The literacy practices of developing vocational portfolios : interacting activities, negotiating identities, and enacting hybrid discourses
This thesis reports on a study of the literacy practices drawn upon when developing portfolios for the purposes of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and the impact such practices have on the construction of NVQ candidates' identities. The portfolios are also regarded as elements of intense workplace textualisation and I examine the role they play in empowering or restricting the candidates for their (future) careers. Data collection and analysis draws from both linguistic and ethnographic methods, placing this study within the methodological field of 'linguistic ethnography'. My data consists of fieldnotes, ethnographic interviews, focus groups and documents collected in the field. The data is interpreted by means of case studies and a socio-semantic approach in text analysis. The focus of the study lies upon the development of NVQ portfolios by two work-based and twelve college-based NVQ candidates. The uses of literacy are studied here taking a sociocultural stance, understanding literacy as socially situated and approaching it from an Activity Theory lens by analysing the contexts wherein literacy practices are drawn upon as activity systems. In the study of work-based portfolio building, I argue
Nikolaidou, Zoi
The literacy practices of developing vocational portfolios : interacting activities, negotiating identities, and enacting hybrid discourses. This thesis reports on a study of the literacy practices drawn upon when developing portfolios for the purposes of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and the impact such practices have on the construction of NVQ candidates' identities. The portfolios are also regarded as elements of intense workplace textualisation and I examine the role they play in empowering or restricting the candidates for their (future) careers. Data collection and analysis draws from both linguistic and ethnographic methods, placing this study within the methodological field of 'linguistic ethnography'. My data consists of fieldnotes, ethnographic interviews, focus groups and documents collected in the field. The data is interpreted by means of case studies and a socio-semantic approach in text analysis. The focus of the study lies upon the development of NVQ portfolios by two work-based and twelve college-based NVQ candidates. The uses of literacy are studied here taking a sociocultural stance, understanding literacy as socially situated and approaching it from an Activity Theory lens by analysing the contexts wherein literacy practices are drawn upon as activity systems. In the study of work-based portfolio building, I argue
literacy_practice develop vocational portfolio activity negotiate identity enact hybrid discourse report study literacy_practice draw_upon develop purpose national vocational impact practice construction candidate identity portfolio also regard element intense workplace examine_role play empower restrict candidate future career data_collection analysis draw linguistic_ethnographic method place study within methodological field linguistic ethnography data_consist ethnographic interview focus group document collect field data interpret mean case_study socio semantic text_analysis focus study lie upon development portfolio work based twelve college based candidate literacy study take sociocultural stance literacy socially situate approach activity theory lens analyse contexts wherein literacy_practice draw_upon activity system study work based portfolio building argue