Vocational education for a sustainable future: Unveiling the collaborative learning narratives to make space for learning

How can higher education respond to the global, complex challenges we are facing today? What new educational, future-proof, and just approaches are needed? Part of the answer seems to lie in so-called 'collaborative learning arrangements,' where students, together with various communities, explore sustainability-related challenges. The number of such arrangements in which vocational education participates is increasing. However, empirical studies on what actually happens in these collaborative arrangements are scarce.

In this publication, Cassandra Onck (artistic researcher in the Art Education as Critical Tactics professorship), Wietske Kuijer Siebelink (HAN professor of Responsive Education), and Saskia Weijzen (head lecturer at the Academy of Humanity and Society) address the gap between theory and practice by applying a participatory design. This research shows that deeply rooted educational and socio-cultural routines limit the possibilities for more genuine collaborations. The study also demonstrates that the application of more creative and reflective methods creates more space for so-called 'transformative learning.' The opening of these spaces was accompanied by ambitions to go beyond the rosy narratives of collaborative learning arrangements and to pay more attention to the enduring embedding of educational routines in the societal issues around us.

For more information about this research project, visit the project page of HAN via the blue button. The publication with the research results has been published in the Journal for Vocational Education & Training and is available as a PDF via the black button

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