The dialectic of informal learning : a study of the discursive effects on the workplace learning of trainers situated within post-industrial corporate agendas
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 1996
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The study critically examines definitions of "informal learning", focussing on the
term's application in workplace training contexts. Drawing on Foucault, Heidegger
and Habermas, it is argued that we cannot understand ourselves (and thus our
informal learning) without challenging the assumptions of modernity and coming to
terms with what Lyotard has termed "the postmodern condition".
Industry trainers are at the forefront of implementing "designer" corporate cultures
which, in the rhetoric of "work-based learning", make enterprises more innovative
and competitive. This study challenges that rhetoric, showing that the implicit
philosophy of contemporary workplace learning and training is framed by an
economistic "human capital theory". The "stories" of industry trainers from several
multinational corporations challenge assumptions about what is learnt through
competency-based training and about corporate uses of informal learning. It is
argued that being at work entails far more than simply performing the tasks one is
required to do, which, in turn, effects the links between informal learning and formal
education.
The final chapters are directed towards expanding and realigning interpretations of
"informal learning" away from the narrow and instrumental purposes for which the
term has been appropriated. Equity, respect for the dignity of others, and a
philosophy of ethics have a place in "workplace learning". Informal learning is
shaped by our deepest ethical and moral responses. It does not follow that
measurable tasks, what one can be observed doing at work, represent one's learning.
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