Considering trade union education as a community of practice

This paper contributes to the continuing discussion about participation and non-participation in formal education by employing the notion of ‘community of practice’ to provide a framework for the study of trade union education. This notion provides a useful form to take account of social context and an appropriate vehicle to mediate the transformation of perspectives. This is a study that demonstrates the importance of social context and participant perspectives as important features of individual transformation. This paper draws on evidence from a local study of trade union education to explore the transformation of non-participants into learners. This transformation was the consequence of engagement by the participants in their trade union practice.     

Engaging students in learning: findings from a study of project-led education

This paper reports on findings from a three-year study of project-based learning implemented in the first year of the Industrial Engineering and Management programme, at the University of Minho, Portugal. This particular model was inspired on project-led education (PLE), following Powell and Weenk's [2003. Project-Led Engineering Education. Utrecht: Lemma] work. It aims to analyse students’ perceptions of PLE as a learning device and its implications for faculty and students’ role in teaching and learning. Data collection took place in two phases through individual surveys and focus groups to students. Findings suggest the importance of PLE as a device to enhance meaningful learning and provide evidence from students that it helps to increase their engagement in learning. Implications of PLE for faculty and students role in teaching and learning will be discussed in the paper.     

Lifelong learning: a national trade union strategy in a global economy

The paper considers the role of trade unions in lifelong learning, their strategic approach to lifelong learning, and the opportunities and limitations set by the current stage of globalized capitalist development. The paper has four sections, the first of which considers the relationship between ‘modernization’ as a trade union project and concepts such as reflexive modernity and risk society which have structured much debate in the social sciences in recent years. Secondly, there is a discussion of the exact nature of the role of trade unions in education and training. While it will be suggested that recent developments have greatly increased the scope of trade union involvement in education and training, the third section of the paper will argue that these developments do not represent a coherent strategy on the part of unions, but more a series of responses to the complexity of the contemporary workplace. Based on a theoretical interrogation of data from a number of empirical and policy document sources,¹ the paper will argue that there is a need for conceptual clarity in this field. In the final section, the context of globalization will move to the foreground, in the context of a discussion on the relationship between national trade union policies and global capitalist development.     

试论新时期工会思想政治教育工作

随着我国社会主义市场经济体制改革的不断深入,工会思想政治教育工作面临挑战。文章通过分析我国当前企业思想政治教育工作面临的问题,提出改善企业思想政治教育工作面临的对策建议。     

高校工会职工之家建设的实践与探索

该文从党中央、全国总工会对建设工会职工之家的要求,基层工会的性质以及全体会员的希望等几个方面,论述了高校建设工会职工之家的重要性和必要性,并以本院工会在院党委的关怀下建设工会职工之家的实践,对高校工会职工之家建设进行了探索,以期对高校工会“职工之家”建设的进一步深入开展有一定的帮助。     

Motivating adults to learn mathematics in the workplace: a trade union approach

ABSTRACT

The aim of this qualitative study is to explore adults’ motivation to learn mathematics in the workplace and the role that the trade union education approach promoted in the United Kingdom plays in that motivation. The findings draw on data from 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews with adults learning mathematics, organised through their trade union representatives. Trade unions promote education which uses teaching and learning approaches based on collectivist and activist principles, which is different from mainstream education, so the research explores what might be learnt from this approach. The findings show that the trade union-led approach enables even long-held negative feelings towards mathematics to become positive. The research finds a strong link between supportive social networks, including Union Learning Representative, as well as positive social and emotional encounters in the classroom that develop adult learners’ confidence, increasing their motivation to both learn and use mathematics in their everyday lives. This change in feelings and motivation is termed an Affective Mathematical Journey. These findings, while taking place in a non-traditional context, nevertheless are relevant to practitioners working with adults in both traditional (school and college) and non-traditional (workplace and community) settings. There are also indications of the positive influence this learning has on the relationship between individual members and their trade union organisations.     

Career transitions after a long experience as trade union officer: a qualitative study

In France, trade union officers are former shop stewards who have chosen to work full-time for the union for several years. This research investigates the career transitions of former union officers who have returned to the labour market following extended experience with high-level responsibilities in the union. Semi-directed interviews were conducted with 23 subjects and were analysed using thematic content analyses. The results indicate the existence of different perceptions of the career change and four types of transitions that are dependent on the level of support provided by the union and individual expectations regarding new jobs.     

Engaging whiteness: How racial power gets reified in education

The central question addressed in this essay is how students engage in a class that focuses on the political and social power of whiteness. Specifically, it looks at how whiteness gets inscribed and reified in our education practices, even as we try to disrupt its normative influence. The essay is based upon an in-depth qualitative study of a graduate seminar dedicated to addressing diversity issues critically. We conclude that despite students' expressed intentions and efforts at disrupting whiteness, they draw upon a variety of discourses that actually serve to protect and secure whiteness's dominant position. Twelve different discourses that students cite are described, grouped into four broad appeals: to self, to progress, to authenticity, and to extremes. Understanding how students invoke these discourses as an implicit way of resisting critical engagements with whiteness can help us to problematize these practices as well as cultivate more productive and enabling interactions.     

Engaging with theoretical diffraction in teacher education

This article presents a study in which we began with a question ‘how to teach theoretical reflectivity in teacher education’, and ended with a sentence ‘there is theoretical diffraction in teacher education’. The research presented in this paper took place in the context of a university course in which we have been involved for the past two years. During the course we simultaneously aimed to teach theoretical reflection and to analyse what was happening as we taught theoretical reflection. For two years we asked: What are students doing while we are trying to engage them in theoretical reflection? We noted that students are engaged in theory, but not in ways easily readable to the educators, and that the process could be called theoretical diffraction rather than reflection. Theoretical diffraction during the course was patterned by existing discursive practices: (1) disciplining emotions and focusing on control and answers; (2) personalising school as the teacher, and personally defending it; and (3) prioritising practice over theory and seeing both as dogma.     

The emotional turn in higher education: a psychoanalytic contribution

This article contributes to contemporary debates about the significance of emotions within Higher Education. Using a psychoanalytic lens we analyse the ways in which experiences of anxiety and tension are essential for learning. The anxiety associated with learning can stimulate meaningful and reflexive outcomes but ‘learning inaction’ [Vince, R. 2014. ‘What Do HRD Scholars and Practitioners Need to Know About Power, Emotion, and HRD?’ Human Resource Development Quarterly 25: 409–420] is also possible. In adopting a psychoanalytical lens we assert the agency of both learners and teachers in scholarly relationships and we draw attention to the emotions of educators as well as students. This has important implications for teacher education and academic formation activities.     

Considering teaching in higher education as a practice

At a time when learning and teaching in higher education have become the focus of increasing attention and high priority is being accorded to the attainment of excellence in teaching there is a growing concern that teaching is being reduced to the acquisition of a set of competencies. This paper will draw on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre to explore the nature of a practice and of teaching as a practice, and then draw on a case study of teachers in a higher education institute in Ireland to gain some insights into the realities of practice. While acknowledging that this knowledge is unequivocally contextual, this case study has the potential to contribute to our understanding of teaching by affording insights into how teachers respond to the challenges of practice. The paper will argue that to conceive of teaching as a practice, in the manner in which practice is explained and elaborated by MacIntyre, moves us beyond a narrow and mechanistic view of teaching built around the adoption of effective strategies to one that is broader in scope and takes into account notions of internal standards of excellence, complexity and integrity.     

Issues and challenges in higher education leadership: Engaging for change

It is proposed from this study that engaging productively with others to achieve change has never been more critical in educational environments, such as universities. Via semi-structured interviews with a cohort of senior leaders from one Australian university, this paper explores their perceptions of the key issues and challenges facing them in their work. The study found that the most significant challenges centred around the need for strategic leadership, flexibility, creativity and change-capability; responding to competing tensions and remaining relevant; maintaining academic quality; and managing fiscal and people resources. Sound interpersonal engagement, particularly in terms of change leadership capability, was found to be critical to meeting the key challenges identified by most participants. In light of the findings from the sample studied some tentative implications for leadership and leadership development in university environments are proposed, along with suggestions for further empirical exploration.     

A distance education contribution to a social strategy to combat poverty: Open University Community Education courses in Glasgow

Attacking widespread under‐education with limited resources in the scattered, oppressed adult population of South Africa is a formidable challenge. One way of meeting this challenge could be to develop adults’ critical thinking skills, using their own experience as their main educational resource. Experiential learning technology, facilitated from a distance, could provide a means of achieving this aim. Research carried out at a conference on experiential learning at Natal University, Durban, provided an opportunity to assess the viability, desirability and usefulness of this educational method and aim. Participants’ responses indicate that the method is promising, although further experiment and development are necessary, particularly with different groups.

Three issues are discussed in this paper: the nature of the South African educational context, the promotion of critical thinking skills as an adult education aim, and the potential of employing experiential learning technology, facilitated from a distance, as a method of developing critical thinking skills.     

Rethinking Formalisms in Formal Education

I explore a belief about learning and teaching that is commonly held in education and society at large that nonetheless is deeply flawed. The belief asserts that mastery of formalisms—specialized representations such as symbolic equations and diagrams with no inherent meaning except that which is established by convention—is prerequisite to applied knowledge. A formalisms first (FF) view of learning, rooted in Western dualist philosophy, incorrectly advocates the introduction of formalisms too early in the development of learners’ conceptual understanding and can encourage a formalisms-only mind-set toward learning and instruction. I identify the prevalence of FF in curriculum and instruction and outline some of the serious problems engendered by FF approaches. I then turn to promising alternatives that support progressive formalization, problem-based learning, and inquiry learning, which capitalize on the strengths of formalisms but avoid some of the most costly problems found in FF approaches.     

Engaging students in higher education through mobile learning: lessons learnt in a Chinese entrepreneurship course

This evaluative?Cexploratory case study reports pedagogical experiences with using mobiles phones, wikis, and other mobile learning approaches such as podcasts and walking tours as educational tools in the context of an undergraduate course on Chinese Entrepreneurship and Asian Business Networks taught at a university in Singapore. Conceptualized as mobile learning, the paper argues that information and communication technologies (ICT) devices used by Gen Y students as part of their everyday life such as hand phones in combination with social media platforms such as course wikis and other proven pedagogical methods such as mini lectures, field visits, and walking tours can greatly enrich learners?? experience and produce valuable learning outcomes on the basis of blended learning provided their usage is easy and effectively integrated into the respective instructional strategy.