Sense of Workplace Learning

Abstract

Workplace Learning, an integral element of vocational, occupational and professional education and training, is oriented towards gainful employment and professionalism (Blankertz 1977; Billett 2008), but can also be related to non-remunerated work (e.g. charity or community work and similar post-employment activities) (Sonntag and Stegmaier 2007; Tynjala 2008). The corresponding learning and developmental processes take place in workplace settings—especially for purposes of gainful employment for unskilled workers as well as those aspiring to advance their careers. Workplace learning occurs at various loci and in multiple modi: For structuring and specifying these different types of workplace learning, literature differentiates between “labor-integrated learning” which is part of the labor processes themselves and which occur while conducting the work tasks and solving problems (like the development of expertise in skills on “comprehending medical visualizations” such as X-rays and ultrasounds. See the contribution of Gegenfurtner, Lehtinen and Saljo, this issue); and “labor-related learning” which explicitly results from educational or training interventions aside to the value creation processes such as during meetings at the shop floor—like in a Change Laboratory used within the studies of Rantavuori, Engestrom and Kerosuo and Taras and Lasonen in this issue; and training courses, counseling sessions, vocational schools, continuing education programs, virtual learning communities etc.—as informal or formal learning (Sonntag and Stegmaier 2007; Stenstrom and Tynjala 2010; Malloch et al. 2011). Depending on historical traditions workplace learning—especially for gainful employment—is shaped in a more structured way and has to deal with different tensions of diverse stakeholders (employees’ and employers’ unions, governments etc.) like within the dual system of vocational education in Germany (Achtenhagen and Grubb 2001; Achtenhagen and Thang 2002) each with a different set of goals. Vocations and Learning (2013) 6:1–9 DOI 10.1007/s12186-012-9092-y