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This volume presents the research outcomes of Working Group 2 of Cost Action A11, 'Flexibility, transferability, mobility as targets of vocational education and training'. The group focused on the issue of transfer of learning in vocational education and training and the development of new conceptual tools for the promotion of transformative learning. The book presents an overview of different theoretical approaches to transfer of knowledge and skill, including recent attempts at reconceptualisation. The emphasis is on a perception of learning as boundary crossing between contexts. It is argued that this process is not just the transfer of intact knowledge and skills from task to task or from the school to the workplace, but that as evidence increasingly shows in the process of transfer knowledge and contexts are changed. The chapters are: From transfer to boundary-crossing between school and work as a tool for developing vocational education: an introduction / Terttu Tuomi-Grohn, Yrjo Engestrom and Michael Young. Part one, 'Boundary-crossing as a theoretical basis for research on transfer', contains: Conceptualizing transfer: from standard notions to developmental perspectives / Turttu Tuomi-Grohn and Yrjo Engestrom; Consequential transitions: a developmental view of knowledge propagation through social organizations / King Beach; Transfer and transition in vocational education: some theoretical considerations / David Guile and Michael Young. Part two, 'Learning and transfer in vocational education', contains: Exploration of an industrial enterprise as a method of boundary-crossing in vocational education / Barbel Furstenau; Developing competence during practice periods: the learner's perspective / Johan van der Sanden and Christa Teurlings; Curriculum-embedded mastery learning as a tool for fostering transfer / Frank Achtenhagen; Boundary-crossing in the context of intercultural learning / Susanne Weber; 'Speaking from experience': boundary-crossing within a pre-vocational education programme in Ireland / Gary Granville and Mary Reilly; Developmental transfer as a goal of internship in practical nursing / Terttu Tuomi-Grohn; Promoting developmental transfer in vocational teacher education / Pirjo Lambert. Part three, 'Learning in workplace', contains: Learning in working life: from theory to practice / Petra Angervall and Per-Olof Thang; A model for analyzing knowledge content and processes of learning a trade within alternance vocational training / Annalisa Sannino, Alain Trognon and Lara Dessagne; Workplace learning across activity systems: a case study of sales engineers / Sten R. Ludvigsen, Anton Havnes and Leif Chr. Lahn; Epilogue: from transfer to boundary-crossing / Roger Saljo.

This chapter presents research, based on activity theory, which seeks to create and analyse a new model for promoting developmental transfer in vocational teacher education. The model is called a ‘learning studio’ and seeks to foster innovative learning in vocational institutions where student teachers are working as teachers. Student teachers present their developmental projects to teachers and practitioners in health care and social welfare. The model is an example of boundary-crossing between a teacher education facility, vocational schools and workplaces. The data was collected in the Helsinki Polytechnic, School of Vocational Teacher Education. Using activity theory, the author analyses interaction in the learning studio through discussion of ‘boundary objects’. The object is a task or a problem that participants in the discussion are working with and that is developing and changing. The analysis looks at how these boundary objects were developed as tools for constructing an object for different participants, i.e. students, teachers and practitioners.

This chapter examines aspects of the transfer of knowledge and skill in vocational education and training (VET). It provides connections between various approaches to transfer of knowledge and skills. The relationship between the situated knowledge gained in workplaces and the codified knowledge acquired through the school curriculum is discussed. It is argued that to foster transfer greater support is required for students in relating the 'situated' knowledge of workplaces to the 'codified' knowledge acquired through the curriculum. Activity theory approaches to learning are linked to a sociological approach to knowledge as a basis for a ‘vocational curriculum’ for the future. A number of fundamental issues are examined: (1) the reconceptualisation of transfer as transition by identifying its ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ elements; (2) the importance of recognising that contexts provide meaning and coherence to learning; and (3) the need to distinguish between tacit, situated and codified knowledge in order to reconceptualise vocational curriculum.

Vocational education in Ireland has undergone major change over the past decade. One key aspect has been the systematic relocation of vocational education to the postsecondary or further education phase at approximately 18 years of age. This chapter focuses on a new qualification at the upper secondary level, developed to assist young people in crossing the boundary between secondary education and working life. The Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) aims to cross the boundaries between school and work, between different school subjects and between different forms of teaching and learning. Drawing on the concept of consequential transitions, different transitions are described from the perception of the students. The LCVP resulted in the successful crossing of the boundaries between school learning and work-based learning in many cases. Within the school context of the LCVP, however, there was no cross-curricular boundary-crossing other than on rare occasions. A new kind of teaching and learning was developed. The approach was work-related and activity-based and operated where school and work met. It was characterised by collaborative teaching and learning experiences, changed student-teacher relationships, and situated learning of a kind not previously recognised in formal education programs within Irish schools.