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This article discusses the question 'How is learning supported within innovation labs and what are its impeding factors?' It is based on three case studies already carried out on innovation labs in the social welfare sector in Germany. The use of innovation labs creates a specific setting for learning in the context of the workplace for its participants. The goal of the researched labs is to develop entrepreneurial education of the participating social intrapreneurs, which are mainly employees of different social enterprises. Participants are introduced to a combination of methods to foster social innovation through an open innovation process. The author points out three success factors for intrapreneurial learning, which are the lab process and methods used, the collaboration of the participants and the involvement of the organisations that sent their employees. The last chapters present the research results which are connected to the discourse of Adult and Continuing Education and strengthen the potential for organisations of continuing education as well as the need for research on integrated learning opportunities in the context of upcoming challenges in Germany. [This paper was presented at the 11th International Conference on Researching Work and Learning (RWL 11), Giessen/Germany, July 2019.]

While reflection continues to be promoted as a central feature of teachers' continuous professional development (CPD) activities in Scotland and elsewhere, a wider debate across professions and national boundaries has opened as to how reflection might be re-conceptualised to restore its social and critical dimensions. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate, arguing that drawing ideas from the literatures on both reflection and communities of practice provides a sounder foundation upon which to build CPD activities that are likely to support professional renewal than that provided by either concept by itself. In particular, the authors draw on their participation in a number of Scottish research and development projects to focus on shared sense-making and collaborative engagement as activities that can enhance reflection. The paper concludes with a set of design principles for CPD activities. (Contains 2 figures.)

This paper discusses three technologies used in an adult continuing education Masters programme: blogging, learning objects and e-portfolios. My reflections on their use and on the literature underpinning their use form the basis of the discussion. All three of these technologies were used to promote self-directed learning, reflection and learner choice in the activities undertaken. Although these technologies were very successful for our students, the paper concludes that adult learners who take an online Masters programme are not typical of all adult learners, much less all adults.

E-learning is commonly thought of as a means of overcoming the constraints of time and space: offering the possibilities of "anytime, anywhere" learning. The argument in this paper is not intended to debunk this as a myth, but to examine some of the ways in which time and space are understood in relation to learning and e-learning. In the context of e-learning for continuing education time takes on a special value. Yet it is strangely under-examined in the literature of e-learning. The paper emphasizes two things: (i) that time and space are not containers for activity, but social constructs; (ii) the spatio-temporal simplifications to be found in the discourse and practice of e-learning are not neutral, benefiting some people and not others, obscuring as well as revealing choices. The same is true of the simplifications about learning and knowledgeable action in the workplace, so the paper also reflects upon some of the dominant simplifications about the relationships between knowledge and action in the academy and the workplace. (Contains 2 tables and 9 notes.)

This paper suggests that complex practice dilemmas call for thick stories of masterful practice that don't ignore the tensions and ambiguities involved. The paper draws on an Australian study of policing as a fruitful example. Academic commentary suggests policing is beset with practice dilemmas unique in their complexity. However, empirical studies suggest that stories of mastery dominating police culture are heroic, simplistic accounts from which the doubts and tensions of dilemma have been removed. The study reported here explored interviews with 50 serving police officers for indicators of whether they describe their work in similarly limited ways. In total, 351 separate dilemma statements were identified and a further 252 statements offered glimpses of how officers deal with dilemmas. These statements offer multiple clues as to what more comprehensive stories of complex practice mastery might look like. It is suggested that workplace learning and continuing education should actively encourage the construction of such stories. Similarly, for other domains of practice, it is suggested that stories of masterful practice describe, in plain language, constructive engagement with the wicked and unresolvable, in order to be helpful in an age of super-complexity in which liquid learning presents both challenges and opportunities.

Educational research is increasingly turning to conceptual frameworks from a range of disciplines in order to enrich understandings of education, pedagogy and learning. This paper draws on the work of Henri Lefebvre, specifically rhythmanalysis, to explore the nature and the function of pedagogy. The context is an ethnographic study of parenting education and pedagogic practices in a child and family service in Sydney. Three features of rhythmanalysis are discussed: kinds of rhythm, rhythms and bodies, and oppositions such as repetition and difference, fast and slow and secret and public. Through these concepts, intricate connections between rhythm and pedagogy are identified, including rhythms as providing a pedagogic imperative, rhythms as content and mechanisms at the heart of pedagogy and rhythms as outcomes of learning. The paper argues that rhythmanalysis opens up possibilities for new questions, different kinds of empirical sensibilities and distinctive accounts of pedagogy and learning in continuing education.

This paper analyses Botswana's commitment to lifelong learning policy and discusses how it can help the state achieve its vision for sustainable development. First, it argues that while Botswana is renowned for its economic success, it still fails to address positively such traditional challenges as poverty, unemployment and income inequality, which are increasing disproportionately, especially among the youth and non-literate adults. These structural problems can be attributable partly to the low quality of education, which does not enable learners to reduce their risks and vulnerabilities. The paper outlines the concepts of lifelong learning and sustainable development and work from there to analyse the national education policy. It is acknowledged that the state made commendable progress in delivering basic, extension and continuing education since adopting lifelong learning in 1994. However, the delivery failed to use education to transform people's lives. The education itself failed to balance quantity with quality effectively to inculcate a culture of democracy. These issues need to be critically addressed because they invariably hamper Botswana's efforts to deliver quality education and attain its vision for sustainable development. Finally, the paper suggests that the education system should incorporate lifelong learning principles, effectively involve learners in decision making and teach for empowerment. (Contains 1 table.)

In search of methods that improve the efficiency of teaching and training in organizations, several authors point out that mass customization (MC) is a principle that covers individual needs of knowledge and skills and, at the same time limits the development costs of customized training to those of mass training. MC is proven and established in the economic sector, and shows high potential for continuing education, too. The paper explores this potential and proposes a multidisciplinary, pragmatic approach to teaching and training in organizations. The first section of the paper formulates four design principles of MC deduced from an examination of economics literature. The second section presents amit[TM], a frame for mass customized training, designed according to the principles presented in the first section. The evaluation results encourage the further development and use of mass customized training in continuing education, and offer suggestions for future research. (Contains 2 figures and 5 tables.)

This paper is concerned with the relationship between trade unions and learning in the workplace, particularly in relation to the enhancement of worker employability profiles. With the restructuring and modernising of the European steel industry as its context, this paper argues that the organisational and structural features of a sector have a profound influence on the way workplace learning is organised. Equally, trade union organisation and approaches also shape the learning agenda. In the steel industry, trade unions have failed to address the significance of workplace learning, partly because of the ways that they approach this topic. In the context of traditional sectors, with relatively vulnerable workforces, the weakened state of union bargaining positions means that they have limited capacity to address workforce employability or workplace participation. The outcome is that trade union involvement in skill formation and workplace learning is marginal. (Contains 1 note.)

This paper provides a self-ethnographic investigation of a continuing education program in engineering in Central Finland. The program was initiated as a response to local economic structural change, in order to offer re-education possibilities for a higher educated workforce currently under unemployment threat. We encountered considerable difficulties both in relation to student motivation and our ability to engage the students. By comparing our observations and experiences with adult learning theory, and considering them in relation to economic structural change, we aim to raise issues that would benefit others. The main results of this study are that: (1) under the condition of structural change studying seemed to be externally motivated; (2) specialized work experience may have hindered self-direction in the acquisition of an academic orientation and skills; and (3) a transformation in student perspective, leading to perceiving the education provided as an opportunity, would have been required but was seldom observed.

This paper argues for the significance of Axel Honneth's theory of recognition for understanding recognition of prior learning (RPL). Case studies of the experiences of RPL by paraprofessional workers in health and social care in the UK and Sweden are used to explicate this significance. The results maintain that there are varying conditions of recognition. These conditions are often fluid, negotiable and ambivalent. However, RPL appears to support self-realisation and self-awareness, when it co-occurs with individual's identification with associated practices. Workplace salary, affordances for practice and collegial values may shape the esteem and thus the potential for self-realisation. RPL can thus help facilitate the development of a more positive relationship to individuals engaged in RPL processes, enhancing their learning and development.

Many professions have requirements for professional development activities to ensure continuing registration or membership. These commonly focus on participation in a limited range of activities. This paper questions the assumptions behind such approaches and what alternatives might be considered. It explores the suitability of metaphors used for continuing professional education and suggests that continuing professional development might be better conceptualised within practice theory. It identifies what a practice theory view of continuing professional development might involve and discusses the implications, particularly the notion of locating development within the practices of work. (Contains 1 figure.)

Under contemporary highly competitive markets, organisations are demanding that any investment in learning be converted into productive outcomes that rapidly progress the organisation towards pre-defined strategic goals. A customised work-integrated learning curriculum has the potential to achieve such productive outcomes because it allows learners to quickly contextualise the study content within the socio-cultural and functional environment of the workplace. However, the development of a work-integrated learning curriculum relies on genuine partnerships between the universities and organisations. These types of partnerships require lengthy processes of negotiating the curriculum and pedagogies to support learning based in the workplace. Predictably, such partnerships challenge the traditional roles of the universities as transmitters of discipline specific knowledge and workplaces as less active partners in the learning processes and products. This paper is based on a case study and relates the challenges of developing a partnership, the transformed role of the academics and a more complex design and facilitation of the curriculum. What became evident was that such a partnership was problematic and demanded redistribution of knowledge-power relations between the university and the host organisation. The findings substantiate that successful work-integrated learning that meets the needs of individuals and their workplaces is premised on a learning partnership where the roles for the curriculum and pedagogy are genuinely shared. That such partnerships are integral to successful work-integrated learning and deeply problematic begs for more research to understand the dynamics and ways to approach learning partnerships between universities and organisations. (Contains 1 figure.)

This paper focuses on how people working in the Swedish food production industry engage in in-service training by means of computer-mediated communication. The empirical material consists of archived chat log files from a course concerning quality assurance and food safety hazards control in the preparation and handling of foodstuff. Drawing on Goffman and the concepts framing and footing, the analytical focus in this study is on how participants frame the web-based training activity, and what participation frameworks they enact in the activity. The analysis shows that the participants enact and shift footings when they write, and these shifts in footings result in a hybridity of framings. However, as the analysis also shows a thematic continuity and a progression in the online discussions are rendered possible as the participants draw on a participation framework of one more knowledgeable recipient (teacher and/or representative of the authority) and some less knowledgeable recipients (students and/or representatives of branch organisations). In this manner, shifts in footing are found to be a productive means of serving both specific communicative and pedagogical purposes in the online in-service training environment. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper reports on a case study on the implementation of "language games" as a pedagogical tool for analyzing, assessing and promoting the quality and the level of collaborative knowledge building in online learning dialogues. Part of the overall objective is to explore the use, strength, weaknesses, and limitations of using the method in the context of an online senior level university course (on-campus and off-campus continuing education) on Global Change. In this investigation, the insight from using a theoretical perspective of language games is elucidated and discussed in relation to the benefits of other theoretical approaches. Applying an analytical perspective of language games, sequences of online dialogues are analyzed in order to understand their specific characteristics and to diagnose the quality of the collaborative knowledge-building processes. To what extent do language games reveal true knowledge building in an online learning environment? Results of this study suggest that language games may function as a tool for diagnosing quality in online collaborative knowledge-building processes. Furthermore, their possible use as an instructional tool for promoting more authentic collaborative online learning is discussed. (Contains 1 figure and 1 note.)

Questions assumptions of contractualism: education as a private commodity, enlightened self-interest, specifiability of outcomes, individualistic view of humanity, client awareness of best interests. Quality of a contractualist approach may be diminished through fragmentation, inflexibility, orthodoxy, situationalism, inequality, or individualistic functionalism. (SK)

The arguments against the well-entrenched dichotomy between vocational education and general education are economic, technological, and educational. First, "nonvocational" general education is also preparation for work and can contribute to economic growth. Second, technological changes in the workforce are making specific skill training obsolete. Third, academic and vocational skills are better developed when taught in an integrated fashion. (SK)

Studies relating to reflection and reflective practice in learning, specifically workplace learning, have gradually emerged from within the professional education literature. Evidence has seen a shift from an individualistic to a more collective approach to reflection, in an attempt to move away from viewing learning as an individual action. Simultaneously attention has been given to socio-cultural theories which view learning as social practice inherent in our everyday lives, including work. This paper aims to engage in the current debate regarding the polarised conceptualisations of reflective practice within the context of professional learning. Drawing on this debate, as well as on learning metaphors, this paper proposes that professionals should engage in collective reflective practice for both individual and organisational development within workplaces; locations which could be seen as increasingly ambiguous and unpredictable throughout individuals' working lives. Hence, we need to rehabilitate and extend some of the key aspects of the traditional concept of reflective practice to accommodate the changing terrain of professional practice within an individual professional's lifelong learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the current policy assumptions on youth entrepreneurship and their possible implications on entrepreneurial learning in nonformal settings. Based on secondary literature analysis, it interrogates the nonformal learning practices that promote entrepreneurship and calls for entrepreneurial learning to incorporate higher awareness of the social challenges that apply to young entrepreneurs. It is argued that the situation of young entrepreneurs is very much dependent on the local ‘regime’ of youth policy-making and reflects an overall social and political thinking on the role and status of young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a dilemma in continuing professional learning: the way learning is typically inscribed in continuing professional education (CPE) frameworks differs from that elicited from practice. It examines these differences in relation to both different underlying assumptions about learning and varying epistemological perspectives as well as the different purposes of CPE frameworks of professional bodies and organisations. It suggests that the dominant adoption of narrower conceptions of learning in professional organisations' frameworks ignores understandings about work and learning emerging from recent research in the field of workplace learning and focuses on a view that may privilege formal provision. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research directions in developing alternative continuing professional learning frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathways to higher education can appear opaque and unattainable to rural adults, despite the affordances provided by modern broadband and increasing provision of university online learning options. This paper describes an innovative partnership model that connects rural adults to university and technical and further education pathways through 'warm connections' developed between staff in rural libraries and 'neighbourhood houses', and people working in university outreach and preparation programmes. Through the Warm Connections project, local staff were provided with training and on campus experiences that equipped them to have conversations with rural people about what university is 'like' and what it takes to get a place in a university course. Rural community staff reported being confident in providing customised front-line information and advice to rural residents and were able to direct enquiries to appropriate people in tertiary institutions. Some staff themselves enrolled in and successfully completed university short courses, providing role models for their communities. The project reduced the socio-economic distance between rural adults and tertiary education. It successfully built social capital networks of 'warm connections' between tertiary institutions and rural communities, although the longevity of those networks will depend on continuing effort by tertiary institutions to maintain and refresh connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the potential of a poststructuralist and rhetorical analysis in appreciating more fully the discursive work of assessment tasks as mechanisms of power/knowledge within discourses of professional development. It is argued that such analysis may reveal detail in the way in which assessments work as material elements within a body politic, and what they attempt in the investment and positioning of bodies as subjects and objects of knowledge. The paper examines in detail the work of two assessment tasks from an in-service programme of professional development for further education lecturers in Scotland to see what can be said of their rhetorical accomplishment. Analysis shows the devices and techniques at play. Such analysis may offer educators an alternative discourse to explore the effects of the assessment tasks that they set for their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-learning is commonly thought of as a means of overcoming the constraints of time and space: offering the possibilities of ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning. The argument in this paper is not intended to debunk this as a myth, but to examine some of the ways in which time and space are understood in relation to learning and e-learning. In the context of e-learning for continuing education time takes on a special value. Yet it is strangely under-examined in the literature of e-learning. The paper emphasizes two things: (i) that time and space are not containers for activity, but social constructs; (ii) the spatio-temporal simplifications to be found in the discourse and practice of e-learning are not neutral, benefiting some people and not others, obscuring as well as revealing choices. The same is true of the simplifications about learning and knowledgeable action in the workplace, so the paper also reflects upon some of the dominant simplifications about the relationships between knowledge and action in the academy and the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The suggestion that workplace supervisors should become facilitators of the learning of staff is prevalent in the workplace learning and learning organisation literatures, but it is not always clear what facilitative approach is being recommended to supervisors. In order to identify approaches to facilitation that might be amenable for inclusion within the role of workplace supervisors, the concept of facilitation within the main traditions of adult education is examined. A characterisation of the key features of the workplace as a context for learning is then developed in terms that relate to common accounts of contexts conducive to learning. The paper then considers the issues that might arise if each of the conceptions were to be implemented by supervisors. Both facilitation and supervision rely heavily on trust, and so the development and maintenance of trust for supervisors and for facilitators is explored using a dynamic model of trust building. The paper aims both to develop a critique of the concept of supervisory facilitation and to highlight the need to consider contextual issues when applying conceptions derived from the adult education literature to real-world situations. Some implications for the relationship between teachers and students in post-secondary education settings are also described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on ethnographic research to discuss the textual practices and social relations of language assessment. It examines the tensions that language educators and assessment practitioners encounter while making decisions about immigrant professionals’ language competence. It also analyzes the role of other social actors in constituting conceptions of skill. The paper concludes by considering social practice theory as an alternative for exploring conceptions of competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the distribution of employment-related organised education and informal learning in the Canadian workforce. The paper draws on a large-scale survey, the Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning (WALL), which was based on structured and standardised telephone interviews with a representative sample of 5783 Canadian members of the employed labour force. In exploring the determinants facilitating employment-related informal learning, three analytical categories of factors derived from previous research on learning participation were used: individual-level factors, job characteristics and workplace environment. The analyses focus on differences in individuals, jobs and workplace characteristics among adult workers who acquired or improved their job-related skills through different training pathways. In addition, analyses were performed to compare the extent to which these factors differ in their influence on learning decisions among workers who combine both organised education and informal learning and those who receive only informal learning. The results indicate that important predictors of participation in employment-related organised education and informal learning are age, educational attainment, learning skills, occupational class, education-job relation, degree of autonomy, degree of labour intensity, principal area of production and organisation size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon a research study on lifelong learning, citizenship, and fiction writing, this paper explores issues around identity and learning in becoming a fiction author. Five main thematic areas are discussed: (1) envisioning a writing career, (2) compelled to write, (3) learning the craft, (4) getting published, and (5) online identity. The challenges, hurdles, and motivational factors in pursuing a career in a field as tenuous as fiction writing are explored. The paper argues that fiction writers, like many people who work in the creative sector, have a strong desire to engage in work that they consider to be meaningful. Those who succeed demonstrate great perseverance. As the impact of new technologies and social media shape and change the publishing sector, there are new challenges as well as opportunities that writers will need to learn about and address as they develop their career trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the contribution that practice-research networks can make to support critical professional development in the Learning and Skills sector in England. By practice-research networks we mean groups or networks which maintain a connection between research and professional practice. These networks stem from the philosophy of practitioner and action research in education. We use two examples both from higher and further education in England where continuing professional development has become a mandatory requirement for teachers in the Further Education (FE) sector. Our examples suggest that critical professional development can occur and although we are able to begin to identify some of the ways that these networks operate it is less clear which appropriate theories should support our work. The second part of the paper therefore explores some theoretical perspectives that focus on networks operating as systems. We discuss Actor Network Theory and Activity Theory which show how networks are populated by individuals with agency and suggest that a helpful way to contextualise the benefits of networks is provided by the concept of expansive learning providing a different understanding of how professional learning and development take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses Botswana's commitment to lifelong learning policy and discusses how it can help the state achieve its vision for sustainable development. First, it argues that while Botswana is renowned for its economic success, it still fails to address positively such traditional challenges as poverty, unemployment and income inequality, which are increasing disproportionately, especially among the youth and non-literate adults. These structural problems can be attributable partly to the low quality of education, which does not enable learners to reduce their risks and vulnerabilities. The paper outlines the concepts of lifelong learning and sustainable development and work from there to analyse the national education policy. It is acknowledged that the state made commendable progress in delivering basic, extension and continuing education since adopting lifelong learning in 1994. However, the delivery failed to use education to transform people's lives. The education itself failed to balance quantity with quality effectively to inculcate a culture of democracy. These issues need to be critically addressed because they invariably hamper Botswana's efforts to deliver quality education and attain its vision for sustainable development. Finally, the paper suggests that the education system should incorporate lifelong learning principles, effectively involve learners in decision making and teach for empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In search of methods that improve the efficiency of teaching and training in organizations, several authors point out that mass customization (MC) is a principle that covers individual needs of knowledge and skills and, at the same time limits the development costs of customized training to those of mass training. MC is proven and established in the economic sector, and shows high potential for continuing education, too. The paper explores this potential and proposes a multidisciplinary, pragmatic approach to teaching and training in organizations. The first section of the paper formulates four design principles of MC deduced from an examination of economics literature. The second section presents amit™, a frame for mass customized training, designed according to the principles presented in the first section. The evaluation results encourage the further development and use of mass customized training in continuing education, and offer suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While reflection continues to be promoted as a central feature of teachers' continuous professional development (CPD) activities in Scotland and elsewhere, a wider debate across professions and national boundaries has opened as to how reflection might be re-conceptualised to restore its social and critical dimensions. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate, arguing that drawing ideas from the literatures on both reflection and communities of practice provides a sounder foundation upon which to build CPD activities that are likely to support professional renewal than that provided by either concept by itself. In particular, the authors draw on their participation in a number of Scottish research and development projects to focus on shared sense-making and collaborative engagement as activities that can enhance reflection. The paper concludes with a set of design principles for CPD activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how worker identities are shaped (and reshaped) in the workplace through the interconnected experiences of assessment, work and learning. Drawing on a study conducted at three food production companies in regional Victoria, the paper locates these workplace experiences as social constructions and considers the significance of embodied learning (that is, the learning that transpires from the 'doing' of the task) in constructing identity. Individuals in the study express themselves most comfortably and readily through their actions, on the job and in the performative assessment experience. This embodied learning, which reflects the sociality of workplace activity, has the capacity to contribute to these workers' sense of self (their identities) and also to inform the ways in which assessment is viewed, reformed and practised in their workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the bottom-up vision of the learning society. Unlike the top-down approach, the bottom-up approach does not start by specifying the purposes of learning which should direct the development of the learning society, but from observing interactions among learning individuals as agents. While in the relevant literature and policies much attention has been devoted to certain positions on how one's learning should respond to current change, this paper proposes that when considering the establishment and development of the learning society we should not dismiss the understanding of how individuals, concrete beings, act as they learn, since how they do so has an impact on the way in which learning is structured. This bottom-up approach has to be taken into account, for it helps us to come near to what is embedded in learning practices, and to react pertinently when we need to come to terms with substantive issues for the development of the learning society. Three aspects - lifelong learning, the individualization of learning, and learning beyond education - serve as the context for understanding what characterize the practices of the learning society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses three technologies used in an adult continuing education Masters programme: blogging, learning objects and e-portfolios. My reflections on their use and on the literature underpinning their use form the basis of the discussion. All three of these technologies were used to promote self-directed learning, reflection and learner choice in the activities undertaken. Although these technologies were very successful for our students, the paper concludes that adult learners who take an online Masters programme are not typical of all adult learners, much less all adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine the impact of the new ‘knowledge economy’ on contemporary doctoral education. I argue that the knowledge economy promotes a view of knowledge and knowledge workers that fundamentally challenges the idea of a university as a community of autonomous scholars transmitting and adding to society's ‘stock of knowledge’. The paper examines and then dismisses the proposition that professional doctorates are the principal vehicle through which ‘working knowledge’ is incorporated into doctoral education. While professional doctorates may have been tactically useful for universities, there are broader transformations in doctoral education that transcend the professional doctorate/Ph.D. distinction. I argue that as doctoral education adopts the practices of ‘self’ pertinent to the knowledge economy, the ‘subject’ of doctoral education shifts from that of the ‘autonomous student’ to that of the ‘enterprising self’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term ‘work process knowledge’ refers to the knowledge needed for working in flexible and innovative business environments, including those in which information and communication technologies have been introduced to integrate previously separated production functions. It involves a systems-level understanding of the work process in the organization as a whole, enabling employees to understand how their own actions interconnect with actions being taken elsewhere in the system. Work process knowledge is ‘active’ knowledge that is used directly in the performance of work, and is typically constructed by employees when they are solving problems in the workplace. It is more than simple know-how because constructing it involves synthesizing knowhow with theoretical understanding. The paper outlines principles for constructing a work-based curriculum when work process knowledge is a desired outcome. These are illustrated by a case study of a vocational curriculum currently being adopted by a leading volume car manufacturer in Germany. The key features of this approach are—using a model of the work process as the curriculum framework, co-producing (and co-delivering) the curriculum using integrated teams of staff from the vocational school and the workplace, and fusing the different knowledge resources of the vocational school and the workplace into a single activity system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been significant growth in research that has considered the relationship between worker identity and learning at work. A key part of this relates to discussions of the ‘newness’ of various types of work manifested in discourses such as post-capitalism, post-bureaucracy and the new work order. On this basis, it is argued that a ‘new worker’ for ‘new times’ is emerging. In this paper we address how such discourses of new work and new workers relate to what is played out in sites of practice. In so doing we problematize ‘newness’ by considering contemporary work practice and worker identity not as radical breaks with the past but rather as temporalized continuities that, whilst changing, have embedded in them the traces of the ‘old’. To exemplify our argument, we focus particularly on reconfiguration of training practices in organizations. We explore how such practices are embedded in different, ambivalent, and at times competing, organizational learning discourses each proposing how people should ‘be’. To do so we examine the particularities of practice observed in a qualitative study in a large Australian manufacturing firm. The paper concludes with a discussion of how, rather than ushering in the wholesale adoption of new forms of identity, contemporary work practices can be understood as situations of conflict and plurality in which identity is held in the balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supervisors are often urged by the workplace learning literature to take active roles as facilitators of the learning of their staff. The role that is envisaged is similar to the facilitative role developed in the humanistic traditions of adult education, in which facilitation is supportive but also proactive, challenging and interventionist. However, an exploration of the experiences and concerns of workplace learners raises issues of identity and trust that suggest that such a facilitative supervisory role may not be realistic. This is not to say that supervisors can have no impact on workplace learning; rather, their role is more indirect than direct, and that it is exercised through quite traditional supervisory activities. Issues of identity and trust development for workplace learners will be examined in this paper, and the implications for supervisory action in relation to learning explored. The paper draws on doctoral research with workers new to administrative positions in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines employment-related training programmes offered by state funded agencies and multinational corporations in Toronto (Canada) and Kolkata (India). In recent years both cities have witnessed a rise in the service sector industries aligned with global regimes of flexible work and the consequent reinvention of a worker subject that is no longer disciplined according to the needs of industrial production. A worker must now be self-regulated, competitive, flexible, with an ability to convey an urbane, English-speaking deportment within the workplace. Training of employees, especially soft skill training becomes crucial in this connection as a form of technology for achieving this end. Based on Martin Heidegger’s conceptualisation of ‘standing-reserve’, we suggest that what training programmes do in the context of neoliberal capitalist production is the creation of an essential quality of human-ness that has to be harnessed, its potentialities tapped and amplified through training. We further suggest that such programmes often remain heavily influenced by race/class/gender hierarchies as well as stereotypical assumptions of desirable/undesirable bodies, forms of socialisation and modes of habitation that often are naturalised in the course of training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coproduction (equal professional-public involvement in service delivery) has been widely promoted as a means of revolutionising health and social care. Service providers/professionals are tasked with working more in partnership with service users/clients, recognising their experiences and knowledge as critical to the success of the interaction. Fundamental to the coproduction model is the notion that service providers and service users are separate groups, with different interests, identities, training and work protocols. This paper reports findings from a pilot research project which examined coproductive practices in two different health and social care organisations in the UK in 2012. In both settings we observed a range of initiatives in which most of the facilitators were people who had initially been service recipients, but become service deliverers in the spirit of coproduction. Analysis of fieldwork notes and interview transcripts indicated that though facilitators developed expertise, they were reluctant to call themselves ‘experts’ and their learning was rarely recognised by them as expertise. To progress coproduction practice and research, we suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the ways that knowledge, experience and expertise are distributed across organisations, as well as the significance of context in service change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When women work in male-dominated organizations, do they form collaborative networks with other women or do they take on the practices of the male-dominated community they are a part of? In this paper, we explore how female staff and volunteer members participate within a male-dominated non-profit organization. We use communities of practice as a lens to explore the extent to which women do, or do not, form support networks with other women. Our findings suggest that gender issues may not be the driving factor in the creation of communities of practice in such organizations; indeed, multiple communities of practice can exist within a single organization despite facing a common set of challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of a more 'open' national training market in vocational education and training (VET) in Australia has led to considerable changes in VET organizations and considerable challenges for VET managers. Recent research has established the critical role that 'strategy' plays in leading and managing these organizations and the significance of strategic management as a field of managerial practice within VET. In this article, I further examine the role of strategy in the management of VET organizations by giving attention to issues of space and spatiality. Deploying concepts from actor-network theory and drawing on case data collected from VET organizations, I address strategy as a spatializing project. The argument is made that strategy is an accomplishment of a network of relations rather than an individual manager or an individual organization and can take radically different forms ('Big S' strategy; 'small s' strategy) and produce radically different effects (economic, educational). More specifically, spatial relations play a constitutive role in strategy formation in VET. Relations of spatiality and strategy are created and sustained together, and where this complex relationship is understood space can serve as a ground for critique. The paper promotes a theoretical and empirical imperative to look keenly to the spaces filled by frontline managers. Essentially interrogatory, these spaces open up the possibility of the negotiation of managerial and organizational identities across differences of strategic management and operational management and, more broadly, of enterprise and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the implications of current notions of the learning city. It argues that popular neoliberal ideologies create an environment in which lifelong learners strive for the learning city as an end product, both in production and for consumption, rather than embrace it as a living, social context. The rhetoric of the knowledge economy ideologues is very narrowly construed but at the same time politically powerful and, despite clearly documented effects of globalized capitalism such as massive deskilling, tremendous structural unemployment and vast (and rapidly growing) urban slums, the dominant economistic paradigms and power structures make critical reconsideration very difficult. Some adult educators, like those in Hume City, Australia, or of the Shikshantar Institute in Udaipur, India, who hold a wider, critical view of lifelong learning, are promoting the learning city not as an end but as a social process of participation and negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussion has long held an honored place in the pantheon of lionized adult education practices. One of the most frequently venerated aspects of discussion is opening up conversation to include the widest possible diversity of perspectives and intellectual traditions. This democratic attempt to be open and inclusive is held to represent what is best about adult education—its humanistic concern to have all voices heard, all experiences analyzed, and all viewpoints honored. Herbert Marcuse's concept of repressive tolerance stands directly against these sentiments. Marcuse argues that an alternative idea, concept or text can be inserted into a discussion of familiar, mainstream materials in such a way that serves only to underscore the normality of the center while positioning the alternatives as exotic others. This paper explores how this process occurs and suggests how it might be countered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how identity and learning are constituted and transformed at work. Its central concern is how individuals engage agentically in and learn through workplace practices, and in ways that transform work. Drawing upon recent research into work and participation in workplaces, the negotiated and contested relationship between workplace practices and individuals' identity and intentionality, and learning is illuminated and discussed. For instance, aged care workers and coal miners acquire work injuries that are almost emblematic of their work identity. Only particularly dramatic events (i.e. serious illness or workplace accidents) wholly transform their identity and views about work practice—their subjectivities. However, it is through the agentic actions of these individuals that workplace practices can be transformed. Yet individuals' agentic action is not necessarily directed to the abstracted and de-contextualized economic and civic goals privileged in lifelong learning policies. Instead, there is relational interdependency between the individual and work that can act to sustain or transform both self and their work. Individuals' agentic action is exercised within these relations in ways directed by their subjectivities. So these relations and that agentic action have policy and practice implications for the conduct of work and learning through and for work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we review the literature on the impact of workplace basic skills training on individuals, as measured by their effects on wages and employment probability. In addition, we also examine studies on the returns to individuals of general training at the workplace. On the whole, the evidence suggests that better numeracy and literacy skills have a strong positive effect on individuals' earnings and employment stability, even when other relevant factors, such as qualifications levels, are taken into account. There is also good evidence to suggest that general training provided at the workplace has a positive impact on individuals' wages, particularly when this training is employer provided rather than off the job. However, the literature also suggests that improvement of basic skills levels in adults has very small or even no positive effects on wages and employment probability. We discuss the implications of these findings on the formation of government policy on basic skills provision. We also propose that there is a real need for more research in this area, not only in terms of longitudinal quantitative studies tracking the effects of basic skills programmes on firms and individuals but also in terms of detailed case studies focusing on specific training programmes and their impact at the level of the individual and firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses mainly on theoretical frameworks for understanding and investigating informal learning in the workplace, which have been developed through a series of large- and small-scale projects. The main conclusions are included but readers are referred to other publications for more detailed accounts of individual projects. Two types of framework are discussed. The ®rst group seeks to deconstruct the ‘key concepts’ of informal learning, learning from experience, tacit knowledge, transfer of learning and intuitive practice to disclose the range of different phenomena that are embraced by these popular terms. The second group comprises frameworks for addressing the three central questions that pervaded the research programme: what is being learned, how is it being learned and what are the factors that influence the level and directions of the learning effort? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to be members of the learning society, students must become lifelong learners; that is, learners who have a wide repertoire of cognitive learning strategies, are metacognitive about learning and themselves as learners, are motivated to learn, and can manage their feelings and available resources effectively. Although there is evidence that these lifelong learner characteristics contribute to academic achievement, not many teachers or students know much about them or their relationship to learning and assessment. In this paper, we describe how cognitive, metacognitive, motivational and affective aspects of learning can be assessed using both quantitative and qualitative methods and discuss how the outcomes of this assessment can inform learning, teaching and assessment practices that foster lifelong learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current policy climate in the UK prioritises not just increasing access to higher education but widening participation amongst non-traditional groups. This work, however, should not just be founded on good intentions, but be supported by research, evaluation and dissemination. This paper will outline the importance and process of evaluation research in the widening participation agenda. It rejects predominantly positivist and value-for-money approaches in favour of a pragmatic evaluation paradigm, drawing from participatory action research. Using this approach, evaluation is not just done by academic researchers to others, but stakeholders, including community members and practitioners, are involved and given a voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing especially on biographical competencies that are gained through the experience of migration and socialisation in a certain country or cultural context, this article analyses how professionals define and deploy these ‘migration-related competencies’ when it comes to employment in the field of adult education in Austria. By means of selected example cases individual strategies are discussed vis-à-vis institutional frameworks of adult education and processes of exclusion towards migrants in general. Considering questions of representation and othering, the circumstances under which the utilisation of migration-related competencies is experienced as beneficial or problematic are examined. Furthermore, educational institutions of the majority society display different modes of recognising and acknowledging migration-related competencies. In a context, in which the official acknowledgement of these practices by institutions and transparent policies towards diversity orientation are lacking, the possession and demonstration of migration-related competencies has shown to be a highly ambivalent and individualised process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]