Transformations at work: identity and learning

Abstract

This paper examines how identity and learning are constituted and transformed at work. Its central concern is how individuals engage agentically in and learn through workplace practices, and in ways that transform work. Drawing upon recent research into work and participation in workplaces, the negotiated and contested relationship between workplace practices and individuals' identity and intentionality, and learning is illuminated and discussed. For instance, aged care workers and coal miners acquire work injuries that are almost emblematic of their work identity. Only particularly dramatic events (i.e. serious illness or workplace accidents) wholly transform their identity and views about work practice -their subjectivities (Somerville 2002). However, it is through the agentic actions of these individuals -that workplace practices are can be transformed. Yet, individuals' agentic action is not necessarily directed to the abstracted and de-contextualised economic and civic goals (Field 2000) privileged in lifelong learning policies (Edwards, Ranson & Strain 2002). Instead, there is relational interdependency between the individual and work that can act to sustain or transform both self and their work. Individuals' agentic action is exercised within these relations in ways directed by their subjectivities. So these relations and that agentic action has policy and practice implications for the conduct of work and learning through and for work.

Understanding Learning Culturally: Overcoming the Dualism Between Social and Individual Views of Learning

“…However, there is no reason why individual learning cannot be addressed from within a broadly situated or socio-cultural perspective. (Beach 1995(Beach , 1999, (Billett 2001, Billett andSomerville 2004) and Hodkinson and Hodkinson (2003), amongst others, have already done that, and what follows in this paper takes this approach further. Beckett and Hager (2002) identified another important distinction that is central to understanding this debate in relation to our argument below.…”

Understanding work, learning and the remaking of cultural practices

“…These affordances or invitational qualities are central to what constitutes a learning environment. Nevertheless, central to this process of learning what constitutes a learning environment is also the degree by which individuals act agentically in the process of constructing knowledge (Billett, 2005b;Billett & Somerville, 2004). This epistemological agency (Smith, 2004) (Bauer, Festner, Gruber, Harteis, & Heid, 2004;Smith, 2004).…”

“…The new management of the Gym, the growth of the Restaurant catering business, the decline in the number of fire emergencies and the increasing reliability of computing facility are all instances that reveal the relational interdependence of individual engagement and changing cultural practice at work. Central to that learning and remaking of culture is the degree by which individual agency directs, engages and constructs what they experience: their epistemological agency which is shaped by individuals' sense of self (Billett & Pavlova, 2003;Billett & Somerville, 2004;Somerville, 2002).…”

“…That is, as individuals engage even in the most routine form of learning they are participating in the process of remaking cultural practices. Culture and society are remade and transformed as individuals engage with their practices, learn and construct them at particular points in their personal histories and points in time (Billett & Somerville, 2004;Leontyev, 1981). The new management of the Gym, the growth of the Restaurant catering business, the decline in the number of fire emergencies and the increasing reliability of computing facility are all instances that reveal the relational interdependence of individual engagement and changing cultural practice at work.…”

Job Crafting and Identity in Low-Grade Work: How Hospital Porters Redefine the Value of their Work and Expertise

“…Hence, as Billett et al (2004, p.237) explain, '… the quality of their engagement in these practices will not be uniform. Full-bodied participation in one social practice can be contrasted with reluctance in another' (see also Billett and Somerville 2004).…”