Preparing students for their lives beyond schooling appears to be a universal goal offormal education. Much has been done to make mathematics education more Brealistic,^ but suchactivities nevertheless generally remain within the institutional norms of education. In this article,weassume that pedagogic relations are also an integral part of working life and draw on Bernstein’swork to address their significant features in this context. However, unlike participation in formalmathematics education, where the discipline is central, workers are likely to be confronted by, andneed to reconcile, a range of other valued workplace discourses, both epistemic and social/cultural innature. How might mathematics education work towards overcoming the hiatus between these twovery different institutional settings? This article will argue that the skills of recontextualisation,central to teachers’ work, should be integral to the mathematics education of all future workers. Itwill consider theoretical perspectives on pedagogic discourse and the consequences of diverseknowledge structures at work, with implications for general and vocational mathematics education.