The discourse on technological literacy: exploring visual representations enabled by the visual cultures of four Swedish vocational education and training programmes

Abstract

In today’s rapidly changing world, technology has profoundly impacted our daily lives, making it increasingly difficult to predict what skills will be necessary for the future. To address this challenge, 21st-century skills have been proposed as a framework for shaping future education, in which one of the skills is technological literacy. How the latter is understood, positioned, and approached is influenced by discourses produced within and among various societal practices, such as the educational system. This article provides a glimpse of the discourse on technological literacy by exploring how “technological literacy” is portrayed within the visual cultures of four Swedish upper secondary VET programs. Our results indicate that the portrayals of becoming technologically literate for VET students vary among the programmes. However, they all emphasise practical and hands-on activities, where students can be seen engaging with various tools, equipment, and objects relevant to each programme’s field of study. Teamwork and peer-to-peer learning are also portrayed as central to these programmes, simultaneously as leadership roles and the distribution of responsibilities among students are commonly featured. While the programmes’ visual portrayals reflect diversity in ethnicity and gender, traditional gender roles are still (re)produced in the pictorials.

Introduction

We live in an increasingly changing world where global socioeconomic growth and technological development have significantly impacted how we lead our lives. However, as history has shown, technology seldom follows a pre-determined path (Ihde 2006) and can sometimes – if not handled wisely – be for the worse. Therefore, it is impossible to foresee what competencies may be required to navigate the future. To address such issues, 21st -century skills (a set of skills and abilities identified as requisites for success in 21st -century society and workplaces) have been proposed as guidelines for (re)forming future education. As suggested by, for instance, Snape and Fox-Turnbull (2011) and Brears et al. (2011), technology education¹ is ideally suited for providing students with opportunities to develop skills needed to navigate a global socio-economic future characterised by technical development.

Stemming from vocational education and handcraft traditions, technology education can be defined as “the learning area that deals with the ways in which human beings change their environments to be better suited to their needs and wants, thereby using various types of knowledge” (de Vries 2009, p. 1). In most technology-driven societies, however, the rationale for technology education is motivated in terms of democratic principles, gender equality, and technology accessibility. Learning such abilities – to use, understand, and appreciate technology and its relationship with society can, therefore, be seen as developing technological literacy (Williams 2009) and hence a skill set that is for all. Technological literacy can also be seen as a matter of utilising one’s technological knowledge in relation to any given situation (Ingerman and Collier-Reed 2011) and, therefore, an action-related construct that concerns more than just reaching a (predefined) level of instrumental skills. Instead, it is a matter of acquiring the ability to make informed choices about how to make use of technology in an ever-developing, technology-driven society (Dakers 2006, 2017; Pitt 2006), often associated with educating for empowerment.

Technological literacy can be positioned in relation to three overlapping practices: (1) technological language – i.e., the spoken language used to function as a working group or the particular kinds of representations (e.g., drawing, schematics, or instructions) used among colleagues, (2) technological cognitive processes – i.e., the problem-solving, memorising, and planning skills that become fluent over time, and (3) technological epistemic practices – i.e., the nature and goal of a specific practice (Tang and Williams 2019). Consequently, “becoming technologically literate” is closely related to students’ engagement with items in the milieu that surrounds them and “not so much as located in the heads of individuals but as situated in the interactions among members of a particular community engaged with the material” (Jordan and Henderson 1995, p. 41). Unfortunately, scholarly discourse concerning technological literacy often has strong connotations towards the instrumental use of technologies in education (Hermans et al. 2024; Kiesler and Thorbrügge 2022). However, due to its strong links to our everyday lives, we propose a much broader approach to technological literacy where manipulation and interaction of artefacts are at focus.

Consider, for example, an ordinary tea towel: Sometimes, it may be used precisely as intended (e.g., to dry the dishes). However, at other times, the same towel could be folded and transformed into an oven mitten to protect one’s hand while carrying a hot beverage or as a protective layer to prevent non-stick cookware from scratching. In the first case, the towel is used in its “proper” passive manner, while the latter reflects an unintended, further developed, idiosyncratic way of using the towel (Vermaas and Houkes 2006). Vermaas and Houkes (2006) terminology implies a distinction between the structural properties of an item and functional ones and, therefore, suggests that the use of the item is, in fact, based on the prospective user’s idea of the capacity of the artefact rather than a designer’s intentions to how the object should be used. In that sense, the interplay between the passive and idiosyncratic ways of using the towel (or any other artefact for that matter) can be seen as part of the discursive structures of societies, which frame the contexts in which artefacts are understood and used. In the following study, we will approach discourses as collections of representations that create meaning and form physical as well as social realities (Authors-c) by shaping and governing what is sayable, unsayable, thinkable, unthinkable, acceptable, and unacceptable in specific societies at specific times (Foucault 1986). As discourses influence systems of thought as well as what is considered valid, they are productive, meaning that they are intertwined with questions of power and knowledge (Foucault 1991). This implies that discourses influence both passive and idiosyncratic use of the towel.

The discursive role of visual culture in shaping technological literacy

Discourses produced within and among various societal practices influence how technological literacy is understood, positioned, and approached. Alongside policymakers and business organisations, the educational system is a practice that contributes to setting the discursive tone for what is considered education for technological literacy. For example, while there exist plenty of educational contexts in which technology is put at the forefront and made an explicit part of the educational orientation, there exist just as many contexts where technology is embedded behind other foci. Nevertheless, both kinds of education are just as involved in discursive production as educational programmes foster technological literacy.

The educational system is a practice that contributes to shaping understandings of technological literacy through various discursive operations, with its visual cultures being one composing example. Visual culture refers to the visual dimensions of our social lives, encompassing how visuality and visual meaning-making influence and are influenced by societal discourses, power structures, and cultural contexts (Rose 2023). Visual cultures within the educational system hold the potential to provide students with diverse and effective ways to approach and understand technology as educational content, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of technological literacy. As such, students are provided with different possibilities to approach and understand technology through photographs and illustrations in a technology education textbook perpetuating ideals of what technology is, who is involved, and how it should be dealt with). The visual cultures will, in turn, influence societal norms regarding the meanings of technology and technology use that are enabled by the students (Hentschel 2014). One area that demands immediate attention and has not been thoroughly investigated for elements of technological literacy is post-16 vocational education and training (VET). By exploring the visual cultures of four Swedish upper secondary VET programmes, we can investigate how technological literacy is represented within that specific part of the educational system.

Aim and research questions

Grounded in the arguments provided, we explore how “technological literacy” – with particular attention to manipulation and interaction with artefacts – is represented within the visual culture of four Swedish upper secondary VET programmes. More specifically, our overarching aim is to identify what aspects of technological literacy are enabled by visual representations of VET practice. This will enable us to get insights into parts of the discourse on technological literacy. In response to this aim, we analyse pictorials published in an informative context available to the public, portraying students enrolled in Swedish upper secondary VET education and pose the following research questions:

• 1. What kinds of manipulations and interactions of artefacts are depicted in the pictorials?

• 2. What role do the depicted learning environments play in relation to how the manipulation and interaction of artefacts are represented in the pictorials?

The importance of researching visual cultures

In today’s societies, visual dimensions of communication have become a central part of how institutions express their values and operations. For example, they post photographs and illustrations online to provide information and promote their missions (Aiello and Parry 2020; Leaver et al. 2020). Visual communication is, thus, a part of visual culture, encompassing the visual dimensions of cultural contexts and our social lives. A myriad of visual cultures exist within the human world, all influenced by power structures enabled by practices and their discourses. Visual cultures get embodied through but are not limited to, photographs, architecture, constructional and mechanical drawings, paintings, sculptures, films, advertisements, scientific graphs, and digital media (Bal 2003; Mirzoeff 2009; Mitchell 2002; Rose 2023). This implies that visual culture studies often focus on and interpret visually embodied phenomena in relation to the cultural situations in which they and the meaning-makings around them are produced (Mirzoeff 2013).

Visual cultures construct and are constructed by norms, beliefs, and experiences of societies (Mirzoeff 2009; Mitchell 2002; Rose 2023), which implies that they are part of human meaning-making processes and thus shape our understandings of various phenomena (Mitchell 2005; Rose 2023), such as technological literacy. This study adheres to the idea that discursive norms and values related to educational practices can be embedded in the visual culture of said practices and can become visible through analyses of representations produced within that practice. While discourses are immaterial, they have material consequences that can become visible through their cornerstones – representations. The latter can be understood as “the process of representing and making sense of something, and the products that such a process generates”. If we take a map as an example, the processes involved in creating the map, the map itself, and the meanings communicated through it can all be seen as representations. This implies that by focusing on representations enabled within the educational system, we can unravel and scrutinise the material consequences of the discourse on technological literacy while providing insights into how the phenomenon is constructed.

Empirical material: pictorials published online

To get hold of representations of technological literacy and get insights into the discourse on technological literacy, our study’s empirical material consists of four Swedish VET programmes’ informative pictorials published online (within a marketing context). This material will shed light on how technological literacy—in terms of students’ interaction and manipulation of artefacts—is represented within the visual culture of those programmes and, thus, what meanings of technology and technology use are enabled. In other words, it will enable us to get insights into the discourse on technological literacy.

The pictorials analysed in the study were identified and collected via www.google.com (using the Swedish names of the respective programme as search terms) and downloaded onto a laptop computer. The collected pictorials have been published in relation to four of the most gender-heterogenous upper secondary vocational education programmes in Sweden (The Child and Recreation Programme, the Electricity and Energy Programme, the Vehicle and Transport Programme, and the Health and Social Care Programme) and originated from online marketing materials, official websites, and social media platforms. Our primary rationale for selecting the data has been twofold: First, the significant differences in gender distribution among the programmes can be expected to yield diverse representations of technological literacy. Second, the marketing material provides access to the visual representations of VET education nationally.

In total, circa 300 pictorials were collected and analysed. To enable us to analyse several pictorials at the time, our analytical sessions took place in The Norrköping Decision Arena² (Fig. 2). As the venue enables users to compare pictorial content in a non-hierarchic environment, it is suitable to use when more extensive data sets are to be analysed and discussed. The Norrköping Decision Arena has previously been used to analyse visual cultures (see Authors-b). It has proven to provide its users the opportunity to be embraced in the empirical material in a way that is difficult to achieve when only using a single computer screen or printing pictorials to paper. As part of our organisation of the pictorials, we created four collages (e.g., Fig. 1) per program (each containing twelve pictorials) using Microsoft PowerPoint.

Fig. 1

A photograph taken in Norrköping decision arena during the analysis session with pictorials from the health and social care programme

Fig. 2

An example of how one of the collages looked like from the child and recreation programme

Analytical starting point: identifying representational commonalities

After collecting our empirical material, we set out to inductively identify representational commonalities among the pictorials from the respective programme, as that would help us to get a first glimpse of how technological literacy is represented and comes into being through the pictorials. During this part of our analysis, decisions were made about (1) what aspects of the pictorials to focus on further and (2) which pictorials to exclude from the collages. Additional pictures were then added to the collages to enhance data saturation. As researchers interested in the discursive construction of technological literacy, we are highly involved in and contributing to it through our analysis, which underscores the importance of transparency in the presentation of our research. Grounded in this idea of transparency, we provide excerpts of our discussions about the pictorials from the Child and Recreation Programme (CR)³ As an illustrative example of our analytical procedure, we have only included summaries of the identified commonalities for the remaining three programmes, but the procedure looks the same.

The child and recreation programme (CR)

Our initial impressions of the visual representations of CR were that the program is centred around interaction with different items, collaboration with peers, and leadership. The pictorials predominantly feature students working in pairs or groups, rarely showing individuals working alone (Fig. 3).

… there is much interaction in pairs and in groups. There are hardly any pictures that contain only one person … and they [the students] work together … so, now I am wondering – what are they interacting with?

Fig. 3

Students and children interact and manipulate objects (e.g., a programable robot, felt pens, puzzle)

We also noticed that the pictures are relatively diverse about, for example, ethnicity and gender. However, male and female students tend to attain different roles in relation to the children and peers, and male students are portrayed as leaders and are the focal point of the pictorials (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

The pictorials generally portray male students as leaders or as the focal point of an activity

The examples in Fig. 4 also illustrate how the pictorials integrate the non-human world into the educational settings, which frames the program as valuing environmental awareness and outdoor learning experiences. For example, this became visible as several pictorials are set outdoors or close to non-human beings (e.g., next to a plant or under a poster representing a tiger). Hence, many images also display events where the non-human world plays a central role in student-student and/or student-child interaction (Fig. 4).

… there are many connections with nature. I who are into outdoor education and ‘sense of place’ … it is about creating some relationship with nature … in the reading situation, for example, a tiger is painted in the background. That football guy is outside … but I would say that even if there are few direct encounters with nature, nature is always present.

Furthermore, the pictures reflecting preschool practice display playing, read-aloud, and drawing activities. Such pictorials reflect joyful experiences with fellow students and/or children (Fig. 5).

… I have tried to identify an overall impression rather than look at the details […] joy is one such impression … a sense of community … social interaction, communication … but I would say that community is a key.

Fig. 5

Pictorials of students and children engaging in pre-school activities

Based on our first impressions, the students at the CR seem to have few direct encounters with science and technology. However, after paying attention to all the details in the pictorials, our impression started to change (Fig. 6).

… when I have seen all the small things, I realise that there is a lot that could become science in practice. In that sense, some kind of emergent science is present in the pictures.

Fig. 6

Students engage with technical artefacts (electrical wiring, a computer [to the left], and a programmable robot [to the right])

However, another striking impression of the CR pictorials is that aesthetics seems to act as an overarching bridge between the subject content in the classrooms and the preschool activities. This introduces a sense of ambiguity concerning whether the children are ‘just’ creating or if they are engaging in science and technology activities (Fig. 7).

… I noted that aesthetics is something more overarching … to draw, paint, create, build, and build with bricks … that is technology … or is it aesthetics … or is it?

Fig. 7

Students and children engage in creative activities centred around science and technology content

The electricity and energy programme (EE)

Our first impression of the visual representations of EE was that the programme is centred around tools, measuring devices, and the use thereof. Most images reflect work-related situations (e.g., students in workwear and/or protective devices, students working with screwdrivers, or taking measurements using digital multi-meters) in which the students face the cameras as if they were models rather than learners. Judging by the images, male students in the EE programme are homogenous about, for example, ethnicity, gender, and hairstyle. This makes female students seem á part in these contexts. In the pictures where the students are doing “actual” work, they are generally focused on their tasks rather than any surrounding peers, indicating that a low degree of inter-human interaction is represented in the pictorials of EE practice. When taking a closer look at the technology used in the pictorials, the students rarely use any advanced technology when attending to, for example, a light switch. Instead, simple tools such as screwdrivers and measuring devices like multimeters (i.e., a measuring instrument that can measure the electrical properties [e.g., voltage, current or resistance] of an electrical circuit) that allows the students to install and troubleshoot electric artefacts (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8

Pictorials portraying student activities at the Electricity and energy programme

The vehicle and transportation programme (VT)

Our first impression of the visual representations of VT was that they are centred around male students’ use of tools to take care of vehicles. Also, the images display differences between what may be described as “clean” and “dirty” environments and situations. Almost all students are dressed in workwear and often use protective devices. This suggests that much of the work is dangerous and will require extra attention and protection. Most pictures are set in what we interpret as authentic environments, meaning tools are generally on display. On many occasions, the students work with “hidden” artefacts that are hard to access without elevating the car or removing, for example, a tyre. Consequently, diagnosing a car may concern removing components layer by layer to arrive at the core of the problem (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9

Pictorials portraying student activities at the Vehicle and transportation programme

The health and social care programme (HS)

Our first impression of HS through its visual representations was that the programme is centred around blood pressure, blood sampling, and caretaking. Often, they occur when students attend to a patient’s health status (e.g., testing blood pressure or taking a blood sample) or assist a patient (e.g., lifting a patient or making a bed). Almost all pictures involve physical contact between the student and the patient or among the student-peers. Also, it is common for the students to take on the role of the patients. The pictures are generally set in environments similar to health care departments, even though most pictorials seem to have been shot at the schools. During some of these occasions (e.g., when retrieving a blood sample or attending to an older person in bed), the students wear protective gear (e.g., gloves, aprons, or protective masks). In the case of the HS programme, such protective gear is used to protect the student and the patient. The pictures show that teachers function as guides or supervisors rather than establish a master/apprentice relationship with the students (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10

Pictorials portraying student activities at the Health and social care programme

Deepening the analysis: a focus on interactions and manipulations with items

Based on the representational commonalities that emerged from the first analytical session and reviewed literature, we decided to deepen the analysis by focusing on students’ manipulation and interaction of artefacts. To guide and theoretically ground our analysis, three out of eight coding categories from the Interaction analysis (IA) framework were used (Jordan and Henderson 1995). The first coding category, the participation structure represented in the pictorials, concerns how the people interact with each other and with the objects present therein. The second category, the spatial constraints represented in the pictorials, relates to how the environment allows interaction. Finally, the artefacts and documents represented in the pictorials are the ones that the individuals in the pictorials are paying attention to. Also, the category encompasses symbolic and empowering objects such as stethoscopes or a nurse’s broach. Together, these three, to an extent overlapping categories, will allow us to deepen insights into the discourse on technological literacy in the visual representations of manipulation and interaction that the pictorials portray.

The child and recreation programme (CR)

Participation structure

As noted above, the pictorials from CR show situations where students engage in formal activities with their peers or preschool children. Often, the human beings in the pictorials have a shared focus on the artefacts at hand (e.g., papers, pens, or building blocks) – as if it is the artefacts that are “in control” over the situation, and thus, have agency for how the human beings’ technological literacy is formed. Furthermore, some pictorials portray the students as learners (e.g., attending a lesson or reading a book), meaning their development of technological literacy is decontextualised from their future vocation. Several pictorials also reflect various states of mind (e.g., joy, excitement, awe, concentration, or relaxation). Also, it seems as if the artefacts may focus the children’s attention, giving the student the ‘traditional’ role of the teacher. In that sense, the visual culture of CR contributes to the idea that interaction and manipulation of artefacts are an integral part of a preschool practice and that a student’s technological literacy can become an asset at the workplace.

Artefacts and documents

Closing on how the students and preschool children manipulate and interact with the different artefacts, we argue that the pictorials demonstrate a relationship between an artefact’s structural/material properties and how it is used. Natural occurring materials that lack a predefined purpose (e.g., branches, stones, tree trunks) seem to be used as a balance beam, a bench, a table, or to build a fire. In contrast, manufactured artefacts with a specialised purpose (e.g., a robot or a board game) are much harder to use in idiosyncratic ways (Vermaas and Houkes 2006). Other manufactured artefacts such as puzzles, books, or benches that, on the surface, seem to come with a predefined purpose and invite the students to use their technological literacy to find novel ways to adapt to the situation.

Spatial constraints

As noted above, the pictorials at CS are set in diverse environments but with elements of nature present (see p. 9).

The electricity and energy programme (EE)

Participation structure

Most pictorials from EE portray little or no human interaction. However, when engaged in pair or group work, the students mainly cooperate to fix/investigate a problem or assist one another. In the few pictures where teachers are present, they seem to function as either a guide or a supervisor for the students. This indicates that the programme is based around a master/apprentice logic where technological literacy is based around learning passive use of artefacts (Vermaas and Houkes 2006).

Artefacts and documents

Most pictorials of EE portray situations where humans interact with the pictures’ non-human elements. Generally, such interaction and manipulation are mediated using “electrician’s tools” such as screwdrivers or measuring devices. In that sense, it is reasonable to suggest that the pictorials contribute to the idea that EE students become “technologically literate” by “becoming an electrician” – i.e., passive use of artefacts (Vermaas and Houkes 2006). However, as the pictorials reveal situations in which the EE students use their knowledge to take control over one or more technological systems that are either “black-boxed” or open to the naked eye, we argue that the students’ use of artefacts is an integral part of “entering” and taking control over a technological system. In that sense, the screwdriver could be seen as an extension of the student’s body that will allow him/her to alter a more extensive technological system behind the wall and as a tool as an extension of the technological system that ‘speaks’ to the students. The pictorials also display situations where students need to use different representations of the technological system to, for example, troubleshoot a fuse box, install a light switch, or acquire information about the system’s status behind the wall. Collectively, the pictorials portray technological literacy where engagement with artefacts becomes a vehicle to develop an understanding of the relationship between human needs and technological systems.

Spatial constraints

The majority of the pictorials of EE display “mock-up” housing environments where the students get to practice their skills. Also, pictorials display environments where a building’s whole electrical system is scaled down and put on display. Together, these elements present a visual narrative where the students’ interaction and manipulation of technological systems (e.g., Svensson and Ingerman 2010) are placed in the foreground. Furthermore, as the otherwise hidden systems are “out in the open”, the pictorials show settings that display the relationship between technological systems and human needs and show that EE students need to build technological literacy on both a micro and macro level.

The vehicle and transportation programme (VT)

Participation structure

Many of the pictorials portray single students working on a single car. Also, the data display situations where a student peer assists, such as a wheel change. In such situations, the human being will attain the function a tool usually would have. Using Vermaas and Houkes (2006) terminology, this would represent an idiosyncratic use of a colleague that will require students to explicate their technological literacy. The pictorials also show situations where a teacher is taking on the role of a guide or a supervisor to the student. Often, these situations occur close to different material tools that become a mediator of human interaction, allowing for the teachers to organise education through specific artefacts. As the data also portray VT students in environments similar to professional workshops, it seems reasonable to suggest that the mechanic’s value to the customers and the labour market is central to their technological literacy.

Artefacts and documents

Several pictorials display tools and materials with specific purposes (e.g., spray nozzles, sparkplugs, or safety goggles). In contrast, other tools can have both a specific, but depending on the situation, a more general purpose (e.g., a screwdriver that is fitted to adjust a screw in an engine but is also suitable to open the lid on a can). Furthermore, the data reveals that some tools (e.g., digital multi-meters or dipsticks) are used for diagnostic reasons. Moreover, students use computers to explore the vehicle’s status. From a system perspective, these are occasions where the VT students use specialised tools to “look” inside the vehicle to explore the relationship between the components inside, and as most of the vehicles’ technological systems are “block-boxed”, the students need to learn how to uncover and enter the system in order to identify any problems. Such operations require the students to understand different representations of the car’s technological systems. Collectively, the data indicate that learning which tool to use in specific situations is central to their technological literacy. At times, this requires knowledge about the passive use of a tool, while at other times, learning (or developing) alternative ways of using tools (Ingerman and Collier-Reed 2011; Vermaas and Houkes 2006).

Spatial constraints

Since most pictures are set in authentic environments, there are generally a lot of items/tools on display in the background. Nevertheless, the students usually work with “hidden” technologies that are hard to access without, for example, artefacts elevating the car or removing a tyre. Consequently, diagnosing a car and developing technological literacy concerns removing several layers of components – i.e., altering the spatial constraints to adapt to the situation. Furthermore, the data review shows that the spatial constraints portrayed in the pictorials can be understood as a continuum from clean to dirty, where the clean environment holds material such as lacquer or upholstery. In contrast, a dirty environment holds materials such as engines, oils/fluids, or breaks. The clean environment is often related to the “outside” of the car, while the dirty environment is positioned inside the vehicle’s technological system.

The health and social care programme (HS)

Participation structure

As noted above, almost all pictures involve some kind of physical contact between either student and patient or student and peers. Often, such situations involve the passive use of instruments/tools to diagnose patients. It is, therefore, reasonable to suggest that such interactions are a natural part of the real-world practice. Furthermore, as the students, while using the tools, still seem to focus on the patients, we argue that learning how to use a particular tool is of higher value than choosing what tool to use in a particular situation. Much of the interaction represented in the data between teachers, students, and patients can be described in two ways: first, situations where a teacher is observing and/or advising the students how to perform an action and second, situations where two or more student peers work together to for example sample blood pressure. The pictures representing the first category evoke a sense of a guide/supervisor relationship between the teacher and the student. The second category, however, can, in turn, be understood in two disparate ways – either as interaction between human beings or the students interacting and manipulating artefacts to attain information about the status of the patient’s health.

Artefacts and documents

Our general impression of the Health and Social Care Programme is that the material used by the students is the focus of their future practice. The materials used by the students are mainly for diagnostic purposes (e.g., drawing blood samples, measuring blood pressure) or treating wounds. In addition, there are also materials and tools designed for specific situations such as heavy lifting. In some pictorials (e.g., portraying students’ retrieving a blood sample or attending to an elderly person in bed), the students wear protective gear (e.g., gloves, aprons, or protective masks) to protect themselves from the patients. However, another indication that HSs’ focus on practice is the frequent use of hospital/healthcare uniforms depicted. Learning to become a nurse also seems to involve repetition under the guidance of an expert nurse. The pictorials displaying students’ use of technology rarely focus on the technology itself. Instead, the camera is directed towards how technology may facilitate the interaction between students and their “patients”. Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that technology use and technological literacy are a natural part of the everyday life of a nurse and, therefore, not something that is reflected upon. Furthermore, the visual narrative of the pictorials represents passive use of artefacts (Vermaas and Houkes 2006).

Spatial constraints

The pictures are generally set in muck-up health-care environments, even though most seem to have been shot at the schools. These aspects form a practice where the students are guided through the events that await them when they have finished their education, indicating an intention to organise an education that corresponds well with real-world situations.

In summary: technological literacy in VET

The overarching aim of this study has been to identify what aspects of technological literacy are enabled by visual representations of VET practice. Following Tang and Williams (2019) description, technological literacy has been regarded as overlapping practices (technological languages, technological cognitive processes, and technological epistemic practices) with a particular emphasis on passive and idiosyncratic interaction and manipulation of artefacts (Vermaas and Houkes 2006). During our analysis of marketing pictorials, our attention has increasingly been drawn toward representations of students’ interaction and manipulation of artefacts and how the surrounding environment in the pictorials affects the conditions for said interaction and manipulation. The coding of our empirical material has, thus, revealed prerequisites for interaction (participation structure, spatial constraints, and artefacts and documents) that seem to affect students’ “becoming technologically literate” in divergent ways. By attending to the visual culture of four VET programmes, we have identified numerous potential situations in which students’ technological literacy is manifested. We can now describe how “becoming technologically literate” comes into being through the visual cultures of four Swedish upper secondary VET programmes.

Representations of technological language

Our analysis of the pictorials portraying where students’ language use is central to their manipulation and interaction with different artefacts. For example, the visual culture of CR reveals that “languaging” is a phenomenon that can occur between students working with a plastic robot or between students and preschool children engaging in construction work or listening to read-aloud stories. In other words, the visual narrative represented in the CR pictorial constructs a discourse where the students’ natural language is at the centre of the students’ technological literacy. It follows that becoming technologically literate as a CR student may – as in many pictorials – be a decontextualised process that develops technological knowledge that the student can later transfer to preschool practice. In contrast, the visual culture represented in the pictorials depicting manipulation and interaction at HS shows an educational discourse where the patients’ well-being, rather than technology, is in focus for technological literacy. Consequently, the pictorials indicate – even though technology and instrumental knowledge play a big part in their work – the existence of a language practice detached from technology. On the other hand, the visual culture of EE and VT display the use of an extended language practice that encompasses blueprints, a diverse array of schematics, and colour-coded cable. Also, the pictorials show that the students must learn to interpret information from measuring devices when diagnosing a technological system. Hence, we argue that “becoming technologically literate” at EE and VT may be understood in terms of utilising different types of representations of technological systems (Svensson and Ingerman 2010) in different situations. The data show that EE students are often provided different representations by the training facility, while the VT students are guided by their teachers.

Representations of cognitive processes

Second, our review of the pictorials reveals several situations where the students’ cognitive processes are central to their vocational skills. As noted above, the data describes situations where the CR students engage in scholarly activities with their peers and also together with children in preschool environments, and since the environment and the nature of the artefacts seem to affect the interaction in the pictures, it is reasonable to suggest that the cognitive aspects of the CR students’ technological literacy develop in relation to the material preconditions of the pictures. Consequently, our analysis suggests that the CR students’ way of “becoming technologically literate” is closely related to the idiosyncratic use of artefacts in different environments (Vermaas and Houkes 2006). Here, objects that lack a predefined purpose may be particularly important for understanding the connection between students’ conceptual knowledge of their teaching and their enactment thereof (Authors-b). Once again, contrasting CR, the identified situations at HS display the students’ passive use of artefacts. Even though these situations indicate an emphasis on students’ instrumental knowledge, we still argue that the students need to have a basic understanding of the workings of the instruments, safety gear and how they relate to the human body. Consequently, technological literacy at HS extends beyond the idea that man and technology are separate systems. Similar to HS, the visual culture of EE is based on situations where the students employ artefacts to explore the status of a system. In that sense, the function of a blood pressure cuff is similar to that of a digital multi-meter – at least in relation to its role in developing students’ technological literacy. In contrast, the visual narrative of VT represents several “real-world” like situations set in “real-world” environments, indicating that becoming technologically literate corresponds to understanding a mechanic’s way of thinking.

Representations of epistemic practices

Third, our analysis of the visual cultures shows several occasions where technological literacy manifests itself in epistemic practices (e.g., a CR student taking on the role of a teacher using a picnic table as a focal point for the children to demonstrate a science experiment or a VT student choosing an extended wrench to increase leverage). At first glance, the pictures seem to portray very different situations, albeit so, some commonalities can be identified across all programmes. For example, there is a strong emphasis on practical and hands-on activities, where students can be seen engaging with various tools, equipment, and objects relevant to each programme’s field of study. Teamwork and peer-to-peer learning are also portrayed as central to these programmes, simultaneously as leadership roles and the distribution of responsibilities among students are commonly featured. While the programmes’ visual portrayals reflect diversity in terms of ethnicity and gender, traditional gender roles are still (re)produced in the pictorials. For example, the pictorials of the CR programme often feature male students taking an active leadership role. In contrast, the pictorials from the HS programme depict male and female students taking on roles that align with traditional gender expectations in healthcare. These kinds of representations place male students at the centre of attention and can contribute to upholding discursive stereotypes about boys being more interested in or better suited for technology.

Concluding remarks

In conclusion, our exploration of the visual cultures of four Swedish VET programmes with special emphasis on manipulation and interaction with artefacts implies that technological literacy in VET is a phenomenon that is embodied through students’ use of artefacts rather than just learning “how to do the trade”. Furthermore, with the study’s discursive focus in mind, this study has unravelled a need to extend the notion of artefact to encompass manifestations such as language and different types of representations. Hence, we are now in a position to enter the classrooms to investigate how students’ knowledge, interaction with artefacts, and environment may affect their decision-making about, for instance, the use of technology in their trade. Thus, this study has the potential to become an essential piece in future research endeavours concerning the relationship between human, artefacts and their surroundings.