No abstract

Work in call centres is often presented as a form of unskilled labour characterized by routinization, technological surveillance and tight management control aimed at reaching intensive performance targets. Beyond delivering business objectives, this control and efficiency strategy is often held to produce counterproductive effects with regard to employee well-being and the quality of customer interactions. Yet, almost contrarily, based on evidence from ethnographic field data from a call centre for sales and customer support, a particular instance of individual agency is identified as a means to transcend the structuring influence of technology and management regulation. Noticeably, such a manifestation of agency is also aligned with workplace learning when seen as active engagement in work practices. Contrary to universalistic accounts of neo-Tayloristic assembly line workplaces with high levels of emotional labour, this paper supports a more differentiated and nuanced view of tele-service workers, marked by the exercise of their subjectivity and agency. It argues that an apparently harsh work environment creates distinct conditions for rich learning and practice regeneration when populated by individuals with diverse life histories or ontogenies that influence their enactment of work with self-defined interests and identity formation pursuits being directed by their personal agency. The Call Centre Work EnvironmentCall centres are an increasingly common phenomenon in many industry and service sectors worldwide with a growing number of employees engaged in providing this kind of Vocations and Learning (2010) 3:223-238

Who would have thought that, when the first call for papers for our event was published in the summer of 2019, we would meet in a very differently looking world two years afterwards? The Corona pandemic has challenged the educational world. PBL practitioners and researchers alike were called upon to bring forward their knowledge, experience and creativity in designing and implementing solutions to digitally supported pedagogies.In a way, the PBL and active learning community has held huge resources here -a deep understanding of the cognitive, motivational, emotional and social implications of the learning process. Extensive experience with the orchestration of self-directed and student-centered approaches as well as a long-standing engagement in exploration and enrichment of learning scenarios by digital possibilities. However, the challenges have been considerable as well: how do we maintain engagement amongst students in a time of physical and therefore also social distancing? How do we create places and spaces for group work and meaningful interaction in the digital sphere? And not to forget, how do we keep the relationships alive between the university-ecosystem and the rest of the world, in which the problems our students are working on have their arena?The PBL2021 International Conference is intended as a space and place to bring together PBL practitioners and researchers to share our insights and experiences around the powerful approaches of PBL and Active Learning. Under the conference title Transforming PBL Through Hybrid Learning Models we want to invite all participants to share, watch, listen to, discuss and engage with the insights and experiences from both the Corona-period and from PBL and active learning practices in general. With three outstanding keynotes and almost 100 contributions in various formats we hope the conference will provide a rich (digital) environment for this. The proceedings certainly are a testament to the richness and breadth of the topics and insights the PBL and Active Learning community has to share. The conference would not have been possible without the willingness to collaborate with us. We would like to express our gratitude to the PAN-PBL Association of PBL and Active Learning for entrusting us with the hosting of the 11th conference in the successful conference series, and for being excellent collaboration partners throughout this journey. Difficult decisions, such as the postponement of the conference, had to be made and we were extremely glad to have the PAN-PBL board with us on these decisions at all times.

No abstract