ProPEL Symposium, Stirling, 24.06.10 Monika Nerland

1. Professional learning in new ecologies of knowledgeApproaches and concepts to explore the relationship of knowledge to learning in professional practice ProPEL Symposium, Stirling, 24.06.10 Monika Nerland

2. Shifts in conditions for professional work Professionalism infused with managerialism • Accountability regimes • Performance indicators, output measures • Individualization of responsibilities • But, also more emphasis on collaboration Epistemification: A ’spill-over’ of epistemic culture • Increased emphasis on science-generated knowledge • More abstract and symbolic inputs • A quest for transparency in knowledge creation and use • The spread of epistemic practice – ways of exploring, testing, validating, documenting knowledge

3. “The transition to knowledge societies “involves more than the presence of more experts, more technological gadgets, more specialist rather than participant interpretations. It involves the presence of knowledge processes themselves (…), the presence of epistemic practice” (Knorr Cetina, 2001: 177)

4. In the professions Increased focus on establishing links to science • Evidence-based practice • New academic disciplines established to serve the professions Transnational discourses and complex circuits of knowledge • Knowledge ‘on its travels’ in a myriad of forms • Frame regulation and validation of professional knowledge and competencies More ‘epistemic’ modes of practice • Exploring, validating, documenting, testing, re-inventing,… • Use of more complex instruments and artifacts

5. Challenges for (researching) professional learning Approaching abstract knowledge and to make use of such knowledge in professional work is increasingly important Circuits of knowledge and participation structures stretch beyond the local community Enrolment of practitioners in a profession-specific knowledge culture becomes a critical condition for engagement Active and critical engagement depends on ‘epistemic reflexivity’ - understanding knowledge beyond the context of application Accounting for the symbolic and material dimension of practice: the circulation and engagement with knowledge objects

6. Epistemic cultures and practices (Karin Knorr Cetina) • “Cultures that produce and warrant knowledge” • Constitutive of knowledge and the knower • Produce logics of engagement and responsibilities • Generate knowledge objects for practitioners to engage with • Operate across organizational boundaries

7. The relationship of knowledge processes to learning - two interrelated accounts • Epistemic cultures as ‘machineries of knowledge construction’ • “those amalgams of arrangements and mechanisms - bonded through affinity, necessity, and historical coincidence which, in a given field, make up how we know what we know” (Knorr Cetina, 1999) • Epistemic cultures as collective ‘epistementalities’ • “By a knowledge culture I mean (…) an ‘epistementality’ of particular beliefs about, for example, the correct distribution of knowledge, the naturalness of access to it, the particular ways knowledge should be handled and inserted into personal and organizational life. Such epistementalities also take form as particular organizational arrangements of roles and agencies”. (Knorr Cetina, 2006)

8. In the professions: • The organization and collective comprehension of... • Knowledge production • (e.g. scientific achievements, personal experiences, approaches to verification) • Knowledge accumulation • (e.g. cumulative and vertical logics vs horizontal logics, unification vs. diversification) • Knowledge distribution • (e.g. forms of mediation, patterns of codification, local-global outreach) • Knowledge application • (e.g. ways of enacting general principles in particular settings, standards vs. differentiation)

9. Examplewww.pfi.uio.no/prolearn

10. Knowledge objects and object-related learning Complex amalgams of material and symbolic resources which constitute a problem area Characterised by their question-generating character and their display of unfulfilled opportunities Invite different interpretations and patterns of use Potential for increased complexity Simultaneously ready to be used and in transformation (Knorr Cetina 1997, 2001, 2006)

11. Since knowledge objects are always in the process of being materially defined, they continually acquire new properties and change the ones they have. They should be understood “not only as the goal and target of professional work but as relational objects which make relational demands and offer relational opportunities to those who deal with them”. (Knorr Cetina, 2006, p. 32) Examples: Models for medical treatment, Computer programmes, Standards for auditing the potential value of firms, The concept of care, ...

12. Knowledge objects have the potential to • Stimulate shifts between explorative - confirmative practice • Link practitioners up with a wider knowledge culture • Invite engagement within multiple time-scales • Become objects of attachment –> socially binding

13. This perspective… Highlights the interdependency between knowledge cultures, knowledge objects, and individuals’ commitment to a field of expertise Sensitizes us to how objects link up different ’levels’ of practice within a wider knowledge culture Draws attention to the interplay between experimental and confirming modes of practice – as dynamics of learning Points to the social role of knowledge and its potentially enchanting and motivating capacity

14. But: Tensions and collective negotiations is perhaps not sufficiently addressed The epistemic dimension may be over-emphasized and the value of (bodily anchored) routines underplayed Individuals’ ways of reasoning and understanding are blackboxed

15. In relation to other socio-material approaches Compared with CHAT: • Sees the development and circulation of knowledge as the prime source of change (more than contradictions – cf. Guile 2009) • ‘Knowledge object’ as both tool and object • Emphasis on mechanisms for attachment and affiliation Compared with ANT: • Shares the notion of objects as ‘doers’ • But: reinstalls the subject in a relational, dissociative dynamic between subject and object • Accounts for knowledge - as self-multiplying • Attempts to conceptualize knowledge cultures at different societal ‘levels’

16. References Abbott, A. (1988) The System of Professions. University of Chicago Press Callon, M. (2002) Writing and (re)writing devices as tools for managing complexity. In Law & Mol, Eds, Complexities: Social studies of knowledge practices. Duke University Press Guile, D. (2009). Conceptualizing the transition from education to work as vocational practice: lessons from the UK’s creative and cultural sector. BritishEducational Research Journal, 35 (3) , pp. 259-270. Jensen, K., & Lahn, L. (2005). The binding role of knowledge. An analysis of nursing students' knowledge ties. Journal of Education and Work, 18, 305-318. Lahn, L. C. & Jensen, K. (2007). Models of professional learning. Exploring the epistemic tool perspective. Knowledge, work & society, Vol 4 (3), 62-82. Knorr Cetina, K. (2007). Culture in global knowledge societies: Knowledge cultures and epistemic cultures. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 32(4), 361-375.Knorr Cetina, K. (2006) Knowledge in a Knowledge Society: Five Transitions. Knowledge, Work and Society, 4(3), 23-41. Knorr Cetina, K. (2001) Objectual Practice. In T. Schatzki, K. Knorr Cetina, E. von Savigny(Eds), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (pp. 175-188). London: Routledge. Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nerland, M. (2008) Knowledge cultures and the shaping of work-based learning: the case of computer engineering. Vocations and Learning: Studies in vocational andprofessional education, 1, 49-69. Nerland, M. & Jensen, K. (2010) Objectual practice in professional work. In S. Billett (Ed), Learning through practice. Springer