Apprenticeship for ‘Liquid Life’: Learning in Contingent Work Conditions for Contingent Employment

Taking the distinction between the Institution of Apprenticeship, that is, the social partnership arrangements which underpin its organisation, and Apprenticeship as a Social Model of Learning, in other words, he configuration of pedagogic and occupational etc. dimensions which constitute the model, as its starting point the paper: (i) argues the emergence of de-centred, distributed and discontinuous conditions associated with project-work present challenges for extant ideas about apprenticeship as a social model of learning; (ii) explores this claim in relation to Fuller and Unwin’s four inter-connected dimensions of apprenticeship as a social model of learning by considering a case study of apprenticeship designed to prepare apprentices to work in the above conditions; (iii) relates issues arising from the case study to research on project work from the fields of Organisational and Cultural Studies; and (iv) based on this evidence base introduces a typology of ‘Apprenticeship for Liquid Life’.     

The paradigmatic hearts of subjects which their ‘English’ flows through

Much research into the use of corpora and discourse to support higher education students on pre-sessional and in-sessional courses champions subject specificity. Drawing on the work of writers such as Bakhtin [(1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by MM Bakhtin (M. Holquist, Ed.; C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press] and Voloshinov [(1973). Marxism and the philosophy of language (L. Matejka, & I.R. Titunik, Trans.). New York: Seminar Press. (Original work published 1929)], in this article we extend this research by showing how the specific subject ‘context’ is fundamentally linked with the ‘English’ used within it. We first detail some of the literature related to corpus and genre studies and discuss some of the literature related to the importance of providing a context for language. We then present and discuss data from 21 interviews and five focus groups with subject lecturers to illustrate how the ‘English’ used in the subject areas of ‘Design’, ‘Nursing’, ‘Business’ and ‘Computing’ subjects flows through what we term their ‘paradigmatic hearts’. By ‘paradigmatic heart’ we mean the set of values, beliefs and perceptions that represent the central or innermost engine of the subject, through which its ‘English’ flows. In ‘Design’ the paradigmatic heart is ‘visual’, ‘philosophical’ and ‘persuasive’; for ‘Nursing’ it is ‘emotional’ and ‘empathetic’, yet also ‘technical’; for ‘Business’ subjects it is ‘income generating’, ‘numerical’ and ‘persuasive’; and for ‘Computing’ it may be ‘visual’, ‘numerical’ or ‘code-based’. We demonstrate how ‘English’ flows through the paradigmatic heart of its subject and that to remove the ‘English’ from its subject paradigmatic heart changes its nature. Thus, we argue that if students are not being taught ‘English’ in the context of the subject, the ‘English’ we are teaching them will be different, and that preparation and support needs to be undertaken in the subject itself.     

Finnish Apprenticeship Training Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Vocational Expertise and Experiences of Workplace Learning and Guidance

This study examines Finnish apprenticeship training stakeholders’ perceptions of vocational expertise and experiences of workplace learning and guidance. The semi-structured interview data was collected in 2015 in two vocational fields: the social and health care services sector (five workplaces) and the technology sector (five workplaces). The sample (N = 40) consisted of apprentices (n = 10), their co-workers (n = 10), workplace trainers (n = 10) and employers (n = 10). The study applies the classifications of natural abilities and self-regulation to identify the most important individual characteristics related to vocational expertise. The socio-cultural approach to workplace learning and guidance illustrate that vocational expertise also develops from external support through participation and guidance in everyday interactions in the contexts of education and work. The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that individuals with fluent cognitive skills (e.g., problem solving skills) combined to advanced social skills, self-awareness and self-regulation are perceived as vocational experts. The apprenticeship training was considered to draw upon an extensive learning environment to facilitate an apprentice’s vocational development by offering access to authentic work tasks and collective support by experienced workers. Yet, the lack of time, resources and pedagogical approaches were found to hinder individual guidance and reciprocal workplace learning between apprentices and experienced workers. The workplaces were shown to provide fruitful learning possibilities for those apprentices with strong self-regulatory skills.     

Quality education through performativity. ‘Learning crisis’ and technology of quantification in Tanzania

Concerns over effective learning have been central to the post-2015 debates. This renewed emphasis on quality has prompted a search for international standardised definitions and measures of learning. Performativity – the production of performance through measurement devices, borrowed from the private sector, that induce new individual conducts and institutional organisations – is likely to constitute a prominent feature of the post-2015 education aid landscape. In Tanzania, that has been facing a learning crisis since the end of the 2000s, technologies of quantification have been deployed by aid agencies (within the budget support framework) and a local NGO, Twaweza (Uwezo studies, cash-on-delivery, performance-based teachers’ salary and school funding, randomised-controlled trials) to address poor learning performances. This paper provides a critical analysis of this new public management technology and argues that they represent groundwork for a further stage in neoliberal education more certainly than for the promotion of a transformative education.     

‘The Treasure Within’ and ‘Learning Through Life’: A Review and Prospectus

In this article, Tom Schuller and David Watson, who were responsible for a major review of lifelong learning in the UK published in 2009, describe the main proposals from that review and compare them with the 1996 UNESCO report, The Treasure Within. They find many points of similarity, as well as clear differences. Apart from specific differences of analysis or emphasis, their 2009 ‘Learning Through Life’ (LTL) report focused particularly on adults and dealt prominently with workplace and community-based opportunities compared with the full life-cycle but largely formal education focus of the Delors report. They discuss the LTL 4-lifestage model, the lifecycle distribution of resources, and entitlements to learning. They draw out key issues related to ‘learning to be’. They provide a stocktake of the progress that has been made in the UK since the publication of their report in 2009 and find little grounds for encouragement that their suggested directions for change have been put into practice. They reflect on rationales and developments to offer a prospectus for lifelong learning that has general application, not only in the UK.     

Perspectives on defining ‘The Learning Society‘

This article, written primarily from the perspective of employment‐related learning, seeks to challenge several common assumptions about the Learning Society: that learning depends on the provision of education and training, that provision is based on sufficient attention to wants and valid assessment of needs; that provision is appropriately distributed between different types of knowledge; that transfer of knowledge is an event rather than a process; that expertise can be represented in terms of propositional knowledge alone; that current job competence is an adequate basis for assessing individual capability or organizational need. An alternative conceptual framework is proposed which takes account of recent research into the complex, multifaceted nature of expertise; reframes the concept of transfer as a learning process which requires dedicated time and effort; treats individual learning for employment in terms of comprising capability, competence and understanding; clarifies the tension between short‐term efficiency and long‐term adaptability in people and organizations; and provides operational definitions for studying learning groups, learning organizations and a learning society.     

The ‘Civic-minded’ Professional? An exploration through Hannah Arendt’s ‘vita activa’

Recent reform initiatives calling for ‘civic’ (‘public-good’ or ‘democratic’) professionalism can be seen as a response to the widely reported decline in public trust in the professions and an attempt to partially remedy this problem through a more publically engaged professionalism. The author draws on the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt, identifying the strong, albeit in the professionalism literature rarely acknowledged, affinities between civic professionalism and her concept of action as (collective) freedom through public deliberation. Using the three modalities of the active life that Arendt discusses in The Human Condition (labour, work and action) as analytical tools, the author suggests that changing conditions in the public sector have led to professional life increasingly taking on the forms of labour and work, at the expense of action. The implications of these developments are highlighted before the author proceeds to show that a professional life oriented strongly towards action is consistent with ‘civic’ professionalism based on community engagement. Some of the main approaches traditionally taken to promote a civic orientation among university students are noted; the article concludes with a discussion of how the specific concepts underlying Arendtian action can be put to work in university pedagogies to intentionally promote the public ‘civic-minded professional’.     

Legitimising inequality? The governance of ‘Others’ through participatory initiatives in schools

This article discusses how the call for families’ active participation in school can be understood as a form of regulatory act producing neoliberal subjectivities based on responsibility, entrepreneurship and rational calculation. The analysis draws on the results of two projects aiming to improve the relationship between families of Spanish Roma and immigrant background and the school. Results suggest that the idea of participation is presented as an element for the transformation of the schools. Nevertheless, the programmes are implemented without questioning the power structure present in school, and so put even more responsibility on the families, and make more visible their supposed deficits. Approaching participation as a key feature of neoliberal governmentality, our analysis highlights how these participatory initiatives foster a type of assimilationist diversity approach and legitimise the existing status quo in schools.     

The social life of Learning Analytics: cluster analysis and the ‘performance’ of algorithmic education

This paper argues that methods used for the classification and measurement of online education are not neutral and objective, but involved in the creation of the educational realities they claim to measure. In particular, the paper draws on material semiotics to examine cluster analysis as a ‘performative device’ that, to a significant extent, creates the educational entities it claims to objectively represent through the emerging body of knowledge of Learning Analytics (LA). It also offers a more critical and political reading of the algorithmic assemblages of LA, of which cluster analysis is a part. Our argument is that if we want to understand how algorithmic processes and techniques like cluster analysis function as performative devices, then we need methodological sensibilities that consider critically both their political dimensions and their technical-mathematical mechanisms. The implications for critical research in educational technology are discussed.     

The ‘Reality’ of School Organization

Five headteachers formed a group for the purpose of school evaluation. The approach used involved inter‐visiting and the sharing of the evaluation of each other's schools. The headteachers decided to evaluate the systems operating in their schools, evaluating each other in turn having involved the deputy in collecting staff views. All schools made changes as a result of the evaluations. The need for commitment by LEA or DES to such school evaluation was considered to be important.     

The Incoherence of ‘Teaching Quality’

Abstract

This article records my experience of trying to make students more reflective about their learning. Specifically, it charts my attempts over several years to make students benefit from the feedback they receive from essays. Some success was eventually achieved when students were required to assess their own essays before submission.     

The Strategies of Learning English

Summary: The aim of English learning is to cultivate the student's ability to listen, speak, read and write. This disserta-tion wil1 present some useful strategies for learning listening, reading, speaking and writing.