Reconceptualising Professional Learning

Sociomaterial knowledges, practices and responsibilities

Tara Fenwick, Monika Nerland, Tara Fenwick, Monika Nerland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317802365
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Adult Education

This book presents leading-edge perspectives and methodologies to address emerging issues of concern for professional learning in contemporary society. The conditions for professional practice and learning are changing dramatically in the wake of globalization, new modes of knowledge production, new regulatory regimes, and increased economic-political pressures. In the wake of this, a number of challenges for learning emerge:

• more practitioners become involved in interprofessional collaboration
• developments in new technologies and virtual workworlds
• emergence of transnational knowledge cultures and interrelated circuits of knowledge.

The space and time relations in which professional practice and learning are embedded are becoming more complex, as are the epistemic underpinnings of professional work. Together these shifts bring about intersections of professional knowledge and responsibilities that call for new conceptions of professional knowing.

Exploring what the authors call sociomaterial perspectives on professional learning they argue that theories that trace not just the social but also the material aspects of practice – such as tools, technologies, texts but also bodies and actions - are useful for coming to terms with the challenges described above.

Reconceptualising Professional Learning develops these issues through specific contemporary cases focused on one of the book's three main themes: (1) professionals' knowing in practice, (2) professionals' work arrangements and technologies, or (3) professional responsibility. Each chapter draws upon innovative theory to highlight the sociomaterial webs through which professional learning may be reconceptualised. Authors are based in Australia, Canada, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the USA as well as the UK and their cases are based in a range of professional settings including medicine, teaching, nursing, engineering, social services, the creative industries, and more.

By presenting detailed accounts of these themes from a sociomaterial perspective, the book opens new questions and methodological approaches. These can help make more visible what is often invisible in today's messy dynamics of professional learning, and point to new ways of configuring educational support and policy for professionals.

Section II

Reconceptualising professional work arrangements

Chapter 6

Nurturing occupational expertise in the contemporary workplace

An ‘apprenticeship turn’ in professional learning

Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin

Introduction

If the use of the term ‘apprenticeship’ in a book about professional learning seems odd, this is because apprenticeship tends to be regarded as an institutional component of national education and training systems. Yet, its original conceptualization as a model for developing and refining occupational expertise (through work-based practice) explains why references to apprenticeship still form part of the vocabulary used by many professionals to describe the way they learn (Fuller and Unwin 2010a, 2010b, 2013). In this chapter, we argue that research in and the organization of and support for early career professional learning would benefit from an ‘apprenticeship turn’ to enable the development of more overt and robust forms of socio-material support for professionals in contemporary workplaces.

As a model of learning, apprenticeship is formed by the interrelationship of pedagogical, social and institutional characteristics which provide the affordances to enable the apprentice to grow as an individual through contributing to and benefitting from the collective endeavour of the workplace. Thus, apprenticeship embraces the concepts of individual agency and identity, without losing sight of the equally important dimension of context. Using apprenticeship as a lens enables questions to be raised about the extent to which the important role that maturation and socialization play in the formation and refinement of professional expertise is being undermined in two ways. First, early career professionals are entering workplaces where work is increasingly organized as a response to efficiency and competitive imperatives emanating from the wider productive systems within which the workplaces sit. Second, the continued emphasis on a front-loaded model of education and training ignores the need for scaffolding structures within the workplace to support continued professional development.

An ‘apprenticeship turn’ aligns with the concept of the ‘practice turn’, which, as Boud (2010:29) has argued, ‘gives new respect to and also problematises practice’ at a time when long-standing assumptions about the relatively stable nature of professional practice and professional identity need to be challenged. Boud identifies three reasons for the ‘practice turn’:

a) the acknowledgement that professional work is a collective endeavour (and reflected in the call for a ‘relational turn’ in professional work as advocated by Edwards 2010);

b) because ‘high-level demanding work is not held together by professions or disciplines but by the nature of work itself’ (ibid:31), many professionals work in and across multi-disciplinary and often trans-disciplinary groups that are formed and reformed to meet the needs of the work in question; and

c) because professionals now often co-construct goods and services with ‘clients’, the identity of the professional as the expert is becoming unsustainable (see also Bishop et al. 2009.)

In the midst of this turbulent activity, early career professionals need to find firm ground on which to stand whilst they develop their (multi-faceted) expertise. As Fenwick et al. (2012:3) argue:

a core challenge for professionals is to maintain continuity in professional work. This requires stabilisation of knowledge and practice. An emerging question is thus how stability is achieved in practices characterised by multiple knowledge sources, strategies and concerns, while enabling innovation.

The chapter draws on case study research to argue that apprenticeship offers a potential way forward in providing a supportive scaffold for early career professionals to enable them to develop their expertise.

Structure and agency in creative tension

Studies of professional learning are now more likely to acknowledge the importance of context and the impact on professional identity and autonomy of new forms of managerialism, particularly in the public sector. Evetts (2002) has highlighted the shift away from the notion of the professional as a fully autonomous expert to one who seeks ways within the structures in which they operate to find opportunities to exercise discretion (see also Beckett and Hager 2002). In their research on nurses, Nerland and Jensen (2012), building on the Foucauldian approach of Tobias (2005), argue that it is through being deeply embedded in their epistemic practices and the associated epistemic networks that they can avoid being constrained by structures.

Whilst these arguments are important, they may perpetuate the stereotype of the professional as ‘hero’ battling the system. We argue that a more holistic approach is required, one that brings together the agency of individuals and the relational process of learning and working with colleagues and clients in what Cook and Brown (2005) have called a ‘generative dance’ with the organizational structures in which professional work takes place.

During research in a wide range of occupational sectors in the UK, we drew on the economic concept of the productive system as an analytical tool for examining how organizations of all shapes and sizes are affected by the structures and stages of production governing their activities (see Felstead et al. 2009, for a detailed analysis). The structures of production form the vertical axis of the productive system. An automotive manufacturing plant making doors and wheels for cars in one country, for example, might be owned by an organization in a different country and hence, there will be structural layers above the workplaces where the doors and wheels are produced. The extent to which the engineers, managers and supervisors can exercise discretion in the way work is organized and conducted in the factory will be subject to pressures exerted from far up the structural axis. In contrast, an employee-owned architectural practice may sit at the top of its structural axis, though it will be subject to and very mindful of regulatory requirements imposed by bodies sitting to the side of the axis. Even the freelance professional will be affected by the productive systems of the client organizations for whom they work. These structural frameworks determine the nature of the employment relationship for full-time, part-time and project-based practitioners (see Rainbird and Munro 2003).

The stages of production form the horizontal axis of the productive system and encompass the flow of work and materials for processing, whether patients in a hospital, students in a university, cases in a law firm or raw materials in a manufacturing plant. In professional work, the management of the stages of production determines the extent to which individuals and teams have sufficient time and resources to complete their part of the overall process to a standard they believe to be right. When timescales are squeezed, often due to pressures being exerted in the vertical axis, professionals come under stress and the effects are felt throughout the whole system, including in the relationships with clients (see Jewson et al. 2008). Early career professionals can be caught in the crossfire as the productive system buckles, leaving them insufficient time and space for the maturation process that is central to the development of expertise.

Creating the appropriate conditions for early career professional learning needs to begin with an understanding of the productive system in which that learning takes place. By exposing the characteristics of the productive system, it becomes possible to identify the points at which early career professionals will need to be given greater or lesser amounts of support, and afforded more discretion to take on more responsibility and be subject to great risk. We have argued (Fuller and Unwin 2003) that the positioning and treatment of apprentices in an organization provides a valuable window on its understanding of the workplace as a learning environment. This is because the very presence of an apprentice necessitates that attention be paid to the creation of a programme of activities both inside and outside the workplace that will enable the apprentice to grow into becoming an expert in their own right. The central tension rests in finding the right balance between engaging the apprentice in productive work and allowing time for reflection and the learning of theories and concepts that underpin occupational practice. The trick here is to create a programme that takes account of each individual’s capacity whilst providing a framework of support that can weather the worst storms emanating from turbulence inside the productive system, thus achieving the stability advocated by Fenwick et al. (2012).

Apprenticeship as a model of learning

There are four dimensions to the apprenticeship model of learning which resonate strongly with the needs and experiences of early career professionals:

1. Pedagogical dimension – the workplace views the work and development of the apprentice through a pedagogical lens. A workplace curriculum is constructed, made visible and enacted through the apprentice’s participation in authentic and relational work with colleagues (and clients). Feedback and the modelling of the career trajectory are central to the manager/supervisor’s role. In addition, to use Wenger’s (1998) terminology, apprentices also ‘disengage’ with the workplace, to acquire knowledge beyond the immediate needs of the job and/or scope of the organization and develop a critical capacity leading to individual transformation (see Guile 2010; Engeström 2001).

2. Occupational dimension – the apprenticeship functions to initiate the individual into an occupational community, defined by the solidarity formed around shared knowledge, skills, values, customs and habits. In the case of early career professionals, it is this dimension that is critical for providing a sense of stability. The pedagogical dimension, as described above, ensures that stability does not restrict the innovative capacity of the apprentice or early career professional.

3. Locational dimension – apprenticeship is an outward symbol of an organization’s commitment to providing opportunities for skilled employment supported by substantive training for young people living in the same area as the employing organization. Whilst recruitment, management and the carrying out of the work itself have all become less spatially specific, most work activity still has a locational dimension, even in cases of workplaces governed by multinational organizations. In the case of organizations providing professional services (e.g. hospitals, law and accountancy practices, and schools, colleges and universities), this locational and civic dimension gives rise to obligations which underpin their reputation and socio-economic standing in the community. For individuals who are less locationally anchored, professional networks and associations can provide a means of staying connected to the dispersed occupational community, enabling them to reach their potential within the spatial configuration of wherever the work takes place, including in the home or on the move (see Felstead et al. 2005).

4. Social dimension – the quality of its apprenticeships is one of a number of litmus tests of an organization’s public image (locally or globally). Recent negative reports in the British media about organizations running unpaid and exploitative internships highlight the strength of feeling among members of the general public when they suspect that young people striving to enter the labour market are being mistreated (Wood 2011; see also Grugulis and Stoyanova 2012). At a time when corporate social responsibility matters to organizations in both the public and private sectors, being able to demonstrate a commitment to supporting the next generation brings rewards.

These four dimensions complement the productive system concept by connecting the pedagogical and occupational characteristics of apprenticeship to the organization’s position within the society or societies in which it is physically, virtually and operationally located. In the next section, we illustrate how this relationship works to the advantage of all stakeholders when apprenticeship is organized along what we have elsewhere conceptualized as ‘expansive’ lines (Fuller and Unwin 2003, 2004, 2010b).

Learning as apprentices in expansive environments

Through our research across a range of workplace and sectorial settings, we developed the concept of the ‘expansive–restrictive continuum’. Organizations that regard workforce development as a vehicle for aligning the twin goals of developing individual and organizational capability create expansive learning environments. Due to the nature of their productive systems, however, sustaining and enhancing such environments is challenging, regardless of the size or nature of the organization and, hence, all organizations (and/or workplaces within them) move within the continuum. Apprentices who find themselves in organizations closer to the expansive end of the continuum will find their apprenticeship is underpinned by a number of key features not found in organizations closer to the restrictive end. These features include:

• The apprenticeship is embedded within the broader business plan of the organization;

• The organization protects the identity of the apprentice as learner and worker throughout the apprenticeship;

• The apprenticeship reifies time for disengagement from productive work and for apprentices to cross work boundaries;

• The apprenticeship has a clear end point signified by the achievement of some form of certification to mark that a recognized level of expertise has been reached and that the apprentice can move to the next stage of development.

One of the organizations in which we have carried out research runs an apprenticeship programme that epitomizes these expansive features. It is a medium-sized company (around 700 employees) manufacturing bathroom showers. Here, we met Peter, a young man in his early twenties who had completed an apprenticeship in engineering and was given a permanent job in the company’s special projects department as an ‘ancillary project engineer’. Peter was working with five colleagues on a project to redevelop one of the company’s ‘power shower’ models. He reported to the project team leader and underwent a monthly performance review and development session with his line manager. In addition, he had been given sole responsibility for reclassifying the parts of the previous power shower model as ‘old spares’ and for moving these to a ‘spares cell’. When showers are superseded by new versions, it is company policy to make spare parts available to customers for a period of 10 years after the line has been discontinued.

Peter told us how his career progression in the company and in the wider...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Sociomaterial professional knowing, work arrangements and responsibility: new times, new concepts?
• SECTION I Reconceptualising professional knowing
• SECTION II Reconceptualising professional work arrangements
• SECTION III Reconceptualising professional responsibility
• Index