Learning / Work: Turning work and lifelong learning inside out – The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

We are living through a daunting yet fascinating period in which the global economy increasingly challenges the accepted dichotomies between home-life and work-life, between employment and unemployment, paid work and unpaid work. This calls for serious analysis of how knowledge is generated, both formally and informally, in workplaces as diverse as the factory, the field, or the street. It raises questions about what forms of learning and training are involved; how they articulate with one another and what practical and theoretical implications this has for our societies.

In this book, 34 leading scholars from 10 countries challenge established understandings of lifelong learning and work, with several arguing that work and lifelong learning need to be turned inside out through a rigorous critique of underlying social relations and practices so that we understand the power relations that shape learning/work possibilities. In various ways, all of the 25 chapters that make up this volume are infused with imaginings of alternative futures which prioritise social justice and sustainability for the majority in the world.

Learning/Work will appeal to scholars and practitioners who are grappling to understand and implement learning/work critically within the demanding conditions of our times.

Open Access

Format : mm x mm (Soft Cover)

Pages : 384

ISBN 10 : 0-7969-2283-7

ISBN 13 : 978-07969-2283-0

Publish Year : 2009

Rights : World Rights

Table of contents

Acknowledgments
Acronyms
Introduction
Linda Cooper and Shirley Walters

SECTION ONE: CHALLENGING PERSPECTIVES
Challenging dominant discourses
1. Turning work and lifelong learning inside out
Shahrzad Mojab
2. But what will we eat? Research questions and priorities for work and learning
Astrid von Kotze
3. Hard/soft, formal/informal, work/learning
Kaela Jubas and Shauna Butterwick
4. Making different equal? Rifts and rupture in state and policy: the National Qualifications Framework in South Africa
Rosemary Lugg
5. Where can I find a conference on short courses?
Shirley Walters and Freda Daniels

Critiquing structural inequalities
6. Challenging donor agendas in adult and workplace education in Timor-Leste
Bob Boughton
7. University drop-out and researching work and (lifelong) learning
Moeketsi Letseka
8. Discourses of diversity and merit and exclusionary practices: Barriers to entry and progression in the UK solicitors profession
Hilary Sommerlad with Jane Stapleford
9. Reflections on a decade of research on Canadian teachers work and learning
Paul Tarc and Harry Smaller
10. Migration and organizing: Between periphery and centre
Anannya Bhattacharjee
11. Peripheralization, exploitation and lifelong learning in Canadian Guest Worker Programmes
Peter H. Sawchuk and Arlo Kempf

SECTION TWO: RECOGNIZING KNOWLEDGES
12. Identity and occupation in the new economy: Learning in emotional labour and emotion work
John Field and Irene Malcolm
13. Recognising phronesis or practical wisdom in the Recognition (Assessment) of Prior Learning
Mignonne Breier
14. Learning indigenous knowledge systems
Jennifer Hays
15. Domestic workers and knowledge in everyday life
Jonathan Grossman
16. The Gender order of knowledge Every-day life in a welfare state
Gunilla Hrnsten and Ulla Rosn
17. Urban mindset rural realities: Teaching on the edge
Barbara Barter

SECTION THREE: EXPLORING POSSIBILITIES, CREATING CHANGE.
Workers organizing/learning
18. Learning democracy from North-South worker exchanges
Judith Marshall
19. The desire for something better: Learning and organizing in the new world of work
Tony Brown
20. Offering a new perspective on the learning organization: A case study of a South African trade union
Linda Cooper
21. Learning at work and in the union
Bruce Spencer
22. Learning, practice and democracy: Exploring union learning
Keith Forrester and Hsun-Chih Li

Pedagogical innovations in Higher Education
23. Critical friends sharing socio-cultural influences on personal and professional identity
Vivienne Bozalek and Lear Matthews
24. Towards effective partnerships in training community learning and development workers
John Bamber and Clara OShea
25. Insights from an environmental education research programme in South Africa
Heila Lotz-Sisitka

Contributors
Index

Podcasts

In December 2007 the Fifth International Conference on Researching Work and Learning (RWL5) was held in Cape Town, the first time the conference had been held in Africa, and the first time it had convened outside of Europe or Australia.In this podcast, the first of 4 parts, the co-editors of Learning / Work: Turning work and lifelong learning inside out , Dr Linda Cooper and Professor Shirley Walters, introduce themselves and explain the need to examine how we learn and work, and why the conference was an important opportunity to do so.

Duration: 5 min 03 sec

About Authors | Editors

Professor Linda Cooper is a senior lecturer in the Higher and Adult Education Studies Development Unit (HAESDU), in the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She worked for a number of years in the field of trade union and worker education before joining the staff of UCT in the early 1990s. She is convenor of the Adult Education Programme at UCT and chair of UCTs Adult Learner Working Group. She has published widely on learning in social movements; skills development and workplace learning; and on widening access to adult learners in higher education. Her theoretical interests centre on the role of experience in adult learning; power relationships between different forms of knowledge; and the impact of changes in the broader political economy and labour markets on knowledge and pedagogy. She has consulted to a number of national research projects, hosted by organisations such as the Human Sciences Research Council, Joint Education Trust, and the Western Cape government, and has acts as an education advisor to Ditsela (Development Institute for the Training, Support and Education of Labour) and other trade union education initiatives. She is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Researching Work and Learning conference.

Professor Shirley Walters is professor of adult and continuing education at University of Western Cape where she is the director of the Division for Lifelong Learning. She has published widely on issues relating to feminist popular education, community adult education, lifelong learning and education for democracy. Before joining UWC in 1985 she worked as a high school teacher, a training officer on a diamond mine and a director of community organisations. She has been involved with many civil society organizations which are concerned with social justice issues and the promotion of adult and lifelong learning. She has a doctorate from University of Cape Town and an honorary doctorate from University of Linkoping, Sweden. She was inducted into the USA based International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame in 2005. She is also the Chairperson of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

Download

How to order