Abstract
Learning for and from work is a critical part of many people’s lives. How they learn through work has consequences for workers’ careers, and for their well-being. It can also shape the prosperity and performance of their organization. This chapter takes an unusual approach to the study of work-related learning. It draws on original research, using life history methods, to explore the role of learning in everyday working life. This chapter explores the ways in which workers’ own sense of their identity, and the extent to which they feel able to shape their everyday lives, can influence their learning and in turn may be influenced by it. It shows that these everyday practices are sometimes at odds with official versions of workplace learning, leading us to question the focus of some highly influential policies and strategies. In particular, the value of dominant standards-based schemes of vocational training is questioned and the chapter concludes with a call to empower rather than constrain teachers and trainers.
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Acknowledgement
Learning Lives: Learning, Identity and Agency in the Life-Course was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Award Reference RES139250111, and formed part of the ESRC’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme. Learning Lives was a collaborative project involving the University of Exeter (Flora Macleod, Michael Tedder, Paul Lambe), the University of Brighton (Ivor Goodson, Norma Adair), the University of Leeds (Phil Hodkinson, Heather Hodkinson, Geoff Ford, Ruth Hawthorne), and the University of Stirling (Gert Biesta, John Field, Irene Malcolm, Heather Lynch). For further information see http://www.learninglives.org.
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Field, J. (2011). Learning in Working Life: Identity and Workplace Learning. In: Catts, R., Falk, I., Wallace, R. (eds) Vocational Learning. Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1539-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1539-4_15
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