Work

Stories of Policing: The Role of Storytelling in Police Students’ Sensemaking of Early Work-Based Experiences

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: Storytelling has been shown to play a key role in transferring work experience from more experienced towards novices in a number of vocational educational practices, however previous studies have not to the same extent dealt with the role of students’ own storytelling practices for sensemaking of work experience. This study set out to examine police students’ storytelling of their first occupational experiences from a sensemaking perspective, with an analysis drawing on the concepts of enactment, selection, and retention. The study is based on participant observations of field training follow up sessions’ in the context of police education. Findings indicated that student storytelling of work experience tended to be geared towards action, extremeness and the telling of ‘war stories’. Furthermore, these type of stories functioned to enable student identification, self-enhancement and emotion management. These findings contribute to our current understanding of how students engage in sensemaking of work-based experiences and in extension how knowledge integration and learning from work placements can be structured pedagogically.

Source: Vocations and Learning

DOI: 10.1007/s12186-017-9184-9

Authors: Oscar Rantatalo, Staffan Karp

Institution: Umeå University

Language: English

Topic: Innovative Education and Learning Practices

Subfield: Human Factors and Ergonomics

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Quality education, Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,990