Turning Points in Adult Learning Trajectories

Author(s):

Karen Evans(presenting / submitting)Edmund Waite Martina Behrens

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

02 SES 05 A, VET And Lifelong Learning: Adult Learning, Hybrid Qualifications And Credit Transfer

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

11:00-12:30

Room:

FCT - Aula 21

Chair:

Pekka Ilmari Kamarainen

Contribution

The paper explores how workplace courses designed to develop ‘basic skills’ influence the career orientations and trajectories of employees at the lower end of the earnings distribution, taking account of the interaction of personal, institutional and broader economic factors. How do shifts in career orientations that may occur as a result of participation in workplace courses, affect working practices?; how are they influenced by working practices over the long-term?. What personal, institutional and macro factors determine the subsequent development of individual career orientations and longer term trajectories?

The concept of career trajectories is typically used in work on transitions of young adults into the labour market, providing ideal type segmented routes that can be used to understand a variety of personal histories (Evans and Heinz 1994). In adult life, routes diverge, experiences diversify still further and multiplicities of new contingencies come into play ( Ecclestone et al 2009; Alheit and Dausien 2002; Biesta,2007). In researching adults’ life and work experiences, initial career trajectories take on historical significance. This paper discusses the relationships between adult employees’ individual behaviours in relation to learning (which we see as manifestations of their learning and career orientations) and the opportunities afforded to them through their workplaces. In previous Anglo-German comparative work, Evans and Heinz (1994) and Evans, Behrens and Kaluza (2000) identified ‘transition behaviours’ as patterns of activity that young people adopt in attempting to realize their personal interests and occupational goals through occupational and educational opportunity structures. Transition is a process that starts, for young adults, with educational achievement, occupational ‘choice’ (however restricted) applying for and taking up jobs as well as establishing independent personal and family lives. These processes continue in adult life with activities undertaken with the aims of maintaining employment, changing employment, balancing work and family life, finding personal fulfilment. They may be considered transitional where they involve changes in the adult’s orientations to learning and career. Behaviours in relation to learning are the patterns of activity that people adopt in relation to learning opportunities available to them, in this case workplace programmes involving the development of ‘adult basic skills’ and varying degrees of opportunity to learn through new workplace and life experiences . These are not indicative of enduring personal attributes such as personal flexibility or rigidity, but they do indicate complex sets of adults’ motivations, beliefs and attitudes towards learning and their own capabilities to achieve in and through learning ( Kirpal, 2011). These orientations can change according to specific experiences of success or failure, opportunities or setbacks at any stage. Orientations towards work and career, similarly, comprise complex sets of motivations, beliefs and attitudes rooted in actual life experiences. They involve bounded forms of agency (Evans 2002,2009;Behrens and Evans, 2002) that direct action. Using this framework allows an elucidation of experiences that are transitional for adult employees in changing their learning or work/ career orientations and allows comparisons with what actually happens in their work and personal lives after engagement in new learning, in career and personal events that ensue.

The research was carried out through the ESRC-funded LLAKES Centre: Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies.

Method

The UK research has undertaken structured interviews with 564 employees in 55 UK organizations from sectors including transport, food manufacturing, engineering, health and local government. Each learner was assessed early on in the course. Follow-up structured interviews and literacy assessments were been undertaken in order to trace developments in literacy levels and working practices over time (Wolf and Evans, 2011). In addition, three phases of in-depth interviews have been undertaken with a sub-sample of 66 learners from 10 sites as well as with their relevant managers and tutors. Research informants have been asked to reflect on their experiences, looking back on influences and events. In this way ‘types’ can be checked against individual interpretations of where people think they are coming from, are going to and how they make sense of their experiences in the context of their present employment and life situation. In comparative perspective, this is generating new hypotheses about how these patterns compare with the learning lives of adults in Germany. An extended dialogue between ideas and evidence (Ragin 1991) allows comparisons with evidence yielded by EU-Leonardo surveys carried collaboratively out with Heidegger (2001-8) to elucidate structural and cultural influences on adults' learning in England and Germany.

Expected Outcomes

The results underline the advantages of workplace provision in providing an accessible and convenient opportunity for learning that also tends to be less prone to the more intimidating associations of formal educational environments for learning . Such provision has a significant impact in responding to employees’ shifting learning orientations since childhood and in allowing individuals to address the legacy of previously negative educational experiences. However the impact of such provision on the career attitudes and trajectories of employees is likely to be eroded over time unless the broader organizational setting supports the ongoing practice and development of skills and provides pathways for career development that are responsive to shifting career orientations. The affordances of the workplace (or those features of the workplace environment that invite us to engage and learn) are enhanced or limited according to the wider social ecologies that are embedded and reflected in the employment relationship. While working environments rooted in social partnership models may provide more stimulus for adult learning, comparisons with data yielded by surveys of adult employees in Germany (e.g.Heidegger 2001-8) are expected to highlight some significant barriers to changes of direction and new skills utilization for adults at lower ends of the earnings distribution.

References

Alheit, P. and Dausien, L. (2002). The Double Face of Lifelong Learning: two analytical perspectives in a learning revolution. Studies in the Education of Adults, Vol. 34, pp. 3-22. Biesta, G. and Tedder, M. (2007) Agency and Learning in the Lifecourse: Towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, Volume 39, Number 2, pp 132-149 Behrens, M. and Evans, K. (2002). Taking control of their lives? A comparison of the experi-ences of unemployed young adults (18-25) in England and the new Germany. Comparative Education, No. 38, pp. 17-37. Ecclestone, K., Biesta, G. and Hughes, M. (eds) (2009) Lost in Transition?: Change and Becoming through the Lifecourse, Routledge London: Routledge Falmer Evans, K., Behrens, M and Kaluza, J. (2000) Learning and Work in the Risk Society: Lessons for the labour markets of Europe from Eastern Germany, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Evans, K. (2009) Learning Work and Social Responsibility: challenges for lifelong learning in a global age. Dordrecht: Springer. Evans, K. and Heinz, W.R. Heinz (1994) Becoming Adults in England and Germany, Anglo-German Foundation, London and Bonn Heidegger G et al ( 2001- 2008) Reports from collaborative EU Surveys and Analysis projects on adult learning and CVT; www.biat.uni_flensburg.de Heinz, W.R. (2007) Der Lebenslauf: Von der Kindheit bis zum Alter; in: H. Joas (Hrsg.): Textbuch Soziologie (3. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage); pp.159-182. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus Verlag. Kersh, N.(2010) The spatial dimensions of Skills for Life workplace provision in Brooks, R. et al ( eds.) 'New Spaces of Education: The Changing Nature of Learning in 21st Century, London: Routledge Kirpal, S. (2011) Labour-Market Flexibility and Individual Careers: A Comparative Study, Dordrecht: Springer. Ragin,C.(1991). The Problem of Balancing Cases with Variables in Comparative Social Science. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol. XXXII, pp1-8. Wolf, A and Evans, K. (2011) Improving Literacy at Work, London: Routledge

Author Information

Karen Evans (presenting / submitting)

Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom

Edmund Waite

Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom

Martina Behrens

University of Bedfordshire

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