Informal Learning of Vocational Education and Training (VET) Teachers for Car Mechatronics in England and Germany Framed Through the Country’s VET Culture — Selected Findings from a Comparative Ethnographic Study

This paper aims to show how informal learning of English and German vocational education and training (VET) teachers for car mechatronics is framed through the English and German VET culture. The comparative approach allows to reconstruct the universal parts of informal learning of the interviewed German and English vocational teachers for car mechatronics and the culturally specific ones. This is done by using interview data from the comparative ethnographic study VET Cultures in a European Comparison: Social Practices in Vocational Classes/courses for Car Mechatronics and Business Administration in England and Germany and the dynamic model of informal learning by (Tannenbaum et al., Kozlowski and Salas (eds), Learning, Training, and Development in Organizations, Routledge, 2010) as a sensitising concept for the coding paradigm (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The reconstructed differences are explained by the country’s specific vocational educational tradition as part of the VET culture — in Germany structuredness and in England work experience. As educational traditions represent values, this paper contributes to show the significance of values, when observable social practices are shaped and explained.