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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.

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The general rise in contractors, particularly among knowledge workers negotiating ‘boundaryless’ employment conditions, has generated interest in the nature and forms of contract work. This article explores the learning of contract workers as they negotiate these conditions, with a focus on women. Drawing from a qualitative study of women practicing nursing and education in Canada as self-employed contractors, the discussion focuses on the practices that they learn in order to manage their work activities and identities. In these practices, tensions abound - particularly around the recognition of knowledge in ways that establish the contractor’s identity, position within the organisation, and market value. For women, it is argued from the study findings, boundaryless contract work incurs particular gendered demands that embed contradictions that the contractor must learn to negotiate. This article describes five practices that women contractors learn within these contradictions: (1) being noticed while avoiding notice, (2) nailing down contracts without nailing the contractor, (3) performing a woman in control while hiding the chaos, (4) shape-shifting while ‘branding’ one shape, and (5) proving knowledge in a market of impressions. The article concludes with implications for education that might assist women contract workers.

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This chapter critically examines the ideology and discourse of the learning organisation in two sections. The first section outlines the historical context, people and principles involved in the development of the concept of the learning organisation, reviewing some of the literature. The second section offers a critical examination of six premises of the learning organisation that focus on: (1) the organisation as a site and frame for learning; (2) the dominant role of managers and educators; (3) the subordinate role accorded to employees as undifferentiated learners-in-deficit; (4) the emphasis on problem solving and instrumental knowledge; (5) the organisation's appropriation of critical reflection; and (6) the reliance on 'open' dialogue for group learning in the workplace.

The volume from which this paper has been selected may be found at TD/TNC 65.21. The selected papers may be found from TD/TNC 65.22 to TD/TNC 65.34. Show less

A review was conducted of literature addressing learning in work, focusing on relations between individual and collective learning published in nine journals during the period 1999-2004. The journals represent three distinct fields of management/organization studies, adult education and human resource development; all publish material about workplace learning regularly. In total, 209 articles were selected for content analysis, containing a range of material including reports of empirical research to theoretical discussion. Eight themes of individual-collective learning were identified through inductive content analysis of this literature: individual knowledge acquisition, sense-making/reflective dialogue, levels of learning, network utility, individual human development, individuals in community, communities-of-practice and co-participation or co-emergence. The discussion highlights similar issues stated in the different journals about understanding individual-collective learning, the apparent lack of dialogue across the fields, the ontological and ideological differences among the themes of learning currently in circulation and the low frequency of analysis of power relations in the articles reviewed.

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Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to argue that foundational terms in work-learning research, specifically 'learning', 'work', and 'workplace', are inherently complex and contested as the same as their scope has expanded in different fields to elide various conceptual categories and theoretical positions. Yet researchers often use these terms without explanation, or as generic abstractions. The article suggests rigorous questioning and more precise delineation to reveal conceptual tangles in work-learning research and build links across disciplinary languages and research traditions. Design/methodology/approach - The argument is theory-driven, and draws upon a meta-review of work-learning studies published in ten journals in the period 1999-2004. Findings - Often without clarification, the term 'learning' in work is used to refer to learning as 'product' (knowledge acquisition, transfer, control), as 'process' (as cultural change, individual development, network dynamics, practice, collective sense-making, identity negotiations, or problem-solving), and as all conscious human experience. Work is used to refer to almost any activity, paid and unpaid. Issues of power relations in work become side-stepped with these conflations, and the conceptual categories dissolve when they cannot distinguish what is not learning. These issues blur the contribution of work-learning research (e.g. what is gained through learning studies focused on one context defined by labor relations). Practical implications - More precise definitions of terms, conceptualizations and purposes in work-learning research may help reveal conflicting positions, absences, similarities and links, towards more dialogue and rigorous theory-building across fields. Originality/value - The article intends to help researchers pause and reflect on the fundamental concepts and processes they seek to explore.

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Policies hailing lifelong learning in the so-called ‘new economy’ promote equitable knowledge work and work-related learning opportunities for all. Gender is hardly mentioned in these discourses; some might assume gender is ‘resolved’ in a new economy emphasising entrepreneurism, technology, knowledge creation and continuous learning. However a closer look reveals that gendered inequity persists both in access to and experience of these learning opportunities. Indeed, familiar issues of women, work and learning are exacerbated in the changing contexts and designs of work comprising the so-called ‘new economy’. This is argued in the frame of Canada’s most recent policies on work and learning, drawing from contemporary Canadian studies and statistics to underline the point. Current provisions for girls’ and women’s vocational education in Canada are assessed in light of these issues, focusing on particular learning needs of girls and gendered issues they face in entering the labour market of the ‘new economy’. To move beyond a critical analysis and outline a possible way forward, four directions for change are suggested: more gender-sensitive career education for girls; sponsored vocational education for women; management education in gendered issues arising in the changing economy; and critical vocational education in both schools and workplaces.

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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 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

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.

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Drawing on findings of a qualitative study exploring the learning processes of individuals working in environments characterised as enterprise cultures, this paper proposes a conceptualisation of work knowing as co-emergence, at the intersection of invention, identity and environment. This conceptualisation is based upon an ecological theory of learning called ‘enactivism’, which holds that human beings, natural objects and cognition emerge together as intertwined systems. This theory appears useful in the examination of work knowledge produced by a growing number of individuals who are entering the ranks of the self-employed, becoming entrepreneurs in the new economy. Three dimensions of enactivist theory in particular are argued to hold heuristic value for understanding knowledge production and subjectivity in the new world of enterprise. First, that knowledge unfolds in systems, whereby cognition co-emerges with environment, individuals and activity. Second, that understanding is embedded in the conduct and relationships among systems and sub-systems, rather than the minds of individual actors. Third, that learning is continuous invention and exploration, linked to disequilibrium experienced in systems. These three dimensions are illustrated with examples from the learning experiences reported by those negotiating the world of enterprise.

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This paper is part of a special issue of ‘Studies in continuing education’ containing articles derived from a recent conference on ‘working knowledge’ held at the University of Technology, Sydney, in December 2000. The conference paper by the author is indexed at TD/TNC 67.85. Show less