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1. Knowledge for Whose Society? Knowledge Production, Higher Education, and Federal Policy in Canada (EJ824894)
Author(s):
Metcalfe, Amy Scott; Fenwick, Tara
Source:
Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education and Educational Planning, v57 n2 p209-225 Feb 2009
Pub Date:
2009-02-00
Pub Type(s):
Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Peer-Reviewed:
Yes
Descriptors: Higher Education; Innovation; Discourse Analysis; Program Descriptions; Foreign Countries; Federal Government; Program Development; Educational Policy; Competition; Economic Development; Public Agencies; Economic Factors; Research; College Role; Program Proposals
Abstract: With the dissemination of its Innovation Strategy in 2002, the Canadian government further solidified its commitment to a knowledge-based national competitiveness strategy. Through the unfolding of a multi-million dollar Workplace Skills Strategy (WSS) agency, and the launch of two research agencies, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Canadian Council for Learning (CCL), the federal government of Canada has expressed a clear interest in shaping knowledge generation and has established conditions for particular forms of knowledge production. In this paper we analyze the knowledge discourse of these intermediary agencies, and consider implications for higher education, particularly in terms of research support and program development. Using methods of critical discourse analysis, we examined the Calls for Proposals and general program descriptions of the CFI, WSS, and CCL, and found that programmatic discourses are conflicting and ambiguous in terms of research foci, partnerships, and roles of individuals and institutions. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
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2. Women Learning in Garment Work: Solidarity and Sociality (EJ781992)
Fenwick, Tara
Adult Education Quarterly: A Journal of Research and Theory, v58 n2 p110-128 2008
2008-00-00
Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Descriptors: Industry; Females; Manufacturing; Foreign Countries; Social Networks; Immigrants; Work Environment; English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; Social Support Groups; Unions; Coping; Gender Bias; Personal Narratives
Abstract: This article explores processes and possibilities for critical learning in the workplace, with a focus on workers laboring in what are often exploitive and dehumanizing conditions. The argument is based on a study of work-life learning of women, mostly new immigrants, employed long-term at an Alberta garment manufacturing plant. It is argued that their negotiations of work conditions are nested in various areas of learning associated with everyday practices, small communities, labor organizing processes, and English learning classes. These are argued to have generated solidarity through learning about sociality, resistance, and personal worth. These solidarities appear to be configured by energies of both transformation and reproduction that are threaded together and generated simultaneously as women learned to survive within the system while supporting one another in a vital interdependent social network. The discussion explores how these dynamics unfolded, and their effects on how different women positioned themselves and their knowledge. (Contains 1 table.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
3. Workplace Learning: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives (EJ810287)
New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, n119 p17-26 Fall 2008
Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
No
Descriptors: Education Work Relationship; Learning Processes; Adult Educators; Adult Education; Job Training; On the Job Training; Andragogy; Definitions; Perspective Taking; Identification; Politics of Education
Abstract: This chapter focuses on "learning processes" in the workplace from concepts emerging in the field of adult education, without straying into pedagogies and programs that can enhance learning. It discusses four topics on learning processes that seem to be particularly important for addressing key purposes and issues of workplace learning from an adult educator's view: (1) emerging definitions; (2) emerging focus on practice-based learning processes; (3) emerging importance of identity and literacy; and (4) power and politics in learning. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
4. Organisational Learning in the "Knots": Discursive Capacities Emerging in a School-University Collaboration (EJ800500)
Journal of Educational Administration, v45 n2 p138-153 2007
2007-00-00
Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Descriptors: Learning Theories; Laboratory Schools; Educational Administration; Cooperation; Discourse Analysis; Teaching Methods; Elementary Schools; Interviews; School Districts; Grade 5; Preschool Education
Abstract: Purpose: Drawing from findings of a case study of inter-organisational collaboration, this paper aims to employ organisational theory to examine the potential learning that opens between educational organisations. The focus is discursive practices. Two questions guide the analysis. What (unique) practices are implicated in the "knotworking" of inter-organisational collaboration? What knowledge and capacities are learned in these discursive practices? Design/methodology/approach: A case study was conducted of a collaboration between a university unit, school district, elementary school and parent executive board to govern a laboratory school. Documents were examined and 17 interviews conducted and analysed inductively. Document analysis and second stage transcript analysis employed methods of discourse analysis. Findings: The case analysis suggests that collaborations open unique sites for organizational learning. Actors (teachers, administrators, parents) engage with various discourses in the "knots" of inter-organisational networks. Those who thrive in the "knot" of collaboration learn how to be flexibly attuned to shifting elements that emerge in negotiations. Further, these actors appear to develop capacities of mapping, translating, rearticulating, and spanning boundaries among the diverse positions of organisations. Research limitations/implications: The case study is limited in scope in order to allow in-depth discourse analysis of the data. Originality/value: The combination of theories employed here--a practice-based organizational learning theory called "knotworking" and critical organisational discourse analysis--is unique in educational administration research. It is argued that together, these theories provide a useful analytic approach for administrators wanting to understand and work through the cultural and political complexities of inter-organisational collaborations. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
5. Tightrope Walkers and Solidarity Sisters: Critical Workplace Educators in the Garment Industry (EJ765925)
International Journal of Lifelong Education, v26 n3 p315-328 May 2007
2007-05-00
Descriptors: Foreign Countries; Clothing; Role of Education; Second Language Instruction; Teacher Student Relationship; Teacher Role; Outcomes of Education; Student Centered Curriculum
Abstract: This article focuses on the complex negotiations of critical workplace educators positioned amongst contradictory agendas and discourses in the workplace. While philosophically aligned with critical pedagogical agendas of transformation and collective action for workplace change, these educators perform an array of pedagogic articulations in everyday practice to secure their continued presence in the workplace. What becomes evident in these seemingly opposing articulations are various strategic political positionings of educators alongside their juggling of demands, attachments and inter-identifications with both learners and managers. The pedagogy that emerges challenges conventional binaries of "transformative" and "reproductive" learning. Dynamics of transformation and liberation as well as reproduction and subjugation appear to be interlinked, along with expanding nets of social relations that blur power hierarchies and spatial boundaries, in a pedagogy that ultimately appears to mobilise hope and agency among workers. The workplace educator works a delicate balance of these dynamics to survive. The argument is based on a case study of a garment factory in Canada in which an adult education programme managed to thrive for 17 years: both workers and educators were interviewed in depth. (Contains 2 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
6. Contradictions in Portfolio Careers: Work Design and Client Relations (EJ809117)
Fenwick, Tara J.
Career Development International, v11 n1 p65-79 2006
2006-00-00
Descriptors: Qualitative Research; Careers; Career Development; Self Employment; Portfolios (Background Materials); Nurses; Adult Educators; Entrepreneurship; Work Experience; Employee Attitudes
Abstract: Purpose: The paper aims to explore "Portfolio work", an emerging form of flexible self-employment, which has been identified as significant but under-researched. This paper also seeks to explore the challenges and benefits of portfolio work from the perspective of individuals' experiences. Design/methodology/approach: The argument draws from a qualitative study involving 31 individuals practising portfolio work in two different occupational groups: nurses and adult educators. Participants were interviewed in semi-structured in-depth conversational interviews to explore their everyday experience and work history in portfolio work. Findings: Two dimensions of portfolio work, work design and client-relations, are found to generate experiences of both deep satisfaction and deep anxiety and stress. The paper argues that portfolio careers simultaneously embed both liberating and exploitative at dimensions for workers, which are at least partly related to their own conflicting desires for both contingency and stability. Further, portfolio work embeds labour that often remains unrecognized, even by the self-employed individuals assuming responsibility for it. Practical implications: Portfolio workers need to recognise and document their unpaid but necessary labour in work design and client relations that sustains their careers; portfolio workers may need to educate clients about the nature of portfolio work; and employers who contract to portfolio workers must take more responsibility for negotiating fair contracts that are sensitive to overwork and unfair time pressures, and that anticipate and compensate contractors. Originality/value: These findings challenge existing conceptions of portfolio work as either exploitative or liberating, and expose contradictions embedded in both the conditions of the work and individuals' expectations and attitudes towards it. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
7. Tidying the Territory: Questioning Terms and Purposes in Work-Learning Research (EJ801685)
Journal of Workplace Learning, v18 n5 p265-278 2006
Descriptors: Fundamental Concepts; Labor Relations; Researchers; Individual Development; Workplace Literacy; Learning Processes; Foreign Countries
Abstract: 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. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
8. The Audacity of Hope: Towards Poorer Pedagogies (EJ759751)
Studies in the Education of Adults, v38 n1 p9-24 Spr 2006
Journal Articles; Opinion Papers; Reports - Evaluative
Descriptors: Ethics; Educational Theories; Lifelong Learning; Adult Education; Instruction
Abstract: This paper critically examines popular discourses of pedagogy circulating in adult education theory and practice: pedagogy as (heroic or nurturing) person, as prescriptive strategy, as political purpose, and as situated practices. I argue that problematic conceptions and desires can be identified across these discourses that lead to orientations of control and discipline, animated by moral essentialism, in the teaching-learning relation. In an effort to conceptualise more open, generative and compassionate orientations, two interconnected forms of pedagogical relations are explored: ethical and ecological. Ethical relations are examined as ongoing coping: appropriate responsiveness in the immediate, reminiscent of Levinas' "caring encounter." Ecological relations have to do with attunement to biological as well as social, political and cultural interconnectivity: the ongoing co-specification of elements improvised in complex systems. The concluding implications for educators encourage a movement to less grand and totalising, more local and contingent orientations--"poorer" pedagogies. The paper is theory driven, drawing from complexity theory and pedagogical writers aligned with local, ecological conceptions of teaching and learning. (Contains 3 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
9. Interrogating Our Practices of Integrating Spirituality into Workplace Education (EJ797635)
English, Leona M.; Fenwick, Tara J.; Parsons, Jim
Australian Journal of Adult Learning, v45 n1 p7-28 Apr 2005
2005-04-00
Descriptors: Religious Factors; Ethics; Teaching Methods; Higher Education; Workplace Literacy
Abstract: Workplace education's interest in spirituality is examined, with an emphasis placed on why this interest might be increasing and what challenges it presents. This article interrogates commonplace strategies to integrate spirituality in workplace education,--providing holistic education, creating sacred spaces and mentoring--questions each approach and suggests ways that they might be integrated in an authentic manner into the workplace. The authors then examine how educators might interrogate their teaching practices by inquiring into their own motivations, ethics and values. An attempt is made to stem the flood of spirituality in workplace education by asking: For what purpose is spirituality being promoted in this workplace? And in whose interests? Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
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10. Learning in Portfolio Work: Anchored Innovation and Mobile Identity (EJ681304)
Studies in Continuing Education, v26 n2 p229-245 Jul 2004
2004-07-00
Descriptors: Adult Education; Adult Educators; Nursing Education; Educational Innovation; Foreign Countries; Learning Processes; Nurses; Consultants; Identification (Psychology)
Abstract: Portfolio work has become recognized as a significant if under-researched form of work emerging in changing work structures. This article presents findings of a qualitative study of nurses and adult educators who function as 'portfolio professionals', in that they contract their services to multiple employers and organizations. Proceeding from interpretive analysis of their narratives, the focus here is their learning processes, particularly in relation to innovation. It is argued that they must learn how to perform innovative work while learning and acting within innovative work. Three learning/acting processes are identified: discerning and rendering something that others understand to be innovative, mobilizing others' activities around the innovation, and anchoring or integrating the innovation within existing systems. These processes inevitably entwine portfolio professionals' identities (as innovators) and their knowledge (as innovative models). Thus they are in danger of becoming fixed or anchored along with an innovation, and an important contrary movement is slipping away and beyond the very anchors they work to render. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract
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