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Symposium Session 8C - Looking at Europe and Beyond
- Overview of contents
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Workplace Learning Processes in Dutch Vocational Education and Training
Developing and Transforming Dispositions through Workplace Experiences
Chair: David Guile, University of London, Institute of Education
Looking at Europe and Beyond: Synthesising European and Australian Findings on Workplace Learning
Loek Nieuwenhuis, University of Twente, THE NETHERLANDS
Alan Brown, University of Warwick, ENGLAND
Cindy Poortman, University of Twente, THE NETHERLANDS
Stephen Billett, Griffith University, AUSTRALIA
Vive Aarkrog, Danish University of Education, DENMARK
Symposium Overview
Economic growth and international competition among companies and countries are expected to be supported through lifelong learning of workers (OECD, 1996). Vocational Education and Training may provide a solid basis for lifelong learning of future workers, by already combining working and learning in initial trajectories. In companies, daily learning at work is viewed as an important source of competence development. Consequently, workplace learning is subject of high expectations. However, it may not automatically lead to the desired results (Säljö, 2003) and may even be subject to significant limitations (Billett, 2001). This symposium aims to bring together findings of research projects intended to describe and support processes of workplace learning in different countries in Europe and Australia. The research findings are discussed in a frame where researchers have to translate the implications of the development of lifelong learning strategies in increasingly globalised and competitive societies in their particular national contexts. Consequently, the symposium will focus on the question how workplace learning may contribute to the challenges with which present-day economies are faced.
In this symposium we would like to emphasize the relation between workplace learning strategies in initial VET and the transfer of skills to working life. The transition from student status, through apprentice status to worker status has many open questions both on the level of individual processes as well as on institutional level. Where learning processes can be described universally, institutional processes are embedded within national contexts. We would like to disentangle these levels of debate, by comparing research outcomes on work place learning from different countries and research traditions. Therefore, we brought together research on work place learning from Australia, Denmark, United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Additionally, the symposium will address issues drawn from attempts at knowledge exchange, combination, development and synthesis between research carried out in national projects or programmes. For UK and NL research from a larger research program will be presented (UK: TLRP; NL: “the learning potential of the workplace”). This offers a good opportunity to learn and discuss also research traditions in different countries on the transition from VET to work.
References:
- Billett, S. (2001). Learning in the workplace: Strategies for effective practice. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. OECD. (1996). Lifelong learning for all. Paris: OECD.
- Säljö, R. (2003). Epilogue: From transfer to boundary-crossing. In T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds.), Between school and work: New perspectives on transfer and boundary-crossing (pp. 311-321). Amsterdam: Pergamon, Elsevier Science.
