In Learning/Work, thirty-four scholars challenge established understandings of lifelong learning and work, with several arguing that ‘work’ and ‘lifelong learning’ need to be ‘turned inside out’ through a rigorous critique of underlying social relations and practices, so that we can understand the power relations that shape their possibilities.

Cooper and Walters write in the introduction to Learning/Work that “there is a new diversity of work, with growing flexibility, virtualisation and rationalisation; blurring boundaries between work and non-work; and an increasing spread of non-standard forms of work.

“Some developments which at first glance seem remote from the labour market (such as ecological changes), will be of great significance for the future of work.”

They quote Beck from Brave New World of Work in saying that “the (UNESCO adult education) conference posed a question: What theoretical perspectives and evidence from empirical research might allow us to think more inclusively about work, knowledge and learning, and in ways that are able to capture the diversity of experiences that constitute work and learning internationally?”

In Learning/Work, thirty-four top scholars from ten countries challenge established understandings of lifelong learning and work, with several arguing that ‘work’ and ‘lifelong learning’ need to be ‘turned inside out’ through a rigorous critique of underlying social relations and practices, so that we can understand the power relations that shape their possibilities.

In various ways, the 25 chapters that make up this volume are infused with imaginings of alternative futures which prioritise social justice and sustainability for the majority in the world.

Designed for scholars and practitioners, reviewers have found this to be “a provocative counter-narrative to knowledge economy discourses (with) easy conflation of work with learning and life.”

The chapters are as follows:

Section One: Challenging Perspectives

Challenging dominant discourses
1. Turning work and lifelong learning inside out
Shahrzad Mojab
2. But what will we eat? Research questions and priorities for work and learning
Astrid von Kotze
3. Hard/soft, formal/informal, work/learning
Kaela Jubas and Shauna Butterwick
4. Making different equal? Rifts and rupture in state and policy: the National Qualifications Framework in South Africa
Rosemary Lugg
5. “Where can I find a conference on short courses?”
Shirley Walters and Freda Daniels
Critiquing structural inequalities
6. Challenging donor agendas in adult and workplace education in Timor-Leste
Bob Boughton
7. University drop-out and researching work and (lifelong) learning
Moeketsi Letseka
8. Discourses of diversity and merit and exclusionary practices: Barriers to entry and progression in the UK solicitors’ profession
Hilary Sommerlad with Jane Stapleford
9. Reflections on a decade of research on Canadian teachers’ work and learning
Paul Tarc and Harry Smaller
10. Migration and organizing: Between periphery and centre
Anannya Bhattacharjee
11. Peripheralization, exploitation and lifelong learning in Canadian Guest Worker Programmes
Peter H. Sawchuk and Arlo Kempf

Section Two: Recognizing Knowledges

Section Three: Exploring Possibilities, Creating Change

Workers organizing/learning
18. Learning democracy from North-South worker exchanges
Judith Marshall
19. The desire for something better: Learning and organizing in the new world of work
Tony Brown
20. Offering a new perspective on the ‘learning organization’: A case study of a South African trade union
Linda Cooper
21. Learning at work and in the union
Bruce Spencer
22. Learning, practice and democracy: Exploring union learning
Keith Forrester and Hsun-Chih Li
Pedagogical innovations in Higher Education
23. Critical friends sharing socio-cultural influences on personal and professional identity
Vivienne Bozalek and Lear Matthews
24. Towards effective partnerships in training community learning and development workers
John Bamber and Clara O’Shea
25. Insights from an environmental education research programme in South Africa Heila Lotz-Sisitka

Purchase the book online, or download a free PDF version of Learning/Work, edited by Linda Cooper and Shirley Walters.