The paper investigates how learning and processes of becoming are shaped and enacted in retail apprenticeship in Norway. The analysis draws upon a qualitative study of managers and apprentices in different retail sub-sectors. The empirical point of departure is managers who, more or less deliberately, throw apprentices into tasks from day one. Thus, the apprentices have to handle tasks with limited instruction and guidance. The paper argues that the level of trust the apprentices are shown, and the responsibility they assume, fosters emotional engagement conducive to learning. The concept of learning environment is applied to understand the relationship between affordances and engagement. In linking the organisation of work to learning processes, emphasis is placed on how 'being responsible' is not merely a capacity residing within the individual, but embedded in and constituted by institutionalised work roles, task allocation and trust relations. The paper aims to nuance prevailing accounts of lack of guidance as purely detrimental to workplace learning. However, the weakly established tradition of vocational training in Norwegian retail requires a critical look into the kind of learning this practice implies. Contentious issues of throwing apprentices into the deep end are discussed.

No abstract

Political reforms of the 1990s ushered in sweeping socio-economic changes in the Nordic countries, including radical changes in their vocational education and training systems. However, the reforms led to a school-based vocational education and training system with a strong orientation towards higher education in Sweden, and a hybrid system with a stronger apprenticeship component in Norway. Drawing on comparative literature about institutional change in education systems, the aim of this article is to consider why such different vocational education and training systems emerged in countries that shared numerous commonalities following political reforms with similar neoliberal agendas. Our findings, based on secondary data analyses, show that national education reforms played a key role in transforming vocational education and training systems to promote greater flexibility and lifelong learning in line with societal changes. They also show that differences in the roles played by the social partners in Sweden and Norway in the reform processes, in conjunction with differences in political priorities, have led to major differences despite the similarities of national histories and attitudes.

No abstract