Session Information
Contribution
Research questions
The global transformation of work and economic life makes the research on adults’ education to orientate itself towards the learning processes of working life (Solomon et al., 2008; Toiviainen and Engeström, 2009). The notion on the situated learning at work is well-known, originally explored through the practices of relatively traditional, craft-based communities (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Today learning and education at work do not seem to be naturally implemented or tacitly embedded in the activities that rather represent transformation and a break with the past (cf. Edwards, 2005). Consequentially, a domain specific professional expertise will provide an inadequate readiness to give instruction to less experienced, and experts have to assume the role of educator and cultural mediator. This is observable in the globally distributed design engineering in a forest industry consulting company with a deeply-rooted tradition of local teams. The long-term ethnography is needed to take a view of the emerging practices. The research questions are: 1) How is this educational and cultural shift taking place and articulated in the collaborative actions and dialogue among the engineers educating and being educated? 2) What is the potential of the research partnership and the network ethnographic methods (Wittel, 2000) for mediating learning?
Objectives
This study is based on a long-standing research and development partnership between the university and the company with the aim of analyzing the learning challenges connected to networking, and developing the knowledge practices of a globalizing design engineering activity. The paper synthesizes the outcomes of the fieldwork, during which the researchers followed one of the first largely distributed designing projects in Finland, Central Europe and China. The company-university partnership shapes the objectives making them two-fold: “Learning networked design activity” (practical-developmental objective for the company) and “Exploring the cultural multi-mediation of learning in networks” (theoretical-methodological objective for the research).
Theoretical framework
The significance of cultural mediation in studying the change of the societal practices is based on the cultural-historical activity theory (Vygotsky 1978; Chaiklin et al., 1999; Daniels et al., 2007). The tools and practices to organise collaboration are culturally created and offered, whereas the internalisation by individuals takes place through participation in external mediated activity (Lektorsky, 2009).
Earlier activity theoretical research on work activities of a high expertise has pointed out that the different conceptions of work articulated by individual professionals can be traced back to the history of professional practice and theory, and these differences manifest themselves on the choice and use of tools. The introduction of a new tool to the community should be connected to the use of other tools (Engeström, 1990). Miettinen (2005, p. 66) summarises, “the creative cultural contribution of an individual often consists of being able to participate simultaneously in several activities or in the capacity of being able to combine or synthesize the cultural resources of these activities in novel ways to create new collective objects and motives.” These theoretical resources will be used to analyze the tools creation and cultural mediation of learning in a network context characteristic of the topic.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Chaiklin, S., Hedegaard, M. & Juul Jensen, U. (1999), Activity Theory and Social Practice: Cultural-Historical Approaches, Aarhus University Press, Aarhus. Daniels, H., Cole, M. & Wertsch, J. V., eds. (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky. USA: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, A. (2005). Let’s get beyond community and practice: the many meanings of learning by participating. The Curriculum Journal, 16(1), 49–65. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Helsinki: Orienta-konsultit Oy. Engeström, Y. (1990). When is a tool? Multiple meanings of artifacts in human activity. In: Y. Engeström, Learning, Working and Imagining: Twelve Studies in Activity Theory. Helsinki: Orienta-konsultit Oy, 171-195. Kerosuo, H. & Engeström, Y. (2003). Boundary crossing and learning in creation of new work practice. Journal of Workplace Learning, 15(7/8), 345-351. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lektorsky, V. A. (2009). Mediation as a Means of Collective Activity. In: A. Sannino, H. Daniels & Gutiérrez, K. D. (eds), Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory. NY: Cambridge University Press, 75-87. Miettinen, R. (2005). Object of Activity and Individual Motivation. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 12(1), 52-69. Solomon, N., Boud, D. & Rooney, D. (2008). The in-between: Exposing everyday learning at work. In K. Hall, P. Murphy & J. Soler (Eds), Pedagogy and Practice: Culture and Identities. London: Sage, 75-84. Toiviainen, H. & Engeström, Y. (2009). Expansive learning in and for work. In Harry Daniels, Hugh Lauder and Jill Porter (eds), Knowledge, Values and Education Policy: A critical perspective. New York: Routledge, 95-109. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978), Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Wittel, A. (2000). Ethnography on the move: From field to net to Internet. Forum Qualitative Social Research FQS, Vol. 1, No. 1, Art. 21.
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