This article focuses on assessment actions in floristry education, addressing how interaction with flowers influences and mediates vocational knowing. Using video recordings from floristry education for adults, the article explores the interaction between teacher and student when assessing on-going work and performance as a way to frame the teacher’s seeing in situ. Influenced by conversation analysis and moment-by-moment methods ─ including talk, gestures, and flowers as resources ─ the findings contribute to a holistic perspective on vocational floristry knowing. Different features of vocational floristry knowing are detected as part of the content in assessment actions: (i) aesthetic standards reflected in suggestions made by the teacher and student, (ii) financial awareness as a way of seeing flowers, and (iii) the use of context and change of perspective to take the customer into account. The findings demonstrate situated floristry knowing in action, which is displayed when the teacher enables the student to visualise and understand professional vision of flowers, traditions, and standards.

Kapitlet handlar om yrkeskunnande i gymnasieskolkontext, med fokus på lärares interaktion och bedömningshandlingar. Utifrån frågan om vad som formar bedömningshandlingarna – samt hur de redskap som finns till förfogande används – undersöks det yrkeskunnande som kommer till uttryck. Ljudspår och stillbilder från videoinspelning av bedömningen av ett yrkesbevisprov utgör den huvudsakliga empirin, som redogör för hur fem lärare i grupp bedömer blomsterbinderier. Studien undersöker bedömningen av en bukett och bidrar till diskussion om (i) materialets betydelse i bedömning och (ii) förändringar i samtalets organisation i form av förhandlingar; med syfte att synliggöra yrkeslärares ”dubbla roller” och yrkeskunnande. Analysen uppehåller sig vid hur estetiska abstraktioner formar samtalets innehåll och handlingar, samt vilket yrkeskunnande som kommer till uttryck relationellt mellan lärarna in situ. Resultatet visar bland annat att materialrespekt är en betydande del av floristiskt yrkeskunnande.

This article investigates colour and form as pedagogic content in Swedish upper secondary school floristry education between 1990 and 2015, using an analytical approach that draws on social anthropology and falls within the framework of a sociocultural interpretation of educational activity. The data were obtained from multiple sources, including interviews with an experienced senior teacher, which revealed the local history of a leading Swedish floristry school. During the period studied, subject matter related to colour and form became increasingly formalised, with the so-called colour wheel becoming a frequently used educational tool. The findings of the article are as follows: (i) conceptualisation, verbal analysis and reflection have increased in importance within Swedish floristry education since the 1990s; (ii) the colour wheel serves as a tool for participants in education for making aesthetic judgements; (iii) examples show that colour and form theory and practice are intertwined in contemporary Swedish floristry education; and (iv) colour and form theory is one of the tools used by teachers to assess what makes certain designs more or less appropriate. These findings form the basis for the discussion of two aspects of contemporary Swedish floristry education: the colour wheel as a pedagogical tool and the role of conceptualisation, verbal analysis and reflection. 

This article explores teaching how to make a funeral wreath. The analytical perspective is founded on conversation analysis and uses data from 50 hours of video recorded during a one- year floristry education programme for adults in Sweden. The empirical case is organised in two main sections: (1) instructing actions and (2) assessment actions. Moment-by-moment descriptions are used throughout the study given that the case raises questions about what subject-specific knowing entails and how it is constituted through material, judgment and interaction. The findings emphasise that in floristry education, botanical materials have an essential role in the formation of professional judgement. The capability to perceive and make use of specific features of the material is at the core of vocational knowing. Furthermore, knowing about material guides action as well as different modalities of interaction in teaching.