Learning/Work Turning work and lifelong learning inside out Edited by Linda Cooper and Shirley Walters Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2283-0 ISBN (pdf) 978-0-7969-2284-7 ISBN (e-pub) 978-0-7969-2302-8 © 2009 Human Sciences Research Council The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Human Sciences Research Council (‘the Council’) or indicate that the Council endorses the views of the authors. In quoting from this publication, readers are advised to attribute the source of the information to the individual author concerned and not to the Council. Copyedited by Lisa Compton Typeset by Baseline Publishing Services Cover by Farm Design Printed by printer, Cape Town, South Africa Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver Tel: +27 (0) 21 701 4477; Fax: +27 (0) 21 701 7302 www.oneworldbooks.com Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7240 0856; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7379 0609 www.eurospanbookstore.com Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741; Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985 www.ipgbook.com Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Contents Acknowledgements v Acronyms vi Introduction ix Linda Cooper and Shirley Walters SECTION I CHALLENGING PERSPECTIVES 1 Challenging dominant discourses 3 1 Turning work and lifelong learning inside out: A Marxist-feminist attempt 4 Shahrzad Mojab 2 But what will we eat? Research questions and priorities for work and learning 16 Astrid von Kotze 3 Hard/soft, formal/informal, learning/work: Tenuous/persistent binaries in the knowledge-based society 30 Kaela Jubas and Shauna Butterwick 4 Making different equal? Rifts and rupture in state and policy: The National Qualifications Framework in South Africa 43 Rosemary Lugg 5 ‘Where can I find a conference on short courses?’ 61 Shirley Walters and Freda Daniels Critiquing structural inequalities 73 6 Challenging donor agendas in adult and workplace education in Timor-Leste 74 Bob Boughton 7 University drop-out and researching (lifelong) learning and work 88 Moeketsi Letseka 8 Barriers to entry and progression in the solicitors’ profession in England and Wales 106 Hilary Sommerlad with Jane Stapleford 9 Research on Canadian teachers’ work and learning 123 Paul Tarc and Harry Smaller 10 Migration and organising: Between periphery and centre 142 Anannya Bhattacharjee 11 Peripheralisation, exploitation and lifelong learning in Canadian guest worker programmes 154 Peter H Sawchuk and Arlo Kempf Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za SECTION II RECOGNISING KNOWLEDGES 167 12 Learning in emotional labour and emotion work 169 John Field and Irene Malcolm 13 Recognising phronesis, or practical wisdom, in the recognition of prior learning 182 Mignonne Breier 14 Learning indigenous knowledge systems 194 Jennifer Hays 15 Domestic workers and knowledge in everyday life 208 Jonathan Grossman 16 The gender order of knowledge: Everyday life in a welfare state 220 Gunilla Härnsten and Ulla Rosén 17 Urban mindset, rural realities: Teaching on the edge 235 Barbara Barter SECTION III EXPLORING POSSIBILITIES, CREATING CHANGE 249 Workers organising/learning 251 18 Learning democracy from North–South worker exchanges 252 Judith Marshall 19 The desire for something better: Learning and organising in the new world of work 270 Tony Brown 20 A new perspective on the ‘learning organisation’: A case study of a South African trade union 284 Linda Cooper 21 Learning at work and in the union 296 Bruce Spencer 22 Learning, practice and democracy: Exploring union learning 309 Keith Forrester and Hsun-Chih Li Pedagogical innovations in higher education 323 23 Critical friends sharing socio-cultural influences on personal and professional identity 324 Vivienne Bozalek and Lear Matthews 24 Towards effective partnerships in training community learning and development workers 335 John Bamber and Clara O’Shea 25 Insights from an environmental education research programme in South Africa 351 Heila Lotz-Sisitka Contributors 364 Index 368 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za v Acknowledgements The editors wish to thank: Mary Ryan for her invaluable editorial assistance; The Services Sector Education and Training Authority, the South African Qualifications Authority, the University of the Western Cape, and the University of Cape Town, for their support in the publication of the book; Shahrzad Mojab for the inspiration leading to the sub-title of the book; Malika Ndlovu for permission to use her poem, Singing at the Centre, Dancing at the Periphery, commissioned for the 5 th International Conference on Researching Work and Learning hosted by the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town, 3 December 2007 in Stellenbosch, South Africa; The external reviewers of the manuscript for their helpful comments. Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za vi Acronyms ANC African National Congress CEO Chief Executive Officer CHE Council on Higher Education COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions DoE Department of Education (South Africa) DoL Department of Labour (South Africa) ETQA Education and Training Qualification Assurance body HSRC Human Sciences Research Council ILO International Labour Organization NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement NEPI National Education Policy Investigation/Initiative NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NQF National Qualifications Framework NSB National Standards Body NSFAS National Student Financial Aid Scheme OBE Outcomes-Based Education RPL Recognition of Prior Learning SAQA South African Qualifications Authority SETA Sector Education and Training Authority UK United Kingdom ULR Union Learning Representative UN United Nations UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization US United States UWC University of the Western Cape Wits University of the Witwatersrand Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za vii Singing at the Centre, Dancing at the Periphery Malika Ndlovu Even from the centre Where a song of 360º can be sung Where for half the planet a dawn is beckoning Precisely at the moment The other surrenders to a setting sun Even here At an axis from which much can be seen and shown There co-exists a different song, a slower dance Perhaps even in reverse Holding the secret to myriad perspectives From which we have yet to converse And if our song lengthens If we deepen our dance There’s a chance We can penetrate the surface of assumptions Scatter the shadows of doubt and cynicism Hanging in our skies Expanding our viewpoints Our definitions Liberating a vertical and horizontal mind’s eye Is your centre aware of mine? Who drew these polarities, these lines? If I am your periphery Are we not both at the mercy of gravity? We do not seek confusion We are the seekers of knowledge and clarity Merely releasing illusions Of authority Of superiority Of certainty Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za viii Opening ourselves to the endless fields of possibility Planting the seeds of questioning Into the fertile soil of this gathering Seeking the meeting of visions Listening deeply for the resonance The hidden harmonies Dance with me I bring my mountain to your shore Together we manifest more and more Listen to my story Buried in this song There is a place for each of us in it A space for all voices To belong Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za ix Introduction Linda Cooper and Shirley Walters Every 12 years UNESCO hosts a world conference on adult education known as CONFINTEA. A key message for the 2009 conference is that we know what policies and actions are needed for adult learning to make an impact on growing poverty and inequality worldwide. What is required now is action, with the necessary political and community will. The scholarship presented in this book feeds into these global debates and discussions by challenging dominant perspectives and providing illustrations of action located in a range of contexts in the South, North, East and West. Background to the genesis of the book This book has its genesis in the Fifth International Conference on Researching Work and Learning (RWL5), which was held in Cape Town, South Africa, in December 2007. The conference, which was co-hosted by University of Western Cape (UWC), the University of Cape Town (UCT), the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), attracted 330 scholars from 30 countries and provided the space for rethinking ‘work’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘learning’ within a context in which the global economy increasingly challenges the accepted dichotomies between home life and work life, between employment and unemployment, and between paid work and unpaid work. The conference took place against a background where globally and locally, in both the North and South, the social and economic impacts of globalisation have been uneven and contradictory, drawing new lines of inequality between core and periphery, between insiders and outsiders – those at the centre and those at the margins of contemporary society. As Bauman (1998) has noted, despite the new freedom of mobility at the centre of globalisation, this freedom to move is a scarce and unequally distributed commodity: ‘[b]eing on the move’ has a radically different sense for, respectively, those at the top and those at the bottom of the new hierarchy (1998: 4). Since the conference, the financial turmoil in the world has exacerbated these levels of poverty and insecurity. There is also a new diversity of work, with growing flexibilisation, virtualisation and rationalisation; blurring of boundaries between work and non-work; and an increasing spread of non-standard forms of work. Some developments, which at first glance might seem remote from the labour market (such as ecological changes), will be of great significance for the future of work (Beck 2000). The conference posed the question, What theoretical perspectives and evidence from empirical research might allow us to think more inclusively about work, knowledge Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za LEARNING/WORK x and learning, and in ways that are able to capture the diversity of experiences that constitute work and learning internationally? South(ern) African context The context within which the conference took place inevitably infused the shape and content of the conference, and this book. South Africa is the dominant economic power in southern Africa, a region consisting of 14 countries with a wide spread of developmental needs and great polarities between rich and poor. The countries of southern Africa are peripheral capitalist economies and their development has been shaped very directly by this fact, by colonialism, by the macro policies of international development agencies and by their socio-economic, environmental and cultural realities. Most of the countries of the region have experienced major political and economic upheavals in the last 50 years. During this time all of them have been through more or less traumatic processes of decolonisation. The last five countries to gain independence or liberation were Mozambique (1975), Angola (1975), Zimbabwe (1980), Namibia (1990) and South Africa (1994). All five have experienced extended liberation struggles and subsequent processes of reconstruction and development towards building new nations. The approaches adopted by the different countries were shaped strongly by dominant development theories of the time which reflect particular ideologies and material interests (see, for example, Youngman 2000), and since then the political and economic upheavals have continued to varying degrees, with ongoing contestations by citizens in response to the failures of governments to deliver ‘a better life’ for the majority. That 10 of the chapters in this book centre on South or southern Africa reflects the fact that the conference was held in that region. In addition, the contexts of the region provide a very useful lens to refract global phenomena, as migration of workers or employers is widespread in the area, and the economic North and South are intertwined in complex ways. The conference, and now the book, poses questions on the most useful understandings and approaches to work and lifelong learning in the interests of the majority of people who are engaging, most often at great personal and collective cost, in a wide spectrum of economic and social activities to sustain themselves and the environment. The collection of chapters challenges any simplistic understandings and argues that multiple viewpoints must be taken into account to understand learning/work, both locally and globally. However, this does not imply that a political and moral stand on the side of the majority of girls, boys, women and men throughout the world should not be taken. Implicit within many of the chapters is an argument for the promotion of what Prozesky (2007) refers to as ‘citizens of conscience’ who are concerned with ‘greater, sustainable well-being for all’. In several of the chapters, the attempts by South Africans to democratise and rebuild their economic and social lives after the devastating effects of years of legalised racial oppression (apartheid) and patriarchy are revealed in their diverse and textured ways. While the South African context is very specific, in many ways it also mirrors Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za [...]... consciousness in the learning organisation: Emancipation or exploitation?’, Adult Education Quarterly 53 no 4 (2003): 228–241 3 Hamburg Declaration on Adult Learning Accessed 13 August 2001, http :// www.unesco.org/ education/uie/confintea/declaeng.htm 4 Illiteracy ‘hinders world’s poor’ BBC News, 9 November 2005 Accessed 25 November 2007, http :// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4420772.stm 5 Exploitation... of these are the lack of debate about learning/ work for children who are workers (see Qvarsell 2007); the lack of any systematic discussion of the impact of different aspects of people’s lives, such as violence, sexuality and spirituality, on learning/ work; and the lack of deeper discussions on identity and community and how these understandings shape learning/ work xviii introduction Words about words... conception of lifelong learning is at the core of the neo-liberal articulation of the relations between education /learning/ training/skilling and the project of liberal democracy 5 Learning/ Work Despite the knowledge explosion on lifelong learning, 2 I still find the most comprehensive critique of the concept in Frank Coffield’s important article ‘Breaking the consensus: Lifelong learning as social control’... lifelong learning and work Fenwick (2005), in a review of research on learning and work between 1999 and 2004, notes that although the field of work and learning has ‘expanded in an unprecedented volume of publication and diverse perspectives’ (2005: 1), nevertheless ‘[a]n overall impression is that power and politics is not a topic that xi Learning/ Work is receiving much attention in research on workplace... the health care sector…Change-oriented workplace learning processes across the sectors…are necessary for sustainable development… xix Learning/ Work In summary, the authors in this book argue that power relations are key to understanding learning/ work processes, and that the global political economy and policy contexts have shaped social relations and impacted on learning processes, knowledge hierarchies,... and learning in migrant/immigrant working-class communities in the US and India Trade unions are engaging with workplace training, and contesting the limits and constraints of work- based learning: Spencer’s chapter focuses on the role of unions in democratising education in the workplace; Forrester and Li document campaigning and critical union dimensions to national policy initiatives in workbased learning; ... either/or to a both/and understanding of them In the title of the book we have tried to capture this by linking learning/ work in order to encourage a different way of talking about how these processes are observed and experienced Building capacity for researching learning/ work in South(ern) africa In South Africa, after 15 years of implementing bold new education and training strategies to enhance learning. .. importance of a feminist framing both to understand learning/ work and to explore possibilities for creating positive change Shahrzad Mojab of the University of Toronto, and one of the conference keynote speakers, invited the research community to ‘turn work and lifelong learning inside out’ There are two key dimensions to this notion of turning work and lifelong learning inside out The first is that we cannot... transform ‘workplaces of dislocation’, workplace struggles have to be ‘fought from the inside out’: those at the heart of the system of exploitation but on the periphery of the international labour market in terms of social power – migrant workers, contract workers, women workers – have to lead in forging new ways of organising towards a more just and fair system of work Thus it is not enough to research work. .. education and training strategies to enhance learning at work and realise a more equitable and just society, there is growing realisation that it is time to pause and investigate systematically what works, what does not work, and why It is time to turn work and lifelong learning inside out, in order to re-examine understandings of work, knowledge and learning The chapters in this book help to do this Never . questions and priorities for work and learning 16 Astrid von Kotze 3 Hard/soft, formal/informal, learning/ work: Tenuous/persistent binaries in the knowledge-based. 249 Workers organising /learning 251 18 Learning democracy from North–South worker exchanges 252 Judith Marshall 19 The desire for something better: Learning