This study explores vocational didactics and embodied knowledge in hairdressing

education by studying how perceptive sensoriality is used by teachers and students in

creating shared understandings of vocational knowledge. Among multiple actions,

touch is distinguished as a central resource in learning the vocation, as it emerges in

interaction between teacher and student related to the ongoing teaching and its

assignment. The data is based on video-recordings displaying how touch is used in

manipulating objects and material, or in assessing qualities and defects. In such

instances, touch becomes a diagnostic criterion (Goodwin, 1997) to investigate how the

material worked with can be evaluated and handled. To bridge the gap between

individual and collective vocational knowledge, metaphors are of use. The results show

two approaches to the teaching of perceptive sensoriality. In order to learn the vocational

subject content the teaching need to provide for and practice the individual’s embodied

sense of touch as well as the vocation’s verbalised collective feel. This is the core of the

didactical challenge.