The aim of this study was to explore what subject-integrated teaching of vocational subjects, ethics and health care, contributed with in terms of vocational knowing. The case study was ethnographically inspired and followed a group of students (16 +) and their teachers in a Swedish Health and Social Care Program while they worked with a theme unit called Death for two weeks in autumn 2012. Data comprised observations, field notes, and audio recordings of the planning and teaching of the theme unit, informal discussions with teachers and students, handouts, a theme booklet, and student assignments. Analysis was based on concepts related to cultural historical activity theory, especially emphasizing rules, tools, actions, operations, and contradictions. Results showed three major objects emphasized in the teacher–student interaction and the tools chosen to support the subject-integrated teaching activity: vocational knowing related to vocational ethics, to everyday ethics, and argumentative skills. Manifestations of contradictions in the form of dilemmas related to the examples that teachers copied from a textbook. As these examples were mainly contextualized in everyday situations, and there are no formal ethical guidelines for nursing assistants on which teachers could rely on, teachers’ narratives were used to complement these examples. Students’ argumentative skills were emphasized and related to personal situations, in which ethical arguments for justification in vocationally relevant situations were made unclear.

The aim of this case study was to investigate what vocational knowing was made available in subject-integrated teaching of four vocational subjects in a Swedish Health and Social Care Program (HSCP). The study was composed of two separate data collections, both ethnographic. The first data collection was performed in autumn 2012 on a theme unit called VIPS, with a group of students (16+), in a Swedish HSCP. Data comprised observations, field notes, and audio recordings of planning and teaching of the theme unit, informal discussions with teachers and students, handouts, a theme booklet, and student assignments. The second data collection was performed during spring 2018 in which life-history interviews focused on documentation were conducted with the teachers involved in the theme unit from 2012. Data comprised audio recordings and time lines. A theoretical framework and analytical work were performed with concepts from Cultural Historical Activity Theory, and from New Literacy Studies. The results indicate that the object in the teaching activity comprised vocational knowing in three areas: psychosis, ethics, and communication, and vocational literacy. Vocational contextualization of teaching was a necessary component that made available vocational knowing that contributed to the students' professional development.

Based on a study of curriculum integration in Swedish upper secondary education, at a Health and Social Care Programme (Christidis, 2014), the issue of this chapter is how general subjects can contribute to vocational knowing in the interaction between teachers and students. Inspired by an ethnographic approach, classroom observations, interviews and documents formed the data, and for the analysis concepts from activity theory were used. Main results were that teachers’ and students’ experiences used in teaching focused three actors’ perspectives: those of nurse-assistants’, patients’ and relatives’. These were expressed in subject specific as well as interdisciplinary teaching of general and vocational subjects. Using subject integration made it possible for both teachers and students to explore connections between the subjects. Furthermore, subject integration contributed to one of the main goals of the Health and Social Care Programme: to develop a holistic view of the human being.

Med utgångspunkt av en studie om ämnesintegrerad undervisning på Vård- och omsorgsprogrammet (Christidis, 2014) läggs i kapitlet särskild fokus på hur de allmänna, gymnasiegemensamma ämnena kan bidra till yrkeskunnandet i samspel mellan lärare och elever i undervisningen. Data samlades in etnografiskt genom observationer av undervisningen, intervjuer, och insamling av material kopplat till undervisningsinnehållet, och analyserades med verksamhetsteoretiska begrepp. Studien visade att lärarnas och elevernas erfarenhetsutbyten i undervisningen koncentrerade sig kring tre perspektiv i vården: vårdares, patienternas och anhörigas. Dessa kom till uttryck genom ämnesspecifik och i ämnesöverskridande undervisning av de gymnasiegemensamma och programgemensamma ämnena. Ämnesintegreringen gav såväl lärarna som eleverna fler möjligheter att upptäcka samband mellan de olika skolämnena. Dessutom möjliggjorde den ämnesintegrerade undervisningen för eleverna utvecklingen av en helhetssyn på människan i enlighet med examensmålen för Vård- och omsorgsprogrammet.

The study investigated subject integrated teaching and vocational knowledge in one Health and Social Care program. The material was collected ethnographically, during a period of a school semester (5 months), and analysed according to the Activity-Theoretical concepts actions, goals and tools.

The results identified five goals for subject integrated teaching: the legitimacy of Swedish as a school subject; a focus on linguistic prescriptivism; the identity of vocational subjects; a predominant medical focus in vocational subjects; and a professional language. Further six recurrent tools were identified: a fictional book; a teacher-prepared hand-out; a teacher-constructed case report; teacher-examples from health care; and linguistic rules. There was a theoretical kind of vocational knowledge with focus on language issues, on medical aspects of care, and on a professional language.

In conclusion, subject integrated teaching contributed with more than each of the specific subjects contributed with and simultaneously tensions between goals representing different subjects were found. However, tools were shared between subjects.