This thesis represent a socio-cultural research on writing. This research investigates how teachers of vocational subjects, as a main informants, and of Norwegian language at upper secondary school of technical and vocational education practice writing in three educational programmes; Design, Arts and Crafts, Technical and Industrial Production and Health and Social Care Studies. The research aims at answering the following problem statement. "How do teachers practice writing in selected technical and vocational education programmes?". The research approach is ethnographic, with interviews and observations, providing information in order to build understanding for the research questions: What characterizes teachers´ work of writing? What are teachers´ opinions about writing? Which factors influence on teachers' work with writing? The study uses a discourse theoretical approach for analyses of the empirical data and discussion of the findings. The emphasis of the study is the relationship between the situated writing practices and the trans-contextual phenomena influencing the teachers' work on writing.
Findings from the study show that writing in the school section of technical and vocational education programs is linked to the teaching subjects for both groups of teachers, and it mediates the pupils' learning of the content of the subject within the frame of school context. Teachers of vocational subjects do not consider it as their responsibility to teach and develop students writing competence. It seems that their writing experiences, educational and professional culture affect their writing practice. This indicates that teachers in vocational subjects do not consider writing as part of their subject teaching. This means also that these teachers do not orient their writing practices towards the students' future as qualified workers in enterprises. Teachers in Norwegian language include in some of their writing practices thematic content from vocational subjects. Common to both groups of teachers is the use of structured writing patterns. Reflective writing is particularly applicable for the educational programmes Design, Arts and Crafts and Technical and Industrial Production. In general, the study shows that strongly communities of meaning in the school part of technical and vocational education, offer weak collaborative relationships across disciplines, and they seem also to influence teachers' writing practices.