Work‐based learning in Canada and the United Kingdom: a framework for understanding knowledge transfer for workers with low skills and higher skills

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how knowledge of different kinds is put to work in workplace education programmes for adults with low skills and adults with higher skills. A novel framework, which has moved beyond narrow conceptions of ‘transfer’ to concentrate on different forms of knowledge and the ways these are recontextualised as people move between sites of learning, was used to examine three work‐based programmes in Canada. The aim was to compare the Canadian results with those obtained from six work‐based exemplar programmes previously analysed according to the framework in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that the seven elements in the framework hold some explanatory power across a wide variety of workforce upskilling programmes as well as across learner skill levels and at the same time help to focus in on four kinds of knowledge recontextualisations.