Toward Enriched Conceptions of Work Learning: Participation, Expansion, and Translation Among Individuals With/In Activity

Citation

Fenwick T (2006) Toward Enriched Conceptions of Work Learning: Participation, Expansion, and Translation Among Individuals With/In Activity. Human Resource Development Review, 5 (3), pp. 285-302. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484306290105

Abstract
Despite the long recognition in HRD theory that learning is socially and materially situated in activity and relations, HRD literature indicates a continuing strong emphasis on individualistic theories representing learning as knowledge acquisition or individual development. It is argued here that understandings of work learning within HRD theory can be fruitfully enriched by more fully incorporating practice-based perspectives. Three contemporary theories that analyse learning as a relation of individuals with/in activity have been selected for discussion here: the participational perspective of situated cognition, the notion of expansion from cultural-historical activity theory, and the constructs of translation and mobilization presented by actor-network theory. While these are not particularly new to HRD, the contribution of this discussion is to bring together these theories, along with published empirical workplace research based on them, to highlight selected dynamics that may be useful tools for HRD theory development. One element in particular is read across the three theories: the dialectic of ‘flying’ and ‘grounding’, or lines of discontinuity and continuity characterising work learning. The argument is theory-driven, drawing from HRD literature of work learning and practice-based theories of social activity and knowledge production.

Keywords
workplace learning; sociomaterial; Employees Training of; Sustainable development

Journal
Human Resource Development Review: Volume 5, Issue 3

People

Professor Tara Fenwick

Emeritus Professor, Education