‘Learner identities and high-quality apprenticeships in England and Germany', an ethnography exploring the construction of learner identities of young people on engineering apprenticeships, was funded by the British Academy/Sir John Cass Foundation.
Dates: May 2013 to April 2015
Using a comparative ethnographic design, the study explores the ways in which apprentices on high quality engineering apprenticeships in England and Germany negotiate their learner identities. Further it examines how learning cultures in the two countries are constructed to involve the integration of theory and practice. Recommendations are made for the design of mainstream apprenticeships to overcome the academic-vocational divide so dominant in England.