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This book is the result of a long-term project, undertaken from the early to the late 1990s, to understand contemporary working life and its implications for learning throughout working life. The research revealed the close link between the engagement of people in their work and their learning. A better understanding of learning through, and for, work thus required greater insight into what constitutes work and how people engage in paid work. The author therefore examines the changing nature of work and how workers are changing in response to the requirements of contemporary working life. The implications of these changes for preparing people for work and maintaining their skills throughout their working life are investigated. This is achieved by analysing the relationships between the changing requirements of working life and how people engage in work. The implications for vocational education and professional development are also addressed. The book contains four sections: the introductory section outlines the case for examining changing work and the experience of work for the worker and presents the concepts that are discussed in the other chapters; the second section focuses on the cultural, social and individual 'genesis of knowledge' needed for work, the relational interdependence between social and individual factors, a relational basis for understanding work, and ideas about the worth of work; the third section focuses on the changing availability and categorisations of paid work, practices of participation in work, the character of those participating in work, and the requirements for work performance; and the final section offers a framework to describe work, and elaborates the factors shaping working life. The chapters are as follows: Section one, 'Introduction', contains: Work, change and workers. Section two, 'Social and individual bases for understanding work life', contains: Cultural, situational and individual geneses of work life; A relational basis for understanding work life; The worth of work. Section three, 'Changing concepts and requirements of work', contains: Changes in available work; Changing participation in work; Changing composition of paid workforces; Changing requirements for work performance. Section four, 'Describing and elaborating work', contains: A framework for describing work; Changing work practice and work requirements: case studies; Work, learning and identity. Show less

This project investigated how best to utilise school students' experiences in paid part-time work to enable them to have a better understanding of post-school pathways, as well as the ability to make wise decisions about these pathways. In this context, paid work experiences are regarded as being more 'authentic' and informative than school-organised work experiences, since paid work entails an employment arrangement, immersion in workplaces and the exercise of the obligations and requirements on the part of both employees and employers. The specific questions addressed by the project were: In what ways can school students' engagement with paid work experiences assist them and their peers to understand work, working life and post-school pathways? What kinds of teaching practices might secure these outcomes? How can schools best organise experiences to inform students about work, working life and post-school options? The study found that it is not clear the degree to which, despite all the interest expressed by school systems and statements about the centrality of vocational education and training (VET) programs, there are adequate resources, support and organisation to ensure successful programs. Some of the difficulties in negotiating classroom-based activities designed to reflect on the students' paid work experiences were a product of the standing and status of vocational programs within the schools. The research provided evidence that a reluctance to recognise the value of paid employment and its rigours placed additional demands upon students. For instance, students engaged in vocational options were often forced to negotiate inflexible arrangements within the academic programs. Hence, for students seeking both pathways, there were impediments that added to the complexity and stress of their study programs. This leads to a question about the capacity of schools to support the full range of post-school options for students through effective vocational education provision. Show less

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about the relationship between the social and individual as it is enacted in personal learning and the remaking of cultural practices through work. It discusses progress in a two-year study of the work, working lives and learning of 12 individuals: four groups of three employees each. The concept of relational interdependence between individual and social agency is used to understand the progress of their participation, learning and remaking of cultural practices that comprises their work. In identifying and elaborating bases of these interdependencies and their consequences for changes to individuals’ cognitive experience and sense of self and the remaking of cultural practices, four linked and overlapping bases for understanding the processes of interdependencies emerge: (i) reflection and review; (ii) performance roles; (iii) prospects for dialogue and (iv) how conceptions of rewards and recognition are constructed. In different, but distinct, ways these four bases provide a means to elaborate interdependencies at work, thereby providing a platform to analyse processes of individual learning and the remaking of work practices and concepts throughout working life.

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In recent years, the debate over reform to national vocational education and training (VET) systems has shifted from a focus on the supply-side of VET - qualifications structures, national training schemes and institutional structures - to demand for training by industry and the role of employers in increasing the skills levels of the workforce. Yet, enhancing employer demands for training has proved to be a perennial problem for governments of all political complexions in the developed world. This paper discusses the range of government approaches to encouraging employers to invest in training and development that are to be found in the developed world. It argues that compulsory employer levies are rarely successful and that increasing the levels of investment in training by employers is more likely to be achieved through more subtle policy mechanisms.

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This book, which comprises a series of chapters, provides ‘contemporary, international perspectives on the role of subjectivity in securing effective work practices and learning for work and throughout working life’. The chapters are: Work, subjectivity and learning / Stephen Billett (pp.1-20); Escaping/becoming subjects: learning to work the boundaries in boundaryless work / Tara Fenwick (pp.21-36); Subjected bodies, or embodied subjects: subjectivity and learning safety at work / Margaret Somerville (pp.37-52); Learning and experience / Henning Salling Olesen (pp.53-67); Dressing corporate subjectivities: learning what to wear to the bank / Kathryn Church with Catherine Frazee, Teresa Luciani, Melanie Panitch and Patricia Seeley (pp.69-85); The moving subject: shifting work(ers) across and beyond organisational boundaries / Hermine Scheeres and Nicky Solomon (pp.87-104); Exploring construction of gendered identities at work / Lena Abrahamsson (pp.105-121); Epistemological beliefs and their impact on work, subjectivity and learning / Christian Harteis, Hans Gruber and Franz Lehner (pp.123-140); Personal agency and epistimology at work / Stephen Billet and Ray Smith (pp.141-156); Developing subjective identities through collective participation / Anneli Etelapelto and Jaana Saarinen (pp.157-177); Action at a distance: governmentality, subjectivity and workplace learning / Richard Edwards and Katherine Nicoll (pp.179-193); Integrating life, work and identity: farm women transferring ‘self’ through personal struggle and conflict / Jan Allan (pp.195-211); Work, subjectivity and learning in the diaspora: immigrant women of colour in white academe / Mary V. Alfred (pp.213-227); Workers, subjectivity and decent work / Catherine Casey (pp.229-245); Work, subjectivity and learning: prospects and issues / Tara Fenwick and Margaret Somerville (pp.247-265). Show less

This paper explores participation in social partnerships as a space for learning. It analyses interview data about participation in social partnership from partnerships involved in vocational education and training (VET) to argue that social partnerships constitute a form of learning space. Partnership participants engage in new learning through the interactions and activities inherent in partnership work, and relational learning is the kind of learning most supported in these learning spaces. By fostering learning about the self and its relationship to others, social partnerships have potential to enhance capacity for action and responsibility, which underpins citizenship as a learning process. In this way, social partnerships are learning spaces that potentially build collective, even democratic, understanding by enhancing the individual's cognitive and affective competencies. This cultural learning is embodied in the social partnership through engagement in effective partnership work.

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