Developing vocational practice in the jewelry sector through the incubation of a new ‘project-object’



The approach adopted in the Design Work Placement Project by the JIIC and M&M
followed, even though it was not consciously based on, the above principles. The JIIC
achieved this goal through a combination of, what can be referred to as, ‘orientation’ and
‘laterally-branching’ pedagogic strategies. The former consisted of workshops that were
delivered prior to the jewelers participating in the scheme to alert them to the changing
industrial context. The latter involved the introduction of new techniques in relation to the
task-in-hand faced by each jeweler. Kate introduced the moodboard and pinning down
strategies to Shona as heuristic devises, rather than maxims, and invited her to consider
how and/or whether to incorporate those techniques into her own practice. Shona
progressively recontextualised her use of those techniques so she was able formulate and
instantiate a new range of wedding rings that exhibited some continuity with traditional
designs whilst simultaneously introducing new design elements into what is a fairly staid
artefact.

M&M achieved the above goal through the creation of, what can be referred to as,
‘workflow’ pedagogic process. Matthew accepted responsibility for the creation of a
context in the meetings between Shona, Tuget and himself whereby aesthetic, commercial
and fabrication issues associated with different designs could be discussed so that all parties
were able to infer from one another’s comments what followed for their practice, and use
this growing knowledge to anticipate potential problems with the next round of designs.

7. Conclusion

The paper has made a number of inter-related arguments. The first argument is that
qualifications are not the magic bullet that facilitates access to the creative and cultural
sector because the industry is under pressure to innovate, and newly qualified graduates in
any field have not yet developed the forms of vocational practice to contribute
meaningfully to the process of innovation. The second argument is that intermediary
agencies play a vital role in supporting newly qualified graduates to develop the forms of
vocational practice that will assist them to gain access to the creative and cultural sector
and firms in the sector to transform their product and service strategy, by creating the
conditions for both parties to incubate new products and services. The third argument is that
the link between access and innovation present a particular challenge to existing
gradualisitic and radical approaches to workplace learning because neither are geared to the
analysis of the formulation and instantiation of new products and services.

The paper has approached this task conceptually by drawing on the concepts of the project-
object, vocational practice and pedagogic practice, and substantively by focusing on the
formulation and instantiation of a new range of jewelry. This conceptual framework has
allowed us to not only identify the way in which the interplay between the epistemic
dimension of vocational practice and the pedagogic strategies and tactics enable individuals
and organisations to build knowledge, material entities, skills, and social functions into a
new artefact, but also to shed new light on individual and organisational contributions to
workplace learning. In the case of the latter issue, our analysis of the formulation and
instantiation of the project-object reveals that individuals and organisations are only able to

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