The Implementation Path of Infiltrating Excellent Traditional Culture and Craftsman Stories into China’s Vocational Education Textbooks

1.1 Adhering to the Characteristics of Vocational Education to Promote the Integration of Vocational Skills and Vocational Spirit

Textbooks are important carriers of school education and serve the goal of talent cultivation within schools. Vocational education, as a form of education primarily focused on training technical and skilled personnel, has, with its transition into a period of high-quality development, seen its talent cultivation goals continuously advance toward producing “digital workers, outstanding engineers, national master craftsmen, skilled artisans, and highly skilled talent” (Cao and Zhu 2024). This talent cultivation goal requires the dual enhancement of students’ vocational skills and vocational spirit. Therefore, the integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks must adhere to the characteristics of vocational education, aiming at the integration of vocational skills and vocational spirit, and emphasize the fusion of instrumental rationality and value rationality in textbook construction.

The integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks should be based on enhancing students’ “vocational skills”. The construction of vocational education textbooks must focus on adjusting content systems by incorporating new technologies, new business formats, and new industries in the context of the new era, selecting outstanding traditional cultural elements and craftsman stories that can provide students with concrete technical and skills knowledge, thereby offering experiential insights to support the improvement of their vocational skills. This approach prevents outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories from becoming detached from the fundamental talent cultivation function of vocational education. The integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks should take the enhancement of students’ “vocational spirit” as its core. The construction of vocational education textbooks must reflect not only their practicality but also their ideological significance. Specifically, it should be based on the requirements outlined in “vocational standards” regarding professional norms, a sense of professional responsibility, professional character, and work habits. It is essential to deeply excavate the spiritual essence represented by outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, conduct an in-depth analysis of their ideological connotations, and identify the cultural spirit within them that points toward students’ vocational development.

1.2 Adhering to the Laws of Curriculum Teaching to Promote the Connection Between Knowledge Acquisition and Psychological Cognition

Textbooks are important carriers of teaching activities, serving as the medium through which students’ learning and teachers’ instruction are connected (Du et al. 2021). This process involves not only the transmission of teachers’ professional theoretical knowledge but also students’ cognition, experience, and psychological logic during the process of knowledge acquisition (Qi 2015). Therefore, the integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks must balance the knowledge logic of professional teaching with the psychological logic of student cognition, fully considering the adaptability between subject-specific knowledge and students’ psychological cognition, so that outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen can be internalized as students’ values.

The integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks should adhere to the knowledge logic of the discipline. The construction of vocational education textbooks should accurately identify the knowledge characteristics of different disciplines and specialties, and based on the intrinsic connections between outstanding traditional culture, craftsman stories, and the knowledge of various disciplines, ensure a logical and coherent integration. In doing so, the ideas, spirit, wisdom, and skills embodied in outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories can be selectively infused into the textbooks of different disciplines and specialties. The integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks should follow the psychological cognition logic of students. The construction of vocational education textbooks must comprehensively consider students’ psychological characteristics, knowledge reserves, and skills development stages, selecting materials that are suitable for their career development, capable of stimulating their learning interest, and aligned with their psychological cognitive patterns.

1.3 Adhering to the Logic of Textbook Design to Promote the Integration of the Symbolic World and the Life World

The core issue of textbook design lies in how textbooks can have a practical impact on teaching activities – that is, how to enhance their learnability (Zhang et al. 2023). Textbook content is generally constructed through specialized, systematic, and scientific organization into a system of written symbols. As a result, there is an inherent historical and cultural gap between textbook knowledge and students’ lived experiences (Ma and Guo 2024). Therefore, to integrate outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks, it is necessary to find the intersection between the symbolic world of the textbooks and the life world of the students, thereby internalizing abstract cultural symbols into students’ emotional attitudes.

First, the integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks must construct a complete “symbolic world”. The construction of vocational education textbooks should use the content related to “outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories” as key nodes in the knowledge network. From the perspective of the horizontal structure of professional disciplines and the vertical structure of learning stages, it is essential to identify the points of convergence between this content and each textbook’s educational goals, content expression, value shaping, and method presentation, thereby filling out a comprehensive knowledge network and presenting a clear teaching logic and learning pathway. Second, vocational education textbook construction should present the essence of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories through visual and intuitive means, and employ vivid and lively arrangements to convey them, thus deeply shaping students’ value attitudes and fostering a deeper sense of national cultural identity. Meanwhile, this cultural knowledge must also be expressed and transmitted in a manner suitable for students’ understanding and reading habits. Finally, the integration of outstanding traditional culture and stories of craftsmen into vocational education textbooks must bridge the gap between knowledge culture and students’ experiences, achieving a connection between text, history, and reality. The construction of vocational education textbooks should situate outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories within authentic problem scenarios, production settings, training situations, and practical environments, utilizing a variety of carrier forms so that students can, through specific practical foundations and sensory experiences, develop emotional resonance.

2.1 The Issue of Compatibility Between Outstanding Traditional Culture, Craftsman Stories, and the Attributes of Vocational Education Textbooks

Although there is a general consensus on integrating outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks, many operational challenges remain at the practical level. Questions such as what traditional cultural elements and craftsman stories to select, how to arrange them progressively, and how to achieve teaching objectives all arise. Fundamentally, these problems reflect the issue of compatibility between outstanding traditional culture, craftsman stories, and the attributes of vocational education textbooks.

There exists a language barrier in integrating outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks. Textbook texts are characterized by their ease of teaching and learning, namely, their teachability (Yang 2023). This teachability requires textbooks to align with students’ cognitive levels and patterns. Vocational education textbooks are targeted at students in vocational institutions, who generally have a weaker cultural foundation and are typically less suited to academic education (Lin and Shi 2023). Therefore, when compiling vocational education textbooks, it is crucial to take into account the cognitive abilities of vocational students and to express the content using accessible and comprehensible cultural language. However, outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories are often conveyed through idioms, poetry, classical texts, and historical anecdotes, and are typically recorded in classical Chinese featuring archaic or context-dependent words, phonetic loan characters, inverted sentence structures, and flexible word classes (Ren and Song 2025). Faced with the obscure and complex language of ancient texts, vocational students find it difficult to comprehend the deeper meanings of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories. Thus, how to transform the language of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories in the textbook to help students overcome language barriers remains a key challenge in this integration process.

There is a certain conflict between outstanding traditional culture, craftsman stories, and the scientific nature of vocational education textbooks. The scientific attribute of textbooks refers to the requirement that the content selected must adhere to the correctness and logicality inherent to the discipline’s knowledge (Lyu and Pang 2023). As a form of technical education, vocational education textbooks must select content that constitutes theoretical, systematic, and structured “technical knowledge”. Such textbook content not only includes the theoretical principles behind technologies but also emphasizes specific rules, procedures, and key points for practical operational activities (Wang and Zhu 2023). Outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, as reflections of ancient Chinese society, culture, and production practices, inherently possess historical limitations and largely consist of accumulated historical experiences rather than being elevated into systematic, principled, and scientific bodies of knowledge. Therefore, textbook developers must both respect the original foundations of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories and further endow them with scientific attributes. Otherwise, it would be difficult to transform outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into technical knowledge usable by students, thereby losing their fundamental role as knowledge output within textbooks.

2.2 The Issue of Organizing Outstanding Traditional Culture and Craftsman Stories in Vocational Education Textbooks

Textbooks are strictly categorized based on different disciplines, educational stages, themes, target audiences, and usage scenarios. Each textbook possesses a relatively stable paradigm structure and textual layout, and there are also clear boundaries of knowledge between different textbooks. However, the content and types of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories are diverse and rich, without strict and systematic classification or limitation to a particular discipline, specialty, group, or region. Therefore, how can outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories be organically integrated into vocational education textbooks to truly achieve the goal of “immersion”? This places higher demands on the organization of textbook content.

Integrating outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks entails a recombination of various content elements, and improper organization could easily lead to an imbalance among these elements. Generally speaking, the content of vocational education textbooks encompasses elements such as knowledge, skills, and values, and high-quality vocational textbooks require a scientifically designed combination of these structural elements (Lyu and Xu 2021). However, the integration of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories inevitably leads to a restructuring of the existing content elements. Thus, under the condition of a fixed overall content volume, introducing and emphasizing outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories as new elements may disrupt the originally stable content structure of the textbooks, creating conflicts in content proportions with other elements and even altering the logical system of the textbook. Particularly for vocational education textbooks that prioritize the cultivation of practical skills, outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories represent more of a humanistic element, focusing on the expression of professional ethics, professional spirit, and professional culture. If poorly combined, this may hinder the achievement of vocational education’s talent training objectives. Therefore, how to ensure the reasonable arrangement of different themes of outstanding traditional culture in the textbook, how to coordinate and integrate various types of craftsman stories, and how to balance the proportion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories within the overall content of vocational textbooks constitute significant challenges in content organization.

If the commonalities between vocational education textbook content and outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories are not properly considered, their integration would end up being merely “inserted” “added” “supplemented” or “randomly included”. The essence of immersion is “organic integration”, meaning to infiltrate seamlessly into the textbook. However, in reality, outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories often suffer from being simply “inserted” “supplemented” or “added” into vocational education textbooks, resulting in randomness, fragmentation, and a lack of systematic integration (Guan 2021). In fact, vocational education textbooks exhibit specific characteristics according to different disciplines, specialties, stages, and regions, while outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories have not been categorized accordingly and touch upon various knowledge points. Therefore, textbook compilers need to thoroughly explore and mine the common knowledge shared between them and systematically integrate it into textbooks across different disciplines, specialties, stages, and regions. Otherwise, the relationship between outstanding traditional culture, major craftsman stories, and textbook content would remain superficial, formalistic, and formulaic, failing to achieve true immersion.

2.3 The Transformation of Outstanding Traditional Culture and Craftsman Stories in Vocational Education Teaching Activities

The immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks does not automatically promote students’ intrinsic development; the effectiveness of this integration largely depends on the influence of teaching activities. Without corresponding teaching activities as a means of transformation, outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories can only exist as static textual materials, lacking practical “teaching and learning” functions and failing to participate in the students’ physical and mental development. According to Goodlad’s curriculum level theory, only when the formal curriculum is successfully transformed into an experiential curriculum can curriculum knowledge be converted into spiritual wealth for students’ personal growth. Thus, teachers, as the main agents of curriculum transformation, play a crucial role in this process (Li and Lyu 2017). It is evident that whether vocational education teachers can successfully convey outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into students’ cognitive experiences through teaching activities becomes a key issue.

Vocational education teachers’ understanding and cognition of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories are the prerequisites for their successful transformation in teaching activities. Teachers’ accurate comprehension of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories forms the foundation of teaching practice. If teachers lack a good understanding and background knowledge of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, they will find it difficult to accurately grasp the intention behind the immersion of such content within textbook passages, images, exercises, activities, and practical training. They will also struggle to uncover the craftsmanship culture and professional spirit embedded in the textbook and to understand the dialectical relationship between professional knowledge, cultural spirit, and vocational skills. However, in practice, it is often the case that those familiar with traditional Chinese culture are unfamiliar with education, while those familiar with subject-specific professional teaching are unfamiliar with traditional Chinese culture (Wang 2016). This reality easily leads to a loss of the “teaching output” foundation for the immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories in vocational education textbooks.

Vocational education teachers’ application and transformation of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories constitute the key to their successful transformation in teaching activities. Teachers are not only consumers of textbooks but also researchers and creators of textbooks (Zeng 2019). Vocational education textbooks are numerous in type; they target diverse groups, and cover many disciplines and specialties. There are traditional printed textbooks as well as new electronic textbooks; there are textbooks for professional courses as well as for cultural courses; some textbooks are aimed at enrolled students, while others are designed for social groups such as transitioning workers and new-type professional farmers. Because of this diversity, only when teachers clearly recognize the adaptability of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories across different groups, disciplines, specialties, and regions, and then creatively transform them, can they ensure that students truly understand craftsmanship culture, craftsman spirit, and professional ethics. In other words, if vocational education teachers lack the ability to transform outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into effective teaching content, it may lead to a situation of “inefficient output”.

3.1 Strengthening Academic Research on Textbooks to Solidify the Theoretical Foundation for the Integration of Outstanding Traditional Culture and Craftsman Stories into Vocational Education Textbooks

Textbooks cultivate people through teaching, while textbook research focuses on how textbooks achieve this goal through the process of teaching (Yu 2024). Advancing research on vocational education textbooks not only helps to improve the scientific rigor, systematic organization, and ideological depth of integrating outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, but also fully activates the role of vocational education textbooks in “laying a moral foundation, forging souls, enlightening minds, and enhancing wisdom”.

First, it is necessary to strengthen historical research on outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories. Outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories provide a rich cultural resource for the construction of vocational education textbooks. Therefore, textbook researchers should enhance the historical review and organization of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories. The outstanding traditional culture represented by the spirit of craftsmanship should be treated as a key task in historical studies, with particular emphasis on the in-depth refinement and analysis of exemplary craftsman figures, craftsmanship events, and crafted products. At the same time, textbook researchers must focus on integrating new ideas, trends, discourses, and directions of vocational education development in the context of the new era, transforming relevant content into modern discourse to avoid detaching outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories from their concrete temporal context. Only in this way can a useful material foundation be provided for immersing outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks.

Second, it is necessary to strengthen theoretical research on the immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks. On the one hand, interdisciplinary research in cultural studies, education, aesthetics, and related professional disciplines should be carried out, bringing together the strengths of scholars, experts, master craftsmen, leading professionals, and publishing editors, to improve the depth, quality, and instructional adaptability of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, and to properly handle the relationships among disciplinary knowledge, professional skills, and cultural values. On the other hand, theoretical research should provide basic norms and operational guidance for the development philosophy, structural system, presentation forms, content design, implementation and usage, and evaluation standards related to the immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks, thereby ensuring the ideological depth, scientific rigor, accuracy, and systematic nature of the textbooks.

Finally, it is necessary to strengthen empirical research on the immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks. Textbook researchers should conduct field studies deep within the frontlines of vocational education teaching, investigating the implementation effects, practical challenges, and influencing factors related to the immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories. By combining concrete empirical data, they can provide reference bases for educational administrative departments in formulating relevant policy requirements, and clarify key content areas, implementation methods and pathways, and resource utilization strategies for vocational education textbooks across different educational stages and disciplines, thus ensuring the intrinsic validity of the creative transformation of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories within vocational education textbooks.

3.2 Optimizing the Content Structure of Textbooks to Enhance the Integration of Outstanding Traditional Culture and Craftsman Stories into Vocational Education Textbooks

Outstanding traditional culture, craftsman stories, and the textbook content of various disciplines and specialties in vocational education are closely interconnected (Dong and Liu 2022). The immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks should neither involve a simplistic and mechanical insertion into the content of a “certain textbook” “certain discipline” “certain specialty” or “certain educational stage”, nor should it be carried out in a blind, disordered, or fragmented manner. Instead, it should be aligned with the characteristics of vocational education, the cultural features of different regions, and the standards of specialized curricula, achieving comprehensive integration into all aspects of textbook content.

First, integration should be based on the characteristics of vocational education, using “professionalism” as the main thread to immerse outstanding traditional culture and great craftsman stories. The immersion of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks should fully consider the educational laws of vocational education, along with the psychological traits, knowledge base, and skills development of vocational students, and should strengthen the coordination among public foundational textbooks, specialized course textbooks, and practical training textbooks. Textbook developers should focus on improving students’ “professional quality”, using the “professional standards” requirements for professional spirit, professional norms, sense of responsibility, professional character, and behavioral habits as the basis, connecting past and present, and prioritizing the exploration of integration pathways for promoting the spirit of master craftsmen, enterprise spirit, model worker spirit, and the spirit of labor. From enhancing professional knowledge and skills to reinforcing professional ethics and cultivating professional emotions, and further to fostering national identity and cultural confidence, textbook construction should follow the principle of “progressive advancement” to integrate the outstanding traditional culture represented by the spirit of craftsmanship into textbooks across different educational stages. Meanwhile, through background introduction, content design, material selection, task setting, and practical experience, professional culture concepts – such as striving for excellence, dedication to work, unity of knowledge and action, practicing personally, and pursuing ultimate perfection – as well as craftsman stories should be ingeniously incorporated.

Second, integration should be based on regional cultural characteristics, using “regionality” as the main thread to immerse outstanding traditional culture and great craftsman stories. Each region should formulate detailed implementation rules for integrating outstanding traditional culture and great craftsman stories into local vocational education textbooks according to their specific regional context. Local educational administrative departments should fully explore cultural resources such as historical relics, local customs, handicrafts, renowned craftsmen, and cultural products, using them as original materials for developing and designing vocational school textbooks. For instance, in ethnic minority regions, vocational education textbooks should be infused with ethnic culture to solidify students’ “consciousness of the Chinese national community”; in rural regions, vocational education textbooks should be infused with rural culture to help students “understand agriculture, love rural areas, and care about farmers”.

Third, integration should be based on specialized curriculum standards, using “specialization” as the main thread to immerse outstanding traditional culture and great craftsman stories. Textbook developers should accurately locate the knowledge characteristics of different disciplines and specialties. Based on the intrinsic connections between outstanding traditional culture, great craftsman stories, and various specialties, they should consider the alignment of textbook content with production processes, norms, standards, task modules, unit themes, and typical projects. Thus, the ideas, spirit, wisdom, and skills embodied in outstanding traditional culture and great craftsman stories can be purposefully infused into the textbooks of various disciplines, specialties, and educational stages within vocational education.

3.3 Enhancing Teachers’ Teaching Literacy to Strengthen the Educational Effectiveness of Integrating Outstanding Traditional Culture and Craftsman Stories into Vocational Education Textbooks

The success or failure of educational reform often depends on the thoughts and actions of teachers (Fullan 2005). As the primary facilitators of student learning, teachers exert a direct and profound influence on students’ spiritual development. Therefore, vocational education teachers must, based on a deep understanding of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, enhance their ability to apply and adapt textbooks, and enrich students’ cultural experience during the teaching process through the application of digital technologies.

First, vocational education teachers’ cultural literacy and spirit of craftsmanship must be improved. Vocational colleges should comprehensively integrate and optimize teaching and training resources related to outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, and strengthen their support for teachers in terms of teaching and training resources. Vocational colleges should collaborate with textbook publishing houses at all levels and types, cultural institutions, industries, and higher education institutions to establish relevant teacher training programs. Through special seminars, these programs should systematically introduce the basic concepts, developmental history, typical characteristics, and core values of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories, enabling teachers to gain a profound understanding of the underlying values of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories and their significance for student development, thus laying the cognitive foundation for teachers to utilize textbooks for cultural education.

Secondly, vocational education teachers need to enhance their ability to apply and adapt outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories. Textbook publishing institutions should regularly organize meetings and training sessions to explain to vocational education teachers the structural elements, types, and presentation methods of outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories in the textbooks, and further reveal the corresponding educational objectives and elements associated with specific professional disciplines. This will enable teachers to interpret and contextualize outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories in light of contemporary characteristics and modern production and life. Educational research institutions should establish cross-stage and cross-disciplinary training systems to help teachers understand how outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories are incorporated into textbooks across different stages and disciplines. Meanwhile, teachers should engage in continuous reflection and exchange, learning to naturally introduce the craftsman culture – characterized by dedication, pursuit of excellence, focus and perseverance, and continuous innovation – into teaching activities through guided methods, case studies, situational approaches, and experiential methods. In this way, students can develop a profound understanding of various interconnected vocational qualities such as knowledge and skills, professional habits, professional attitudes, professional ethics, and vocational sentiments through classroom instruction, production processes, and practical training activities.

Finally, vocational education teachers need to strengthen their ability to utilize digital technology in teaching. Vocational colleges should cooperate with digital technology service platforms to build a digital resource library for integrating outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories into vocational education textbooks, and establish digital teaching resources that match and complement the printed textbooks. Teachers must identify the points of alignment between the digital resource library and each textbook in terms of educational goals, content expression, value shaping, and method presentation, thus establishing mapping relationships between the supporting digital resources and the learning modules, disciplinary knowledge points, and professional skills points of each textbook. At the same time, based on teaching needs, teachers should use printed textbooks as a blueprint and present outstanding traditional culture and craftsman stories through formats such as micro-lecture videos, animated demonstrations, images and audio, and virtual simulations. This approach will bring outstanding traditional culture and national craftsman stories to life through vivid and multi-dimensional situational experiences in the teaching process, thereby fully engaging students’ sensory experiences and enhancing their autonomy, authenticity, and immersion in skill acquisition, cultural inheritance, and vocational identity.