Vocational students’ literacy practices at a construction site: Nexus analysis of reading the blueprint

This study examines professional literacy practices in vocational education and training (VET) in Finland. The participants of the study are eleven 16–18-year-old students of technical building service and their vocational teacher, who work at the construction site located in the college’s premises. The focus is on reading the ventilation blueprint at the work site: What kind of literacy practice is the blueprint and what kind of situated factors affect its’ use? The data consist of field observation data at the work site and interviews with the students and they were analysed using nexus analysis. The results are discussed through three cycles of discourse: the discourses in place, the interaction orders, and the historical bodies of the participants. The results show that reading the blueprint is the prerequisite of performing the work task. Its’ material substance is relevant, as it enables using embodied methods in the concrete working environment. Interaction around and with the blueprint has four significant activities: 1) Resolving a problem, 2) Organising the work, 3) Checking the work, and 4) Bridging theory and practice. Reading the blueprint requires a concrete environment of the work at hand, support of the learning community, and interaction.