Trainers and learners constructing a community of practice: Masculine work cultures and learning safety in the mining industry

Abstract

This article begins with the practical problem of the failure of training in safe work practices to result in changes to the rate of accident and injury in mining workplaces. A review of the literature in workplace training and workplace learning suggests that there has been little investigation of the relationship between how trainers train, and what learners learn in the workplace. Interviews and participant observation were carried out with 20 mine workers in a coal-mining organisation and seven trainers in a Mines Rescue Service about masculine work cultures and teaching and learning safety in the mining industry. In this article we analyse the cultures of mine work in which trainers and mine workers operate and specifically, their responses about their teaching and learning practices. Analysis suggests that even though trainers and workers do not work in the same organisation or geographical location, they co-participate in the ongoing construction of a community of practice that reinforces strong implicit masculine storylines. Mine workers were found to learn safety through the experience of doing their work, while trainers report safety training using simulated environments and codified practice. Understanding how mine workers learn safety in the workplace, within a community of practice, is critical to attempts to improve safety training and safety records.