Chapter 8: Becoming One Of Them

Vocational education and training (VET) in Australia, as in many countries, has undergone considerable reform over the past 15 years. One of the key features is that VET teachers have been increasingly encouraged to shift their practice from the classroom to the workplace. This chapter examines ways in which a group of VET teachers learned how to work in companies and navigate the spaces between communities of practice (CoPs) in the company and those in their “home” institute. It is based on 34 interviews in 6 case studies, each case comprising a VET institute and a company. The findings highlight how CoPs might be used as an explanatory framework to assist teachers to make meaning of their work with industry, and of the challenges they confront as they move between different sites of practice.