From training workers to educating global citizens: how teachers view their opportunities of addressing controversial global issues in vocational education

ABSTRACT In the context of global crises, the priorities of vocational education and training (VET) need to be reconsidered. VET should educate critically reflective global citizens who are capable of acting to create a more just and sustainable world both in their workplaces and in society at large. This study examines VET teachers’ views on addressing controversial global issues, and how cultural-discursive, material-economic, and socio-political arrangements enable or hinder their opportunities to address these issues in Finnish upper secondary VET. The data comprise questionnaire responses (N = 187) and focus group discussions (N = 12). The mixed method approach uses basic statistical and reflexive thematic analysis methods, with the theory of practice architectures as the theoretical and methodological framework. The findings show that teachers are open to engaging with controversial global issues beyond curricular requirements and the diversity of students supports pluralistic discussions. However, the role of VET teachers as global civic educators is not recognised in the Finnish VET system focusing on efficiency and acquiring individual competencies, preferably outside the school. Reduced contact teaching limits teachers’ opportunities to deal with complex and uncertain global issues, and to create the safe, open classroom climate necessary for difficult conversations to take place.


Introduction
In the era of global crises, liberal democracies struggle with disinformation and the erosion of societal trust.Work and educational environments are intimately entangled with global, often polarising controversial issues that people encounter in everyday lives, such as the climate crisis, migration, human rights violations, or conspiracy theories.In this context, the priorities of vocational education and training (VET) should be reconsidered, to centralise the goal of educating critically reflective global citizens who are capable of acting to create a more just and sustainable world both in their workplaces and in society at large.
The aim of this study is to advance understanding about how teachers address controversial global issues in vocational education and how the cultural-discursive, material-economic, and socio-political arrangements of their work enable or hinder them in doing so.We use the term 'controversial global issues' to mark the intersection of educating for global citizenship and teaching controversial issues.Global issues are complex, interdependent challenges focusing on matters of sustainability and social justice that may have diverse conceptions among the public around the world (Myers 2020;Rajala, Jornet Gil, and Accioly 2023).Controversial issues are value-laden, often sensitive topics that can be related to e.g.contested historical events or present-day political questions that divide opinions and raise emotions (Pace 2019;Saetra 2021).Discussing actions for climate justice is an example of an interconnected, equity-focused controversial global issue that might take different directions depending on the context.For example, in Finland, the focus of our study, in 2016/2017 climate change denialism was at 6.8%, among the lowest in Europe, but climate change uncertainty, a lack of sureness about the anthropogenic cause of climate change, remained relatively high at 42.1% (Lübke 2022).This means that teachers may still need to tackle questions around the causes of climate changeincluding their own conceptions and knowledge around the topic -before being able to discuss what climate change means for global justice.
Addressing controversial global issues in education is foundational to global citizenship education (GCE), a fast-growing field of educational research, practice and policy (Bourn 2020).It is a potential way to examine how teachers guide 'students on a journey to discover, re-think, and unlearn about themselves and world' (de Vries 2020).Particularly, critical GCE approaches stress encountering difficult knowledge through critical thinking, questioning assumptions and acknowledging historicity (Blackmore 2016).The abilities to engage in selfreflexivity, listen to multiple perspectives, manage disagreement, and to question unjust global and local power structures are essential for navigating the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world (Stein 2021).
Few studies so far have focused on controversial global issues in VET.Based on prior research on the topic in non-VET educational settings, we know that a safe, open classroom climate is crucial for developing civic engagement and being able to engage with controversial social and political issues (Hess and McAvoy 2015;Hoskins, Huang, and Arensmeier 2021).Furthermore, having an open classroom climate correlates with multiple constructs that are relevant for the development of global citizenship, such as perspective-taking, trust, critical thinking, civic knowledge, and attitudes to democracy and human rights (Godfrey and Grayman 2014;Siegel-Stechler 2021).Classrooms can potentially serve as communities in which students interact, argue and work together, learning about democratic decision-making in practice (Godfrey and Grayman 2014).
Moreover, existing research suggests that contextual factors in educational settings may contribute to creating opportunities and constraints for teachers to address controversial global issues (Ho et al. 2017).Teachers may avoid addressing controversial global issues for multiple reasons: lacking knowledge of the content or feeling ill-equipped to handle uncomfortable topics and emotions; not wanting to politicise their teaching, to offend students coming from different backgrounds, or to cause divisions inside or outside the classroom; or struggling with the complexity and dynamic nature of global issues unravelling in real-time (Goren and Yemini 2017;Hahn 1998;Pace 2019;Saetra 2021).Teachers might also want to avoid time-consuming discussion to be able to cover the contents of the curriculum within the given time constraints (McNeil 1986).
More generally, the importance of contextualising GCE to local needs and considering its implications for different populations, including students with less affluent backgrounds -such as VET students -have been identified as a research gap (Goren and Yemini 2017).At the policy level, international organisations have begun to emphasise the need for 'sustainability competencies' or 'skills for the green transition' in VET including both technical and transversal skills and competencies, but largely focusing on ensuring economic growth and preparing learners 'for the "greener" labour markets of tomorrow' (Inter-Agency Working Group on Work-based Learning 2022).Global citizenship is specifically highlighted under the target 4.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Good Education in which the aim is to ensure that all learners, including in VET, acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development.It was only in 2022 that UNESCO added the notion of 'participatory, global citizenship' to its technical and vocational education and training strategy (UNESCO 2022).In research, critical VET scholars have called for a stronger emphasis on the more emancipatory, civic aims of VET to serve the needs and well-being of the learner and the planet, instead of concentrating on the immediate needs of the world of work (McGrath et al. 2022;Wheelahan 2015).In contrast, the trend towards more individual, vocation-specific learning has been seen to endanger the civic objectives of VET if teachers have limited possibilities to engage the whole group in discussions on wider societal topics such as ethics, democracy or environment (Eiríksdóttir and Rosvall 2019).
In short, little research exists on how VET teachers address global controversial issues in their work and how the local and institutional contexts of VET education provide opportunities for them to do it.The authors' earlier study (Suhonen et al. 2023) indicates that although Finnish VET teachers see global issues as increasingly relevant both for the world of work and active citizenship, global issues are mostly implicitly present in their teaching and interaction with students.The qualification requirements and reduced contact teaching hours restrict VET teachers' opportunities for in-depth, more structured engagement with global issues.In our earlier study, ethical and critical reflection followed by cultural diversity and human rights were rated as the most often taught global issues by VET teachers, whereas the least prevalent global issues included tackling racism, discussing minorities, different religions and worldviews, and engaging with peace and conflictresolution (Suhonen et al. 2023).
In this current study, we have built on and deepened our earlier work on the topic by drawing on the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis 2022), which enables us to conceptualise and shed light on the local institutional and sociocultural conditions of the teachers' work.This study includes teachers' focus group discussions (N = 12) as a second data set to complement the online survey (N = 187) used in the previous study.

Research objectives
To address the gaps in the extant literature, our study examines teachers' views on controversial global issues and how cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements enable and constrain teachers' practices.Our research context is upper secondary VET in Finland, where teachers are predominantly pedagogically qualified and have professional experience, enjoy high autonomy and trust, and largely create their own teaching methods and materials.As controversial global issues are not explicitly mentioned in the Finnish VET curriculum, it is important to understand better how teachers interpret and transform the curricular requirements into teaching practice balancing the needs of the world, the workplaces, and the students.
Our research questions are: (1) How do VET teachers view controversial global issues in their teaching?
(2) How do arrangements of vocational education enable or constrain VET teachers to address controversial global issues in their teaching?
Our analytical framework builds on the theory of practice architectures which holds that three types of arrangements -cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political -enable and constrain practices, which in turn are composed of sayings, doings and relatings 'hanging together' (Kemmis 2022).
Transforming existing practices requires not only changes in individual thinking and action, but also in our understanding of the world, material-economic conditions, and socio-political relationships between people and other living and non-living things in the world (Kemmis and Mutton 2012).The study contributes to discussions on the societal role of VET in supporting global and participatory citizenship, and to the need to assess vocational teacher training or VET curriculum from the perspective of global citizenship education.

Materials and methods
We employed a mixed-method approach in our paper.The two data sets include an online questionnaire (N =187, spring 2022) and four focus group discussions (FGDs) with teachers (N = 12, autumn 2022).Descriptive statistical analysis of the survey results is integrated with thematic analysis of openended survey responses and FGDs.Through mixed methods, we can combine several types of data to conduct a more holistic, complementary analysis to explain observed patterns and processes on individual and structural levels (Bazeley 2018, 93).

Research setting
Finnish VET presents a fruitful research context for exploring controversial global issues in education.Firstly, it attracts a diverse student population in terms of socioeconomic background, academic achievement, political and environmental attitudes, age, gender, mother tongue, or ethnicity.Schoolbased upper secondary VET remains popular, with half of the 16-year-old youth continuing in the vocational track after comprehensive school (Rintala and Nokelainen 2020).Secondly, although the extent of ecological sustainability or equity questions varies between different vocational qualifications, there has been a solid political will and additional funding to integrate these questions more strongly in the Finnish VET system (Liimatainen, n.d.;VASKI 2023).This means that the need for a sustainability transformation within Finnish VET has been recognised, but the steps forward are currently only being laid out.Thirdly, a major VET reform took place in Finland in 2018, moving towards more competency-based education, calling for efficiency, increased work-based learning and individual learning paths to respond to the needs of the economy and ensure competitiveness (Tervasmäki, Okkolin, and Kauppinen 2020).
The Finnish Act on Vocational Education and Training (2017) outlines that the purpose of VET is to respond to the needs of the labour market, but also to develop students 'into good, balanced and civilised people and members of society' and to ensure access to higher education.These multiple purposes to promote employability, citizenship and lifelong learning are reflected in teachers' work.Finnish VET teachers see themselves both as teachers of specific knowledge and skills, and as educators advancing broadly students' well-being and societal participation (Maunu 2018;Ryökkynen and Räty 2022).Teachers in the male-dominated field of technology also stress the importance of educating for a good life, fostering and caring for students as safe adults through an empathic approach (Löfgren, Ilomäki, and Toom 2022).Especially younger students need teachers' educational guidance and appreciate peer support, social aspects and the communality of studying (Niemi and Jahnukainen 2020;Rintala and Nokelainen 2020).
However, the 2018 VET reform was combined with major budget cuts while the number of students in VET increased (Tervasmäki, Okkolin, and Kauppinen 2020).As a result, the number of teachers and their contact teaching hours have been reduced, thus undermining teachers' interaction with students, and the overall social aspects of VET (Maunu 2020).Emphasising the importance of work-based learning and individual learning paths have shifted teachers' work towards validating and assessing competencies learnt previously or in workplaces rather than teaching students anything 'new', focusing on what is useful for labour (Pietilä and Lappalainen 2023).The personal competence development plans, originally a guidance tool for VET teachers to counsel their students, seem to focus on individualised goals and fragmented work tasks instead of recognising students as holistic people whose needs VET should meet (Rosenblad, Schaffar, and Löfström 2022).

Participants
A range of fields of teaching, Finnish geographical regions and age groups were represented among the survey respondents.Most of the survey respondents identified as women (n = 117, 63%), one-third as men (n = 67, 36%) and three respondents (2%) chose 'other' or preferred not to say.The largest age group was 50-59 years (n = 81, 43%) whereas only three respondents (2%) were under 30 years old.This corresponds well to the overall age and gender distribution of VET teachers in Finland: 57% are female and more than 60% are aged above 50 years (EDUFI 2020).The survey respondents' mean of teaching experience was 14.84 years (s = 9.78) and most had a master's level degree (n = 116, 62%).Most taught vocational subjects (n =143, 77%) and more than one-third taught common subjects (n = 67, 36%) including communication and interaction, citizenship and working life, as well as mathematics and science competence.Business and administration teachers (n = 29, 15.5%) were over-represented and teachers of technology, though the largest respondent group (n = 35, 19%), were under-represented among the respondents.In the FGDs, most of the participants identified as female (8/12) and had master's level of education (11/12).The proportion of vocational (7/12) and common (7/12) subject teachers was even, with one participant choosing 'other'.Several options could have been chosen, as many teach both vocational and common subjects.

Questionnaire and focus group discussions
The online questionnaire included 5-point Likert scale questions, multiplechoice questions and open-ended questions.After pilot testing the initial version with four VET teachers and receiving feedback from colleagues, the questionnaire was finalised and sent via email to the principals or managing directors of all Finnish education providers (N = 139) in upper secondary VET in March 2022.The survey link was also distributed via email lists and through personal contacts.The invitation to join FGDs was sent to those respondents who had left their contact details and re-circulated in VET schools.Each FGD included participants from a range of schools and fields of study, both from the capital area and smaller towns, with two to four participants per session.The transcriptions of the four FGDs comprise 189 pages with a total recorded length of five hours and 42 minutes.Survey responses were used as the basis for developing the discussion guide which included introductory questions on the respondents' background and interest to participate in the research, followed by prompts from the survey results to start the discussion around controversial global issues that the participants had encountered in their work.
Participants were asked to describe their student groups, illustrate challenges and opportunities related to their experiences, and share their needs and hopes for the future.

Ethical considerations
According to the guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK (2019), this type of research does not require institutional ethical review.Five VET schools requested research permission from their management before distributing the call to participate to their staff.Survey responses were anonymous, but the respondent had to give their informed consent to participate in the research.Respondents could leave their contact details on a separate form if they wanted to receive updates or participate in FGDs.The required information on data protection (GDPR) and research ethics was included in the invitation to participate and in the questionnaire.In FGDs, participants were informed about the study and data protection procedures in advance via email, orally at the beginning of the discussion, and also in the background information questionnaire that they filled in after the discussion.It was suggested to participants that they use only first names during the FGDs on Zoom.The discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim, removing identifying information.

Analysis methods
We used descriptive statistical analysis (mean, median, standard deviation and frequencies) for a general overview of the survey data.Inferential statistical analysis methods were also used to uncover differences between respondent groups, but due to limitations of space, this analysis is not included in this paper.The core analysis method used in this study for the open-ended survey responses and FGDs was reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2022).Following Braun and Clarke (2022), themes were understood as analytical outputs and patterns that represent the outcome of the open coding process.Themes were generated and interpreted by the researchers whose subjectivity was recognised as a resource for analysis (Braun and Clarke 2022).Researcher triangulation, having several authors analysing survey results and focus group discussion transcripts, were used to increase the trustworthiness of the analysis (Nowell et al. 2017).Our inductive coding of the data focused on both the latent level of assumptions and underlying concepts and the semantic content of the data.In reflexive thematic analysis, the data and its interpretation are contextualised with say, history, society or politics, in this case, related to the Finnish VET system.This means that when presenting the results, we also embedded them within earlier research on VET and the teaching of controversial issues, and theoretical discussions around global citizenship education.In the final stage of the analysis, the inductive codes were organised with the help of theory-based general categories, relying on the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis 2022).In the following results sections, the abbreviations FG (focus group) and SR (survey response) are used to designate the source of data excerpts.

Teachers' views on addressing controversial global issues in their teaching
Although global issues do not feature prominently in the requirements of most initial vocational qualifications in Finland, the participants in our study face them on a regular basis.In the open-ended survey questions, teachers listed a range of controversial global issues that had come up in their work recently (Figure 1).Climate change (n = 32), human rights (n = 21) and diverse equality and equity issues (n = 17) were the most often mentioned as issues that teachers had raised in their teaching, while students had particularly wanted to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine (n = 23), migration (n = 22) and climate change (n = 21).In addition to these most discussed issues, dozens of others were mentioned, ranging from animal rights to colonialism.Teachers from diverse fields highlighted the need to strengthen the students' knowledge of the global economy, human rights, or environmental issues when it comes to production chains, for example.One vocational teacher stressed that these global issues really should be tackled in vocational subjects, 'because without them you cannot have a holistic understanding' of the field of study, in this case, electronics and ICT (FG1).However, some respondents felt that they had not taken up any controversial global issues in their teaching (n = 10), or that students had not raised any such issues either (n = 8).
Many of the controversial global issues mentioned by the respondents have been prominently discussed in the Finnish media, such as those related to gender equality and rights of the minorities.Yet, teachers noted how misinformation and disinformation circulating in social media challenge the idea of having shared knowledge.One participant said how hard it is for a 'basic teacher' to understand the mechanism of conspiracy theories and the strong beliefs attached to them, feeling like some students are living 'in completely different realities' (FG1).According to teachers, fewer students were denying human-caused climate change than before, but the growing antisemitism, including the denial of the holocaust, was pointed out by teachers from several parts of Finland (FG1, FG2).
Survey respondents were presented with several statements related to dealing with civic, global and controversial aspects in their teaching and interaction with students (Table 1).The median response in all statements was '3. to some extent', and the mean for most statements was slightly above three.The  exception is the statement 'I educate students to question the prevalent society' which divided respondents the most (SD = 0.98) and included more respondents answering 'little' (28.6%) or 'not at all' (11.5%).
Respondents' higher agreement with the statement 'I encourage students to express and justify their opinions also in contradictory societal questions' also stands out, with nearly as many selecting 'much' (35.2%) as 'to some extent' (37.4%).This indicates a general openness of respondents to listen to students also on controversial issues.Focus group discussions supported these results.Teachers encouraged students to share their thoughts also outside the curriculum: . . .one might fall into philosophising a bit sometimes, it really depends on the group.If there is a group that does not speak a word, well then then we just follow what the curriculum says.(FG1, teacher of common subjects) After this general analysis of VET teachers' views on the types of controversial global issues surfacing in their work, the next section covers using the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis 2022) as an analytical lens to contextualise teachers' views in the institutional arrangements of VET.

Enablers and constraints for VET teachers to engage with controversial global issues
Teachers' pedagogical decision-making is influenced by local and systemic external conditions, including material resources, discourses, policy agendas, traditions, curriculums, relationships, and power hierarchies present in sites of practice (Edwards-Groves 2018).These conditions may prefigure but not necessarily predetermine what happens in the discursively-produced flow of lesson interactions (Edwards-Groves 2018).Thus, the choices made by teachers are entangled with these practice architectures divided into three types of arrangement: cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political (Kemmis and Mutton 2012).We identified these embedded arrangements in participants' responses to open-ended survey questions and focus group discussions on controversial global issues in VET, summarised below (Table 2).

Cultural-discursive arrangements
We start by exploring the cultural-discursive arrangements: what can be said or thought about a practice or what kind of language and semantic space is seen as possible.In particular, the policy environment -national core curricula, funding and legislation governing VET -forms the key cultural-discursive arrangements that influence teachers' work.).Yet, also many vocational teachers noted that global events such as violent conflicts or the climate crisis still enter the everyday life of VET colleges, and they were open to discussing these issues with students when the situation called for it: . . .like we do not really deal with these [global issues] in the vocational subjects, but . . .now when all kinds of things are happening in the world, like there is this . . .mess by Russia, and then when we had the refugee crisis and all sorts of things, then those become discussion topics by force and then we kind of talk about them.(FG4, teacher of arts and humanities) Mentions of structured, planned pedagogical approaches to engage with controversial global issues, or of learning about the political decision-making around these issues were scarce in the data.Yet, several teachers expressed an interest to include more general ethical topics in their work in the future, such as 'meaningful life' (FG1), reducing polarisation (FG3), or 'life skills' (FG2, FG4) -even though they are 'aside the main issue' or should not be 'legally included' in their teaching if strictly following the curriculum.Vocational teachers mostly mentioned more tangible aspects of environmental sustainability such as recycling, resource efficiency and reducing waste as areas which might 'slip' into their teaching situations, whereas the more 'societal affairs', values, and political questions only came up either accidentally or were seen to belong under the common subjects.
If I taught some common subjects and I had like 'how to be a human' as the topic, then I would of course be able to deal [with these issues] more, but now it . . . it kind of like . . .somehow it feels like it is not really my role to drive this further like visibly.(FG4, teacher of arts and humanities)

'The mere word made people's eyes glaze over': contextualised understandings of concepts
Another way in which the cultural-discursive arrangements impacted the teachers' practices was through the diverse and shifting meanings that the participants gave to the central concepts around controversial global issues such as 'sustainability'.The incoherent understanding of sustainability and what it means in different vocational qualifications, as well as the lack of leadership on the strategic level were described as obstacles to a deeper change in sustainability in VET colleges (FG3, FG4).One teacher of sustainable development noted how talking about sustainability was 'not easy' on campus with technological fields but framing sustainable development in terms of Lean methodology, resource efficiency or reducing waste made the abstract terminology more understandable, contextualised and practical (FG4).'Local', tangible, here-and-now actions -for example changing individual consumer behaviour -were contrasted to 'global' phenomena that were seen to be too abstract for students to connect with or to feel that they could influence these global issues somehow (FG1, FG3).Economic savings -if one does not recycle, it costs money -was also highlighted as a motivational factor (FG3).However, this adjustment might mean that even when a teacher would like to talk about spirituality and harmony with nature, they may have to hide this behind other, more acceptable words: ' . . .like I teach and talk about this like "competitive advantage from sustainability" which is maybe, which is probably like dressed into these present-day trendy terms, like in camouflage [laughs]' (FG4, teacher of business).

Material-economic arrangements
Material-economic arrangements comprise prefiguring architectures that shape the doings of practice, for example related to financial resources, division of labour or physical environment.

'Manufacturing grades': efficiency and performance replacing teaching and encountering students
The 2018 reform was not only about moving towards a more competencybased VET, but also the funding of VET changed to a more managerial, neoliberal funding system based on performance (students' completion of study units) and effectiveness (students' employment or further studying after the qualification and feedback of students and workplaces).When students graduate faster, the educational provider receives more funding.Validation of prior learning and having students complete as many study units at the workplace as possible are key components of this more efficient VET.One participant described how they were pressured to perform and to 'manufacture grades' after the reform (FG2): Competence-based VET risks positioning teachers merely as 'implementers and assessors' of the curricula set for them instead of as educators who understand their students' needs and prioritise what should be learnt and taught from the syllabus (Billett 2014).Yet, teachers also resisted the instrumental role being offered to them: That so-called 'world of work' where we catapult those students with very limited skills.I know that world of work well enough that . . .like I do not believe that our role can . . .can only shrink to stamping some papers when they have been studying something 'real' in some 'world of work'.(FG3, teacher of technology) Several participants called for a renewed authority for the vocational school as a place that can also provide relevant knowledge, foundation and background for learning and competence for the students, as opposed to the dominant discourse according to which the only worthy competence comes from the workplaces: ' . . .we could go back from this so-called singing of supergloria to the labour market to the idea that children and young people still need to be educated' (FG2, teacher of common subjects).Another participant stressed that in work-based learning one does not necessarily learn anything beyond the job itself, 'life skills for example, what you like really need in life' (FG2, teacher of technology).Furthermore, teachers highlighted that whether things are done correctly in an ecologically sustainable manner -or not -in the work-based learning period depends much on the experience, practices and attitudes of the workplace instructor that the student happens to get (FG3).
The continuous student admission and individualised study paths promoted in the new system have resulted in less stable student groups and weakened the sense of community (Hakamäki-Stylman et al. 2021).In many common subject classes, students proceed with their individual tasks at their own speed.One teacher describes students' expectations: The spirit seems to be that you perform, you do the tasks, and then you have fulfilled it [the requirements of a study unit].-somehow like . . .I am being asked now in [subject removed] which tasks do I have to do.Then I say that the question is not about doing tasks, but about us, us being there together and seeing what others do and share and like . . .oh well.(FG3, teacher of common subjects) The relationship between the teacher and students is at the core of a pedagogical encounter.Yet, as the speed of studying has increased, teachers have less time to support students' learning.The continuous student admission was seen as hindering 'us to be able to educate them more for these societal capabilities' when students have fewer occasions to sit chatting together and get familiar with each other and the teacher (FG3).In a teachers' union survey, nearly half of the respondents felt that VET students are not getting enough teaching to reach the desired competence, and more than half said they did not have enough resources to get to know the students or evaluate the progress of their learning (Bani 2022).In particular, the common subject teachers in our study confirm this and deplore the suffering relation with students 'when everything is considered from the perspective of how much it costs, and in what ways we can save money' and the success of vocational schools is measured through financial statistics (FG4).
Although common subject teachers can weave global issues more naturally in their somewhat constrained curriculum, they struggle with getting to know the students and creating the necessary safe, trusting atmosphere in the classroom with limited number of contact-teaching hours (SR154).A new group of students enters before the teacher has been able to learn the names of the previous group.In these circumstances, teachers may hesitate to bring up global or social justice issues in student groups unfamiliar to them to avoid 'unpleasant conversations', 'feeling bad' or fearing that students will make fun of the topic instead of taking it seriously (FG3).Vocational teachers still get to spend more time with their students and 'grow with them' (FG1), thus being better positioned to build the open classroom climate necessary for sensitive discussions to take place.

'There is this common subject hall where students go': separation of common subject and vocational teachers
The division of labour between vocational and common subject teachers is not only cultural-discursive in how the curriculum and teaching time are divided, but also in very physical terms.Vocational workshops and common subject classrooms are often in separate locations of the school buildings.Common subjects can also be completed independently online.This physical separation between general and vocational competence prevents knowledge-sharing and working together.Participants described almost no collaborative teaching or discussions around global issues with other teachers.Discussions e.g. on climate change mainly arose during informal times, at lunch or coffee tables (FG3, FG4).Although the reform was meant to increase collaboration and integration between common and vocational subjects, participants refer to a growing division between them.

Socio-political arrangements
The socio-political arrangements include organisational functions, rules and roles that shape the relations ('relatings') between people and non-human objects in a practice.The status of a VET teacher in the reformed VET system in Finland, and their relation to students and workplaces are at the core of this section.

'One has to be very sensitive': teachers and increasing student diversity
As VET students in Finland come from different backgrounds, they also have different motivations and expectations for their qualification.The priority for some students may be acquiring a profession, workplace, or Finnish citizenship through VET; for some, VET is just an obligatory school to spend time for a few years.Participants recognised their students' diversity and did not report simplistic, deficit views of students in contrast to earlier reporting in Finnish VET research (Maunu 2020).As noticed earlier, many participants emphasised the need to contextualise global issues differently with different groups.'Sustainability' has become politicised and may evoke distinct responses depending on the student's background.Also in Finland, after decades of consensus-based political culture, affective polarisation has been on the rise (Kawecki 2022).Teachers choose their words and select issues to make them relatable not only to a certain profession but also to students' lives.For example, a common subject teacher approached gender equality through conscription, currently obligatory only for men in Finland: There we have been in relatively safe waters or like . . .or like in general, that we can have a conversation, because if the topic or approach is too difficult, no-one really has anything to say, but through this I have been able to raise discussion.But then something like MeToo, well not necessarily.If I started with that, it might be that they would not have a lot of knowledge about it after all.(FG1, teacher of common subjects) Certain topics can be too personal for some students, making it better not to discuss them in a group situation (SR35, SR43).Teachers carefully consider sensitivities within the student group related to their socioeconomic background, gender identity, sexual orientation, or migration status: 'there are nonbinary students and different nationalities in the classroom, and one has to be very sensitive around these issues to avoid saying something offensive even by accident' (SR 198).Participants had also avoided raising the topic of war in groups with Russian students (FG2) or discussing the situation of Roma migrants in groups with Finnish Roma students (SR43).Some teachers admitted resorting to self-censorship when it comes to 'political topics' in student groups that had multiple nationalities or ethnic groups (FG2).
The proportion of VET students with a migrant background has tripled from 5% to 16% in Finland from 2009 to 2019 (Vipunen 2021, for a recent discussion about increasing multiculturalism in Finnish VET, see; Seitamaa and Hakoköngäs 2022).Students with a migrant background were frequently mentioned as bringing in perspectives that deviate from the 'norm', generally seen as a positive thing for the discussion (FG1).However, students with a migrant background were also said to be hesitant to express their views when discussing migration or gender equality (FG3, FG4).In addition to challenges with language skills and the ability to express oneself in the desired manner, reasons for this might include not wanting to stand out from the group.Students in a minority position may feel particularly vulnerable when it comes to trust, psychological and emotional safety both within the classroom and outside it.'Incorrect humour' or 'jokes' were also mentioned by some respondents as being common among the students -and the role reserved for students with a migrant background was to endure this kind of discriminatory speech, also described as normal behaviour in workplaces (FG2, FG3).Some participants noted how they know little about their students with a refugee background, for example understanding 'the amount of violence they have experienced and seen' or being able to anticipate issues which can be sensitive for different people (FG2).
A major change brought by the reform was to bring adult and young students together.More than half of new VET students are over 20 years old (Vipunen 2021).Participants saw age diversity as supportive of a pluralistic discussion (FG4).Young people were described as 'still growing', but often presenting their ideas in a very black-and-white manner, while adults were 'with opinions and daring to also express their opinions' (FG4), being much more 'political' (FG2).The need to have disagreement within the group for a discussion to even arise was pointed out by several teachers who described their groups as at least seemingly homogeneous in terms of gender, cultural background, age or interests.However, participants also highlighted challenges, such as animosities between students who may have been on opposing sides of an armed conflict (FG2), or weak language skills that may obstruct equal opportunities for a discussion (SR39, SR107).

'Students are being exploited': restricted space to discuss social justice in VET
Several of our study participants recognised the unjust power structures that their students -and them as teachers -were facing, but this seemed more like a silent resistance to the neoliberal VET system.Across our data, there were few mentions of teachers resisting malpractices they observed in work-based learning, for example.One participant found it shocking how young students are made into 'means of production' and 'parts of machinery' to only produce a profit when they graduate (FG2).In the same discussion, students' low position in work-based learning was stressed as the biggest taboo not discussed in VET: ' . . .we are not allowed to say that these companies are using you for their benefit without any shame . . .not in meetings, nowhere.These young people are being purely exploited' (FG2, teacher of technology).The teacher continued to stress that particularly students with a migrant background are working for free too much and are still not employed after their work-based learning period.Official evaluation reports on work-based learning include a passing mention of discrimination against VET students (Hievanen et al. 2022) although the difficulty of finding even an unpaid work placement, especially for VET students with a Roma or Somali background, has been reported elsewhere (Jauhola and Vehviläinen 2015).
The focus on the 'hard' objectives of efficiency and employability on the cultural-discursive and material-economic levels presented above may have also narrowed the socio-political space for teachers to talk about 'softer' values such as care of nature, social and cultural sustainability, or more general purposes around citizenship, life skills, or ethics.The lack of discussion on the purposes and values of VET, as well as the challenges caused by the 2018 reform, were highlighted by several participants (FG2, FG3).G: . ..what is our responsibility and role as teachers in VET, also in that we educate them to become better human beings for the future, to make the society better, that is never discussed, nothing at all.Nowhere.Interviewer:Do others have the same experience, that this is not being talked about?H: It is not being talked about, no.I: There is no time to talk about it.For example, me, although I talk about ecological sustainability, ethics enters there when we have even a bit of chance to discuss the topic (FG3 including teachers of common subjects, technology and social and health care) Finnish VET thus seems to be following international neoliberalist trends.As Schmidt (2021) has noted in the Australian context, competency-based VET lacks the language to describe 'good' VET teaching holistically in terms of care, or as an ethical and moral practice.Teachers in our study appeared to have few options for sharing their frustration with their management, colleagues, or students even at the school level.This raises the question: if teachers are not allowed to think critically about their work, is it likely that they will introduce critical thinking into their teaching either (Nuñez 2015)?

Discussion
The aim of this study was to increase understanding about how teachers address controversial global issues in Finnish upper secondary vocational education, and how cultural-discursive, material-economic, and socio-political arrangements enable or hinder this work.In our first research question we asked, 'how do VET teachers view controversial global issues in their teaching'.The participants in our study -upper secondary VET teachers from various fields and geographical locations in Finland -highlighted the need to strengthen students' knowledge and ability to express and justify their opinions in contradictory societal questions, regardless of the absence of broader societal objectives of global citizenship in the Finnish vocational education curriculum.Following our earlier research on the topic (Suhonen et al. 2023), the teachers' engagement with controversial global issues tended to be sporadic, unplanned, and unsystematic.Nevertheless, they were open to addressing contemporary challenges beyond the curricular requirements when they had the opportunity to do so.
Moreover, in line with a prior study on Finnish general education teachers as civic educators (Fornaciari and Rautiainen 2020), our study participants stressed the maintenance of the status quo rather than a radical change in society.Only one out of six survey respondents responded 'much' or 'very much' to the statement 'I educate students to question the prevalent society'.One explanation is that respondents have interpreted this statement as wanting to build students' trust in the established social institutions instead of challenging them.
Considering the increase of misinformation, disinformation, neo-nationalism and extremist movements, questioning the prevalent society might not necessarily mean a change towards a more just and sustainable society, but quite the opposite.In a previous study (Meriläinen and Piispa 2020) it was noted that young people with a VET background in Finland have less trust in institutions such as the government, justice system, democracy, or political parties when compared to young people with a general upper secondary education.Another plausible interpretation is the enduring tradition of VET as a reproduction mechanism for social class, forming vocational students into obedient, conformist workers as opposed to students in the academic track who are expected to become future change agents and critical citizens (Lappalainen, Nylund, and Rosvall 2019).
Yet, it would be crucial to address controversial global issues more strongly in upper secondary VET.In Nordic countries, this kind of access to in-school civic learning has been found to have a compensatory effect on the civic development of socio-economically disadvantaged students who typically choose the vocational educational track over the academic one (Hoskins, Huang, and Arensmeier 2021).VET students are also calling for more societal content in their study programme.According to a recent survey for VET students in Finland (OSKU 2022), nearly half of the respondents feel that their voice does not matter in society, and only 37% agree that their VET studying has included sufficient practice of civic skills.Vocational schools should provide safe learning spaces for young people and adults alike with enough time to discover together about 'debates and controversies both in society generally and in occupations they either chosen or are obliged to enter' (Rosvall and Nylund 2022).
Our second research question focused on the cultural-discursive, materialeconomic, and socio-political arrangements of VET that enable or constrain teachers to address controversial global issues in their teaching.Our analysis, drawing from the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis 2022;Kemmis and Mutton 2012), suggests that the Finnish competency-based vocational education provider resembles more of a factory that produces skilled workers for the needs of the labour market than a school that would educate critically reflective global citizens, or in a teacher's words 'better human beings for the future'.The current discourse and practice of Finnish VET stress that competencies should preferably be acquired without teaching or deliberate learning in 'authentic' workplace contexts, when possible (Pietilä and Lappalainen 2023;Pietilä, Niemi, and Kauppila 2022).
This study aligns with earlier VET research in Finland on how teachers' relationship to students has been transformed into numbers and IT systems measuring outcomes and performance, and teachers' work from teaching to assessing competencies (Pietilä and Lappalainen 2023;Rosenblad, Schaffar, and Löfström 2022).The teachers participating in our study appeared to resist these neoliberal tendencies and called for a restoration of honour to the educational work they are doing instead of only 'singing supergloria to the labour market' or 'stamping some papers when they have been studying something "real" in some "world of work"'.Yet, they seemed to be relatively powerless in the face of the powerful cultural-discursive, material-economic, and socio-political arrangements that constrained their work and were left in a potential identity crisis asking: what are we needed for?
Our study contributes empirical evidence to the question of how the emphasis of individualisation at the expense of societal learning in the competencybased VET limits the teachers' opportunities to tackle global and societal questions with their students, which has been implied in prior VET research (Eiríksdóttir and Rosvall 2019;Wheelahan 2015).As a practical implication of this study, we wanted to draw attention to the importance of considering 'societal learning paths' in addition to the individual paths highlighted in the reformed competency-based education system.The study participants stressed that breaking permanent student groups into individualised study paths, and particularly reducing the time spent in contact teaching in schools has restricted their opportunities to build the necessary open classroom climate to address controversial global issues with students.The frustration of VET teachers in Finland with their limited resources -mainly time with the students -was palpable in our data.Teachers navigate these tensions by incorporating global issues 'on the side', balancing between the reality of limited resources, and what they would ideally want to offer to their students.
The participating teachers generally saw the diversity of students as supportive to the multi-perspectivity that they wanted to promote in their teaching and interaction with students.But with the increasing heterogeneity of students, there is a need to ensure safety and equity both in school-based and work-based learning environments.Students' unequal positions in intersectional power hierarchies (age, gender, ethnicity, etc) in their workplaces were recognised by several participants, this being similar to a Swedish study (Rönnlund et al. 2019).Yet, they were described as 'taboo subjects' and it remained unclear whether these questions of social justice were tackled with students or with employers.Applying the already close connection between vocational schools and the world of work to contextualise controversial global issues in a meaningful way was raised little as an option by teachers in our data.This demonstrates the difficult position of especially vocational teachers who are operating in the middle ground between the school and the workplaces.To what extent can VET teachers and students criticise environmental or social injustices present in the labour market when they are expected to serve the needs of this same market?Exploring power relations in workplaces as material for democracy education in VET could be investigated further, as Rönnlund and Rosvall (2021) have also proposed.
Participants in our study noted the influence of social media and the need for sensitivity when addressing topical, hot-button controversial global issues.With misinformation and disinformation increasing the risk of inflammatory discourse in the classroom, teachers may find it difficult to balance between an open classroom climate and a safe space for students (Pace 2019).Teachers are required to consider the composition of their student group, their own position, and their abilities to facilitate a constructive discussion carefully.As controversial issues are often raised spontaneously and authentically in the classroom situation, teachers are not always prepared to facilitate these unplanned conversations (Kraatz et al. 2022).Collaborative and dialogic learning, ecological sustainability as well as language and cultural awareness are already included to some extent in Finnish vocational teacher training and continuous professional development, but societal and political aspects of these questions could be emphasised and critically reflected even more in the future.

Limitations and transferability
In its recent report, Cedefop (2023) has recognised the research need to compare the extent of citizenship education and its integration into VET across Europe.This study partially responds to this call focusing on the Finnish context, but more international and comparative research will be needed in the future.
Although the survey sample represented the diversity of the target population demographically, due to selection bias we cannot know the representativeness of the respondents' attitudes.It is plausible that those already having positive attitudes to global issues took part in the survey, and particularly in the FGDs.Another limitation of the study is that it relies on teachers' descriptions, memories, and interpretations of interaction situations.However, even considering these limitations, our findings provide an important insight on practice architectures that enable or constrain addressing of global controversial issues in VET.The findings also suggest avenues for further research.Observation of teaching, ethnographic research or participatory action research in VET schools would increase our understanding of what happens in classrooms, workshops or workplaces when controversial global issues arise and are addressed.Exploring students' and employers' perspectives on controversial global issues would also be necessary areas for future research.
As the ways of organising VET and its standing in different countries vary (Billett 2014;Rintala and Nokelainen 2020), and the teaching of controversial issues is highly context-dependent, it is challenging to estimate the transferability of our findings.Finnish teachers have enjoyed a high level of autonomy and trust from the management, learners' families and the public, and little outside direction as to what they should address in their teaching.These features of Finnish education system differ from more centralised and authoritarian political systems where teachers are afraid of breaking the norms or deviating from the official curriculum (Ho et al. 2017).Despite major budget cuts, Finnish VET remains well-funded with excellent facilities and equipment, has mostly qualified teachers and a high satisfaction rate among students.Although these general building blocks for a high-quality VET system are in place, our study participants still emphasise how the efficiency discourse of competency-based VET focuses perhaps even more strongly on labour market responsiveness than before the reform of 2018, and neglects the considerations of the learner, community, or global justice.Similar debates on the discrepancies between the needs of the learner, community, employers, economy, or the climate, for example on the relevance of the skills acquired, or the responsiveness of the vocational curriculum to these needs, are taking place in very different country contexts (see e.g.Muwaniki et al.; Pavlova & Askerud in this special issue).

Conclusion
Our findings illustrate that the crucial and potential role of VET teachers as global civic educators is not recognised in the material-economic, culturaldiscursive, and socio-political arrangements of the Finnish VET system.Work remains to be done to realise UNESCO's new strategy (2022) which envisions integrating GCE and education for sustainable development in VET policies and programmes.Including diverse groups of people, particularly the often-missing working class, in the decision-making can bring valuable knowledge and hidden perspectives through which to address ecological challenges in more just and sustainable ways (Bell 2020).Participation in this democratic decision-making on global issues requires a range of knowledge, skills and competencies that are at the core of critical global citizenship education: critical thinking, dialogue, reflection and responsible being/action (Blackmore 2016).However, as shown in this study, the current arrangements of Finnish upper secondary VET -efficiency, 'manufacturing grades', and speeding students' graduation to enter the world of work quickly -are in opposition with what critical global citizenship education calls for: time and space to develop the tolerance of vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity inherent in global issues (Stein 2021).
A critical, joint dialogue in vocational schools and societies at large is needed, to break the overriding discourses of performativity, competitiveness and employability (Tervasmäki, Okkolin, and Kauppinen 2020), and to create an alternative conceptualisation of VET that would emphasise care, meaningfulness and relationships (Schmidt 2021).The question 'why' should not only be more present in teaching vocational subjects (Rönnlund et al. 2019), but we could also ask 'why' when considering transformations to the current values, purposes and practices of VET to better support just and sustainable futuresespecially engaging those whose voices have not been heard so far.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.The most often mentioned controversial global issues by respondents in open-ended questions.

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. .I am really just testing what they have had time to learn until now and then I assess that, and not really that what I could give or what kind of knowledge and competence they could acquire more.(FG2, teacher of common subjects)
Five respondents did not respond to these statements, making the number of respondents smaller (N = 182) than in the total survey (N = 187).

Table 2 .
Arrangements of vocational education that provide opportunities (+) for and constraints (-) on teachers to engage with controversial global issues.Many participants noted how global issues are little mentioned -beyond general notions of sustainable development -in the evaluation criteria of study units.In the current core curricula, out of 180 competence points in all initial VET qualifications, only one point is explicitly dedicated for the promotion of sustainable development, and two points for active citizenship, both under the common unit of 'Citizenship and working life competence' (see e.g.EDUFI 2019 'Past the curriculum': challenging national policies