Search Results

The last 15 years have seen much conceptual and methodological innovation in research on education and learning across the lifecourse. This innovation was initially fuelled by the growing influence of conceptual framings often named as either post-structural or postmodern. As part of and also in response to the influence of post-structuralism and postmodernism in the social sciences, there have emerged and developed a further range of conceptual and methodological framings which are more relational, system and practice-focussed. Several of these framings work with a non-linear understanding of causality and embrace unpredictability in the world and undecidability in people’s understanding of it. They also challenge any notion of a strong boundary between the social and natural sciences. This book explores the most significant four of these framings, how they are being taken up in research in education and learning across the lifecourse, as well as their possibilities and limitations: (1) complexity science; (2) cultural historical activity theory (CHAT); (3) actor-network theory (ANT); and (4) spatiality theories. The book is illustrated throughout with examples drawn from educational contexts across the life courses, including schooling, post-compulsory education and training, educational policy, workplace and community-based education in North America, the UK, and Australia. The contents are: Why sociomateriality in education?; Emergence and perturbation: understanding complexity science; Complexity theory in educational research; Contradiction and expansion: understanding cultural historical activity theory; Cultural historical activity theory in educational research; Translation and network effects: understanding actor-network theory; Actor-network theory in educational research; Spatiality and temporality: understanding cultural geography; Spatial theory in educational research; Sociomaterial approaches: contributions and issues for educational research. Show less

Drawing on studies of teachers, accountants and pharmacists conducted in Canada, this essay examines models for assessing professional learning that currently enjoy widespread use in continuing education. These models include professional growth plans, self-administered tests and learning logs, and they are often used for regulatory as well as developmental purposes by professional associations. The essay argues what others have critiqued about such self-assessment models: that their assumptions about learning are problematic and limiting in a number of respects, privileging human consciousness and intention, and literally 'making' a particular professional subject that is atomised and conservative. The essay goes on to suggest alternative perspectives that are receiving increasing attention in theorising work-related learning and that may offer fruitful questions for re-considering the nature of professional learning and its assessment. Three perspectives in particular are outlined, all of which shift the focus from the learning subject to practice as material, emergent and systemic: complexity theory, actor-network theory and cultural-historical activity theory. The discussion concludes with possible approaches to assessment of professional practice suggested by these perspectives.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

Professional growth plans, while not a new approach to employee development, are rarely mandated as standard supervisory practice. This article offers a study of widescale mandatory implementation of professional growth plans (PGPs) in Canadian school systems, as an approach to fostering continuous professional learning. Reported benefits include greater employee commitment to learning; increased employee focus on purposes for their own development; increased collegiality; and employees’ sense of self-affirmation. Tensions over control and direction, between organisational desires to guide employee development and professionals’ desires for autonomy, need to be worked through. But with sufficient employee-supervisor trust, dialogue, flexibility, and patience, the findings suggest that PGPs motivate dialogue and questioning that energises collective learning and professional practice.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

This article undertakes a critique of problem-based learning (PBL) as it has become established in the processes of professional education. The authors wish to examine how the problems are constituted and to question how epistemic authority is reinforced in their construction. The paper first examines the problem based perspective in terms of its construction of particular subjects and relations. Secondly, it questions the suppositions and procedures of problem-based pedagogy. The paper concludes by outlining alternative philosophical perspectives and approaches to curriculum. Show less

A growing body of research and policy focused on 'older workers' is attempting to address perceived concerns that older workers’ skills are declining, along with their participation in employment and in employment-related learning opportunities. The discussion here seeks to contribute to this research. Its focus is the learning of older professional workers, about comparatively little has been published. The article presents research conducted in Canada involving 60 personal interviews with older Certified Management Accountants (CMAs). This qualitative study was designed to understand older professionals' participation in learning through their reports not only of when, how and why they participated in specific learning activities, but also through their stories of practice and work, their understandings of knowledge, and how they view themselves as knowers and as knowledge workers. The findings showed that older CMA professionals appeared to position themselves deliberately as knowers, performing particular knowledge orientations aligned with their work priorities, and to resent external provisions for and assessments of their 'learning'. Four orientations appeared most prominently, which are here described as 'consolidating', 'outreaching', 're-positioning', and 'disengaging'. The concluding section argues that far from withdrawing from learning, these older professionals are particularly strategic in what, when and how they engage. In fact most are astute in employing diverse strategies and resources in knowledge development, according to the knowledge orientation they adopt in their practice. These understandings may suggest ways to more effectively recognize and support older professionals' learning in organizations and professional associations.

Published abstract Show less

Recent human resource development (HRD) scholarship has called for greater focus on social responsibility and ecological sustainability. The purpose of this article is to explore the engagement of HRD professionals in corporate social responsibility (CSR), examining one central question: how do HRD professionals perceive their roles and challenges in implementing CSR in organizations that claim CSR to be a key focus of their corporate identity and operation? Understandings of CSR vary and are widely contested, but for the purposes of this discussion, CSR is defined as treating the stakeholders of the firm ethically or in a responsible manner. Drawing from a qualitative study of HRD managers in eight large North American firms declaring explicit commitment to CSR, the evidence shows that their engagement tends to focus on employee learning and promotion, employee ownership of development, and employee safety and respect. Overall, however, HRD appeared to be only marginally involved or interested in the firms’ CSR activities. The article concludes with an argument for greater engagement of HRD in CSR and offers suggestions for research and practice towards this end.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

In a wide range of fields, professional practice is being transformed by the increasing influence of digital analytics: the massive volumes of big data, and software algorithms that are collecting, comparing and calculating that data to make predictions and even decisions. Researchers in a number of social sciences have been calling attention to the far-reaching and accelerating consequences of these forces, claiming that many professionals, researchers, policy-makers and the public are just beginning to realise the enormous potentials and challenges these analytics are producing. Yet, outside of particular areas of research and practice, such as learning analytics, there has been little discussion of this to date in the broader education literature.

This article aims to set out some key issues particularly relevant to the understandings of professional practice, knowledge and learning posed by the linkages of big data and software code. It begins by outlining definitions, forms and examples of these analytics, their potentialities and some of the hidden impact, and then presents issues for researchers and educators. It seeks to contribute to and extend debates taking place in certain quarters to a broader professional education and work audience.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

This article examines workers’ learning in the context of the worker as the employer. It draws from a qualitative study focusing on Canadian women who had left jobs in organisations to start their own business, often with little business experience and education. Both, cultural sites where women entrepreneurs struggle to win a space for themselves as well as where they don’t struggle and may have been manipulated to take up positions they would not otherwise have chosen are identified. Five themes that are seen as significant sites of struggle among women’s narratives of their entrepreneurial lives, learning and subjectivity are outlined. These are: business plans make a business; business is profit and growth; business is a tough frontier; business is women’s self-determining adventure; and women’s (other) work. The article concludes by discussing pedagogical entry points for educators to empower women. Show less

Skills approaches intended to assess and train discrete individual competencies have figured prominently in national policies designed to increase citizens’ employability and productivity. A substantial critique has developed around such instrumental approaches, exposing problems in both their fragmented understanding of human capability and their failure to achieve their practical objectives. Despite these critiques, a large-scale policy initiative has been recently released in Canada to measure and develop workers' Essential Skills. The speakers in this symposium each bring a particular perspective to the dialogue: feminist, labour, new immigrant/critical racism, critical HRD [human resource development], and international policy. They trace some early problematic consequences of this initiative, compare it to VET [vocational education and training] and NVQ [National Vocational Qualification] skill schemes, explore reasons why these skill agendas command substantial commitment and resources despite their problems, and suggest possible roles for educators in challenging them. Our ultimate purpose is to open generative directions, where possible, for the application of these policies.

Published abstract. Show less

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