Understanding of professional practice and learning in globalised work

1. Understandingof professional practice and learningin globalised work transitions Tara Fenwick University of Stirling

2. transition … derived from • the Latintransitus(passage; crossing) • the Late Latintransire(go over, cross) • the Latintrans(beyond, across)

3. Why understanding transitions matters • Psychological – personal struggle, dissonance, challenges to self-concept. Counselling to provide personal coping strategies • Organisation/management studies – planning & ‘managing’ workers’ change • Policy/regulatory view – ensuring quality & reliability of professional decision-making

4. Why understanding transitions matters • Educational interest – understanding & supporting learning processes in transition

5. a sociological starting point …

6. Transitions in New Public Managerialism less knowledge authority & discretionary judgment multiple competing stakeholders and regulatory agencies increased audit measures and performativity

7. personal transitionsin professional practice • unfolding career • role/responsibility • knowledge • migration

8. discourses of transition • as problem needing management • as perpetual, inevitable • as ‘becoming’ • as institutionalized path • as turning point • as journey

9. Educational assumptions about transition • people can become ‘prepared’ through knowledge • what’s coming is known • we should develop strategies to ‘cope’

10. Researching transitions – insights and problems

11. psychological approach • Life tasks & self concept • Cognitive coping strategies • Planning & reflection • Translate goals and self-beliefs to action • Emotional coping strategies • “defensive pessimism” • “optimism”

12. problems – psychological approach • Unpredictable effects of cultural norms, values • Mediated by others’ expectations, language, positioning (power) • Hundred of cognitive dimensions influence choices • People perform and identify with diverse selves

13. ‘life course’ sociology approach • Life history enmeshed with environments • Social/cultural capital • Discourses influencing self-narratives • Triggers of transition, and responses • Learning/identity/agency

14. Role of learning in lifecourse approach • what people learn from their lives, what they learn for their lives – and how • Learning as blocker and as enabler • What restricts mobility, new possibilities? • What best supports ‘enabling’ learning that manages transitions?

15. Problems – lifecourse approach • Focusing on the individual • Focusing on events • The ‘becoming’ discourse • Pathologising transitions • ‘Managing’ transitions

16. Career passages approach • School-to-work • Career ‘stages’ • Periphery to center

17. problems – career passages • Normative patterns, homogenised, linear • Economism – individualist, adaptive • Work sites as static blocks? – only the individual moves • Deflects critical gaze from processes causing change

18. Issues - ‘transitions’ as learning Construction of ‘risk’ (need help, soothing) Conception of passage (space as static)

19. Conceptions of ‘journey’ • (uni-directional) • (discourse of development) Preoccupation with personal-psychological, or personal-social • (ignores ecologies of practice& transition) • (accepts existing systems of production)

20. Questions for exploration? • What is a ‘successful’ transition? (& is this a valid question?) • How can we conceptualise transitions in ways that disrupt linearity , universality, ‘development’? • How do we examine the complex ecologies of transition? • Are distinctly different forms of transition experienced across professional groups? Across activities? Regions? Moments? • How do different forms & practices of learning influence professionals’ transitions? • Are some transitions more ‘empowering’ or ‘disempowering’?

21. What is the purpose of educational/ pedagogical intervention in professionals’ transitions? (and on what basis do we justify this purpose?)