Students in theoretical courses and traineeships

The paper presents some results from a PhD-project, which is about to conclude. The research project is within a vocational education programme for elderly care in Denmark. The overall focus of the project is on the correlation between identity construction within the theoretical periods and students´ experiences in the traineeships. The paper reports some of the main issues regarding this aspect. In the school setting the future care helper is being constructed within the overall term ‘professional’, but students may meet differing ways of being care helper in the traineeships, and the paper points to an ongoing struggle about the definition of ‘being care helper’. The analysis of the identity issues mobilises the concepts ‘storyline’ and ‘longing for belonging’, cf. Bronwyn Davies, and the empirical material consists of interviews and observations in the theoretical periods and in the traineeships. The paper suggests that three different storylines are being mobilised in the programme; the paper deals with two of them.