to follow-up activities. Although it was not easy to find appropriate ways to continue the development work and to find suitable funding opportunities, several smaller follow-up initiatives emerged. In this way the work with Learning Toolbox was linked to shaping of new ecosystems for coordinating work processes and/or supporting integrative training and learning arrangements. Moreover, the challenge to support the multimedia training for trainers and instructors has become actual time and again. All this makes me confident that there is work to be done in the follow-up activities.

– – –

I guess this is enough as a quick review and reflection on lessons learned. I may not have achieved a record number of blog posts during the ten years (and definitely not during the first five years). But that doesn’t matter to me. I have gone through quite a learning journey and found my way of blogging during the last five years. And with that I can be happy to continue.

More blogs to come …

This week we got the sad news that our former colleague and Bremen-based friend Emma had passed away. She was never a person for great publicity or to make a great show of herself. On the contrary – she wanted to stay at the backstage without making fuss of herself, but always ready to help the others. Therefore, I just call her by her first name – to respect her privacy also now after she is gone. (The ones who knew her, are aware of whom I am writing – others will get a picture of a respectable person, even if they didn’t learn to know her.)

I firstly learned to know Emma when she joined ITB to support the Europrof project in the mid-1990s. The project was an ambitious transnational project that sought to reform the training of VET professionals with emphasis on ‘social shaping’ of work, technology and work environment. In this context the partners sought points of intervention and supporting ideas, how to bring innovations into move. Then, after this project Emma worked for the Forum network to bring together different thematic sub-nets (on changing institutions, changing labour markets, changing organisations, changing vocational identities etc.) to common work processes. Later on, she was also supporting some other ITB projects of which I have less information.

Emma had a degree from her home country but having entered Germany as an expatriate she was very modest about it. So, she preferred to work as an administrative assistant rather than looking for a a more visible role. Yet, her presence as a colleague was sensed when she was involved – and missed when she was not there.

Later on Emma chose to take another perspective for her life and withdraw from the work in our projects. This was a very private matter and therefore I will not go further with this topic. All I need to say is that in the new role that Emma opted for herself she was 100% present and even more.

Every now and then we managed to meet with friends of old from the European projects and it was always a pleasure to me and to others. Sometimes we also had the chance to experience, what kind of great cook she was.

Recently, when great numbers of refugees came to Germany – and also to Bremen – Emma engaged herself in teaching German language to refugees. As an expatriate who had learned the language fluently, she was in a good position to assess what kind of difficulties the newcomers were facing.

Emma was still young and active when she was hit by the disease that took her life. We all feel sorry for the loss of such a person and express our condolences to her beloved ones. I hope that the musical greetings of the grande mama Mercedes Sosa and her fellow artists (see the links below) pass a message to them! (And I hope that the videos are not littered by inappropriate commercials.)

Mercedes Sosa – Razón De Vivir

Mercedes Sosa – O Que Será

Mercedes Sosa – Jamás Te Olvidaré

In February 2015 we received the sad news that professor David Raffe, a prominent educational sociologist and key actor in European vocational education and training (VET) research had passed away. At that time I wrote a blog in which I remembered his contribution to European projects and to the VETNET network of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). Shortly afterwards David’s closest colleagues contacted my with the idea to prepare a special issue of a journal to highlight David’s work and the legacy he has left.

Now, after some time has passed since that communication, our work has been completed and the results have been published as

 Journal of Education and Work, 2017 VOL . 30, NO . 7

The special issue provides insights into David’s fields of work and into his contributions to the research communities as well as to dialogue between researchers and policy makers. And the very special way in which David engaged himself in these activities is reflected in the headings of the articles, such as the following:

Bridging divides – social science, educational policy and the improvement of education and training systems: an appreciation the contribution of David Raffe (1950–2015) by Cathy Howieson, Ken Spours and Michael Young

To know ourselves? Research, data and policy-making in the Scottish education system by Cathy Howieson and Linda Croxford

English exceptionalism re-visited: divergent skill strategies across England and Scotland by Ewart Keep

What does it mean to conduct research into qualifications frameworks? by Stephanie Allais

This was not a complete table of contents but a sample of articles with headings that remind me of David’s way to tackle issues and problems very deeply – not accepting simple interpretations and seemingly obvious solutions.

My contribution to this special issue had the following title

Learning from Europe and for Europe with David Raffe – insights into early years of European cooperation in vocational education and training research

I hope that this heading speaks for the content and for the memories of David as a fellow colleague and a fellow European in the exercise of learning from each other and contributing to knowledge development at the European level.

I am pleased to see that this piece of work is now available and that we have managed to give insights into David as a person, into his work and into the legacy he has left.

More blogs to come …

Today the whole Germany (all Länder – the Federal States) celebrate “Reformationstag” the 500th anniversary of the date when Martin Luther published his 95 theses against selling of indulgences (Ablasshandel). And, as we know, this episode that was supposed to be a starting point for a dialogue within the Roman catholic church, then led to the divide between the catholic and protestant churches. Recently – in particular in Germany – we have seen that the relations between the two churches that were once bitter enemies have become friendly neighbourhood relations. This has become manifest in several events, joint campaigns and at the level of everyday life. This much of the general background.

What strikes me now with this anniversary, is how it has been taken up in the German media. In particular I have been fascinated by the radio channel “Deutschlandfunk (DLF)” and its special program “Reformation quergedacht”. With this program the journalists of DLF have visited their regular programs with special inputs on the Lutheran reformation – in the past and in the present day life. Below I want to share insights into some episodes of this cross-cutting special program.

Episode 1: Interview with Bodo Ramelow – left-wing politician and practicing Christian

The first episode that I picked of this program was the interview with the prime minister of the Federal State of Thüringen, Bodo Ramelow. This electrified me, since Ramelow is the first )and so far the only) head of a regional government from the left-wing party Die Linke. His political biography is also interesting, since he is originally a West-German trade union official who moved to East-Germany after the reunification to help to set up the trade union structures. Politically he represented the breakaway left-wing alliance (WASG) of Oskar Lafontaine, who left the social democratic party (SPD). Later on WASG merged with the East-German party PDS (the successor of the old communist party). In this process Ramelow was one of the facilitators. Later on he became a very popular prime minister in his Federal State Thüringen. In this program he tells how his life and work as politician has been charcterised by the fact that he is an active member of the Lutheran church. Below you find the link to the full text of the recorded interview:

Bodo Ramelow: “Der Glaube ist prägend für mein Leben”

Episode 2: Insights into the past and present of the Evangelic Church in Transylvania (Romania)

A very special story is presented in the episode that reports of the traditional Evangelic-Lutheran church in Transylvania, the area that has been for centuries inhabited (among others) by a German population  – the so-called “Siebenbürger Sachcsen”. As this episode tells, they joined the reformation quite early and it became dominant in their communities. Due to the conquest of that area (at that time part of Hungary) and the long rule by Turkey, these communities could maintain their cultural traditions, their language and their faith. There was no pressure to convert them to islam nor to catholicism. After the 1st World War this area became part of Romania and after the 2nd World War it was under the Communist rule. The program gives insights into these turns of history as well as into the life in post-revolution era in Romania. Below you find the link to this fascinating story – based on field visits and talks with German-speaking key actors of the local parishes:

Der Islam beflügelte die Reformation

Episode 3: And where are the women in the picture of the Lutheran reformation?

Und wo bleiben die Frauen?

Episode 4: The twofold Katharina

Die doppelte Katharina

The two last mentioned episodes are linked together since they focus on a common issue – the marginalisation of women in the traditional history of reformation. In order to give a better insight into the role of women in the reformation movement the Bonner Frauenmuseum (the special museum for highlighting women’s contribution to history) has set up a special exhibition to fill some gaps. Firstly the journalists discuss the general picture with a representative of the museum and with a female theologian (Episode 3) and then they continue with the special section on Katharina von Bora, the wife of Martin Luther (Episode 4). With these two episodes we get a lot of corrective information on the role of active women of that time.

– – –

I guess this is enough of this special day (Reformationstag) and on the very special radio program (Reformation quergedacht). I felt that these inputs were the appropriate way for me to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran reformation. I don’t think that my blog would be the best place to explore the religious disputes around this anniversary. Nor did I want to explore the impact of reformation on my home country Finland and its Scandinavian neighbours. This time I wanted to share the interesting insights provided by the program “Reformation quergedacht”.

More blogs to come …

According to the University Technical Colleges web site, new research released of 11 to 17-year-olds, commissioned by the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, the charity which promotes and supports University Technical Colleges (UTCs), reveals that over a third (36%) have no opportunity to learn about the latest technology in the classroom and over two thirds (67%) admit that they have not had the opportunity even to discuss a new tech or app idea with a teacher.

When asked about the tech skills they would like to learn the top five were:

Building apps (45%)
Creating Games (43%)
Virtual reality (38%)
Coding computer languages (34%)
Artificial intelligence (28%)

With my five previous posts  I have shaped a series of blogs reporting on the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER 2017) that took place last week in Copenhagen. The first post outlined an agenda of themes to be covered. The second post provided insights into my own presentation. The third post discussed the themes ‘qualification frameworks’ and ‘credit transfer’. The fourth post discussed reforms in vocational teacher education and issues related to practicum studies of teacher candidates. The fifth post reported on a special research workshop that discussed ‘multi-methodological strategies in research on vocational education and training (VET). In this concluding post I will report of common events of the European Vocational Education and Training Research Network (VETNET) and on developments in the VETNET community. I will start with the common events in Copenhagen and then move to issues on the VETNET community and its activities.

The VETNET Opening Colloquium in Copenhagen

For many years the program of the VETNET network at ECER has been started with an Opening Colloquium or Keynote speech with discussants. In most cases this opening session has made visible VET research and current issues in VET development in the host country. This time the VETNET coordinators – Barbara E. Stalder and Christof Nägele – and their ‘local’ counterparts – Vibe Aarkrog and Christian Helms Jörgensen – had provided a two-course menu with desserts. Firstly, Vibe Aarkrog (from Copenhagen) gave insights into the host country with her presentation “A Danish perspective on VET: current challenges and recent changes”. Then Christian Helms Jörgensen (from Roskilde) broadened the discussion into the group of Nordic countries with his presentation “What can be learned from the Nordic VET-systems?”. Both presentations opened interesting insights into successive reforms and their main effects and (unexpected) consequences – and into modifications or counter-steering measures following each other. These input speeches were followed by comments of Lorenz Lassnigg (from Austria) and Stephanie Allais (from South Africa). Here I do not try to go into details. I am looking forward to the publication of the presentations on the Vetnetsite.

The VETNET General Assembly 2017

This year the VETNET Board had several interim activities and achievements to report. Here some main points on the reports of Christof Nägele, Michael Gessler and Lazaro Moreno:

• The International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET) had gained more attention and had been indexed by further databases in different global regions. As we remember, the founding process was kicked off at ECER 2013 in Istanbul and the official launch took place in ECER 2014 in Porto. Now the journal has clearly reached a consolidated phase. (The latest issue came out just after the conference.)
• The WERA network “Internationalisation of Research in Vocational Education and Training (IRNVET) – the global counterpart of the VETNET network had completed its working period in January 2017. As we remember, this wider international research network (under the auspices of the World Educational Research Association) had been initiated also at ECER 2013 in Istanbul and launched at ECER 2014 in Porto. This network had provided wider international support for the development of the IJRVET and international VET conferences and explored the basis for common thematic initiatives. The successor network (also called IRNVET) will continue the work in the years 2017 -2019.
• The International VET Conferences (in Stockholm and in Bremen 2015/Rostock 2017) organised by host universities with the support of VETNET and IRNVET have also created their own traditions. During the ECER 2017 the host universities had reached a working agreement that both conferences will work on a biennial schedule and as Spring conferences. In Spring 2018 Stockholm University will organise its cruise conference as usual but the next one in 2020. In Spring 2019 the University of Valencia will host the next “Crossing boundaries in VET” conference to be followed by the next one in 2021. In this way the two conferences will work as mutually coordinated ‘neighbours’.
• The VETNET contribution to European Skills Week is a new form of cooperation between the European Commission and the VETNET network. The cooperation emerged as a spin-off from the Bremen International VET conference in 2015 and took shape as a Research Workshop in the European Skills Week in Brussels in 2016. Now the VETNET network is preparing a new research workshop for the European Skills Week 2017. In this context the VETNET network has the possibility to award European VET researchers or research projects for special merits. This activity is led by Barbara E. Stalder.
• The cooperation of VETNET with Emerging Researcher’ Network of EERA had been successfully continued with a specific workshop led by Christof Nägele, Michael Gessler and Lazaro Moreno.

Based on the impressive activity report the General Assembly was happy to carry out the election of a new VETNET Board (see more on this in a short while on the Vetnetsite.

Nomination of a new Honorary Member of the VETNET network

A special moment in the meeting was when the VETNET board proposed to nominate Prof. Dr. Johanna Lasonen from the University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida) and the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) as a new Honorary Member of the VETNET. This nomination will be forwarded to the Council of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). Below we see Johanna and Ludger Deitmer who presented the laudatio for Johanna on behalf of the VETNET Board.

Here a brief extract of the proposal submitted to EERA:

“Prof. Dr. Johanna Lasonen has contributed to the founding process of VETNET with her expertise on AERA Special Interest Groups. As a founding member of VETNET she has worked in the VETNET Board on several occasions and as a reviewer of the VETNET proposals since ECER 1997. She was the first ‘local’ VETNET programme chair for ECER 1999 in Lahti to set the standards for the VETNET Opening Colloquium, for VETNET Proceedings, VETNET social event and for VETNET study visits to companies and vocational schools. She has also been the pioneer in involving VETNET in cross-network sessions with other EERA networks and in developing contacts between VETNET and UNESCO. During her work as a coordinator of EU-funded and nationally funded projects she has promoted actively the dissemination of the work of these projects via ECER symposia involving partners from different countries. Recently, she has supported the founding process of the International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET) – the official organ of VETNET (supported by EERA) and she is an active member of the Editorial Board of the IJRVET. Moreover, she has contributed actively to the work of the global pendant of VETNET, the IRNVET network of WERA.”

We congratulate Johanna for the nomination and look forward to the confirmation by the EERA Council.

Looking forward to ECER 2018 in Bolzano/Bozen, Italy

In the light of the reporting on the VETNET sessions in my previous posts and on the network activities in this post we can be happy with the ECER 2017 and the VETNET program. Many thanks in particular to the VETNET coordinators Christof Nägele and Barbara Stalder, who put a great effort in getting everything working smoothly. Also, we can look forward to the next ECER that will take place in September 2018 in Bolzano (Bozen), Italy. The stand of the local organising committee in the exhibition area provided us helpful information and delicious apples from the region. Moreover, in Copenhagen we got acquainted with new participants from Italy and Spain who were developing ‘college research’ and continuing professional development in the field of VET. We are looking forward to new productive cooperation partnerships (also in the context of preparing the ECER 2018). Let us see, what we can achieve by that time.

More blogs to come …