Transformative knowledge circulation for vocational training: Insights from an ergological analysis of activity

The aim of this article is to show how the ergological approach addresses the three main challenges of vocational training: preparing individuals to act in accordance with standards of conformity despite the variability of the environment; enabling them to fully assume a professional act that is nonetheless defined by others; and supporting the development of a stable professional identity while participating in a process of ongoing change. The originality of ergology lies in its treatment of activity as a synthetic operator that integrates all three challenges into one: It approaches the learner as an active being. This introduces the notion of “transformative circulation of knowledge,” illustrated here through two examples.