Work, Subjectivity and Learning: Understanding Learning through Working Life

In recent year, efforts to understand learning for and throughout working life have moved away from a focus on workplace training to concerns about learning as a component and outcome of engaging in work and work-related activities and interactions. This shift acknowledges a broader set of workplace factors that shape workers’ learning and development. Yet equally, it acknowledges that this learning through engagement is also necessarily shaped by the diverse ways that individuals elect to engage or participate in workplace activities. Central here is the issue of individuals’ subjectivity and how this is shaped by but shapes engagement in work and, therefore, what learning flows from their participation. It is in considering the relations among subjectivity, learning and work that it is possible to advance both the conceptual and procedural bases for understanding learning through and for working life. Moreover, the focus on relations among subjectivity, work and learning represents a point of convergence for diverse disciplinary traditions and practices that are provided by the book’s contributors. In this way, the contributions represent something of the emerging perspectives that are elaborating the complex relations among subjectivity, work and learning, and circumstances in which they are played out.

In recent year, efforts to understand learning for and throughout working life have moved away from a focus on workplace training to concerns about learning as a component and outcome of engaging in work and work-related activities and interactions. This shift acknowledges a broader set of workplace factors that shape workers’ learning and development. Yet equally, it acknowledges that this learning through engagement is also necessarily shaped by the diverse ways that individuals elect to engage or participate in workplace activities. Central here is the issue of individuals’ subjectivity and how this is shaped by but shapes engagement in work and, therefore, what learning flows from their participation. It is in considering the relations among subjectivity, learning and work that it is possible to advance both the conceptual and procedural bases for understanding learning through and for working life. Moreover, the focus on relations among subjectivity, work and learning represents a point of convergence for diverse disciplinary traditions and practices that are provided by the book’s contributors. In this way, the contributions represent something of the emerging perspectives that are elaborating the complex relations among subjectivity, work and learning, and circumstances in which they are played out.