This paper critiques popular theoretical bases underpinning current research in education and training whilst drawing on a number of studies conducted by the authors as examples.It raises issues and questions surrounding notions of organizational learning, workplace learning, work-based learning, vocational education and training and the current popular theoretical bases they draw upon.The paper argues that while theoretical emphases such as Lave and Wenger's "legitimate peripheral practice" and "communities of practice" have opened up useful discussion and research, the overall field of "Work and Learning" now needs considerable rejuvenation in the theoretical bases upon which it rests.Issues surrounding the ideas of what "work" has become in the 21st century and the place and nature of "learning" and learner agency and applicability (as different from transfer) will be discussed.The paper will challenge some of the current theoretical rationales in the Vocational Education and Training fields and will do so by drawing on research conducted by the authors over the past few years.Whilst the paper is not a research report of any one specific study it offers a significant critique of a key set of theoretical assumptions underpinning much recent research.This presentation will also draw on international research in which the authors have been involved over the past decade in the UK and Australia to support aspects of the discussion.The research drawn upon for this paper includes an Australian national study on 'The Use and Value of Vocational Education and Training Qualifications to Employers' (Townsend, Waterhouse and Malloch, 2004, forthcoming) and a series of studies for the OCR in the UK which has examined NVQs and the learning milieu. (Stephenson, J., Williams, R., Cairns, L and Critten, P., The Contribution of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) to the Learning Milieu of the Work-Place, Final Report, November, 1999. (43pps) and Cairns, L.G., and Stephenson, J., "Peripheral Social Learning in the Workplace and the development of Corporate Capability: The Role of NVQs", Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 53 (3), 2001, 443-446.)
