Abstract
Conventional research approaches typically conceptualise learning within and for work in terms of two separate entities: subject and object. More specifically, the individual subject who is learning is considered to be independent of the work to be learned. In contrast, practice-based approaches commonly emphasise the relation, rather than separateness, of subject and work. In this chapter, we engage with phenomenology in extending previous accounts of learning within and for work by bringing to the fore the manner in which practice is constituted through the entwinement of life with world.
We elaborate a lifeworld perspective on researching work-related learning, which challenges the ontological assumption of a subject-object constellation in significant ways. This challenge is pertinent whether subject and object are seen as independent of each other (as in conventional approaches) or as becoming related during performance of work (in several practice-based approaches). We explore how entwinement with world makes learning possible, while pointing to ways in which a lifeworld perspective affords novel resources for informing and enhancing research on learning within and for work.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Names of research participants have been changed for reasons of anonymity and quotes from medical students have been translated from Swedish.
References
Atwell, G. (2009). The social impact of personal learning environments. In S. Wheeler (Ed.), Connected minds, emerging cultures: Cybercultures in online learning (pp. 119–137). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
Barnacle, R. (2005). Research education ontologies: Exploring doctoral becoming. Higher Education Research and Development, 24(2), 179–188.
Barnett, R. (2007). A will to learn: Being a student in an age of uncertainty. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.
Bartky, S. L. (1979). Heidegger and the modes of world disclosure. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 40, 212–236.
Berliner, D. (1994). Expertise: The wonder of exemplary performances. In J. Mangieri & C. Block (Eds.), Creating powerful thinking in teachers and students: Diverse perspectives (pp. 161–186). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College.
Billett, S. (1999). Guided learning at work. In D. Boud & J. Garrick (Eds.), Understanding learning at work (pp. 151–164). London: Routledge.
Billett, S. (2001). Knowing in practice: Reconceptualising vocational expertise. Learning and Instruction, 11, 431–452.
Billett, S. (2010). Learning through practice. In S. Billett (Ed.), Learning through practice: Models, traditions, orientations and approaches. Dordrecht: Springer.
Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge and theory of organizations: Organizations as activity systems and reframing of management. Journal of Management Studies, 30, 863–864.
Blake, N., Smeyers, P., Smith, R., & Standish, P. (2000). Education in an age of nihilism. London: Routledge Falmer.
Blattner, W. (2006). Heidegger’s being and time: A reader’s guide. London/New York: Continuum International.
Boshuizen, H. P. A., & Schmidt, H. G. (1992). On the role of biomedical knowledge in clinical reasoning by experts, intermediates and novices. Cognitive Science, 16, 153–184.
Chia, R., & Holt, R. (2006). Strategy as practical coping: A Heideggerian perspective. Organization Studies, 27, 635–655.
Collier, G. L. (2004). A comparison of novices and experts in the identification of sonar signals. Speech Communication, 43, 297–310.
Crowell, S. G. (2005). Heidegger and Husserl: The matter of method of philosophy. In H. L. Dreyfus & M. A. Wrathall (Eds.), A companion to Heidegger (pp. 49–64). Cornwall: Blackwell.
Dall’Alba, G. (2005). Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers. Higher Education Research and Development, 24, 361–372.
Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Learning to be professionals. Dordrecht: Springer.
Dall’Alba, G., & Barnacle, R. (2007). An ontological turn for higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 32, 679–691.
Dall’Alba, G., & Sandberg, J. (2006). Unveiling professional development: A critical review of stage models. Review of Educational Research, 76, 383–412.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Collier Books.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2002). Intelligence without representation – Merleau-Ponty’s critique of mental representation. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1, 367–383.
Engeström, Y. (1993). Development studies of work as a test bench of activity theory: The case of primary care medical practice. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context (pp. 64–103). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Engeström, Y., & Miettinen, R. (1999). Introduction. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 1–16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Engeström, Y., Miettinen, R., & Punamaki, R. (Eds.). (1999). Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A., & Smith, J. (1991). Toward a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fox, S. (2006). Inquiries of every imaginable kind: Ethnomethodology, practical action and the new socially situated learning theory. The Sociological Review, 54, 426–445.
Gherardi, S. (2006). Organizational knowledge: The texture of workplace learning. Oxford: Blackwell.
Gherardi, S. (2010). Telemedicine: A practice-based approach to technology. Human Relations, 63(4), 501–524.
Gherardi, S., & Perrotta, M. (2011). Egg dates sperm: A tale of practice change and its stabilization. Organization, 18(5), 595–614.
Gibbs, P. (2011). Heidegger’s contribution to the understanding of work-based studies. Dordrecht: Springer.
Giorgi, A. (1992). The theory, practice and evaluation of the phenomenological method as a qualitative research procedure for the human sciences. Quebec: Universite du Quebec a Montreal.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York: SCM Press. (Original work published 1927)
Heidegger, M. (1968). What is called thinking? (T. F. D. Wieck & J. G. Gray, Trans.). New York: Harper Row.
Husserl, E. (1970a). Logical investigations, Vol. 2 (J. N. Findlay, Trans.). London: Routledge. (Original work published 1900–1901)
Husserl, E. (1970b). The crisis of the European sciences (D. Carr, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1936)
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Inwagen, P. (2001). Ontology, identity and modality: Essays in metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Inwood, M. (2000). Heidegger: A very short introduction. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
King, M. (2001). A guide to Heidegger’s being and time. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Lave, J. (1993). The practice of learning. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context (pp. 3–32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1945)
Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice. Durham: Duke University Press.
Moran, D. (2000a). Introduction to phenomenology. London: Routledge.
Moran, D. (2000b). Heidegger’s critique of Husserl’s and Brentano’s accounts of intentionality. Inquiry, 43, 39–66.
Morell, E. (2004). Becoming critical researchers: Literacy and empowerment for urban youth. New York: Peter Lang.
Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D. (Eds.). (2003). Knowing in organizations: A practice-based approach. Arnmonk: M. E Sharpe.
Packer, M., & Goicoechea, J. (2000). Sociocultural and constructivist theories of learning: Ontology, not just epistemology. Educational Psychologist, 35, 227–241.
Prawat, R. S. (1998). Current self-regulation views of learning and motivation viewed through a Deweyan lens: The problems with dualism. American Educational Research Journal, 35, 199–224.
Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practices. A development in culturalist theorising. European Journal of Social Theory, 5, 243–263.
Sandberg, J., & Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Returning to practice anew: A life-world perspective. Organization Studies, 30, 1349–1368.
Sandberg, J., & Pinnington, A. (2009). Professional competence as ways of being: An existential phenomenological perspective. Journal of Management Studies, 46, 1138–1170.
Sandberg, J., & Tsoukas, H. (2011). Grasping the logic of practice: Theorizing through practical rationality. Academy of Management Review, 36, 338–360.
Schatzki, T. R. (2002). The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Schatzki, T. R., Knorr-Cetina, K., & Savigny, E. (Eds.). (2001). The practice turn in contemporary theory. London: Routledge.
Schutz, A. (1945). On multiple realities. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 5, 533–575.
Semin, G. R., & Gergen, G. J. (Eds.). (1990). Everyday understanding: Social and scientific implications. London: Sage.
Spiegelberg, H. (1982). The phenomenological movement (3rd revised ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Stålsby Lundborg, C., Wahlström, R., & Dall’Alba, G. (1999). Ways of experiencing asthma management: Variations among general practitioners in Sweden. Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, 17, 226–231.
Thomson, I. (2001). Heidegger on ontological education, or: How we become what we are. Inquiry, 44, 243–268.
van Manen, M. (1977). Linking ways of knowing with ways of being practical. Curriculum Inquiry, 6, 205–228.
van Manen, M. (1999). Knowledge, reflection and complexity in teacher practice. In M. Lange & J. Olson (Eds.), Changing schools, changing practices: Perspectives on educational reform and teacher professionalism (pp. 65–76). Luvain: Garant.
Vu, T. T., & Dall’Alba, G. (2011). Becoming authentic professionals: Learning for authenticity. In L. Scanlon (Ed.), ‘Becoming’ a professional: An interdisciplinary analysis of professional learning (pp. 95–108). Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer.
Webster-Wright, A. (2010). Authentic professional learning: Making a difference through learning at work. Dordrecht/New York: Springer.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1991). A sociocultural approach to socially shared cognition. In L. B. Resnick, J. M. Levine, & S. D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 85–100). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Whittington, R. (2006). Completing the practice turn in strategy research. Organization Studies, 27, 613–634.
Whittington, R., & Vaara, E. (2012). Strategy-as-practice: Taking social practices seriously. The Academy of Management Annals, 6, 285–336.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dall’Alba, G., Sandberg, J. (2014). A Phenomenological Perspective on Researching Work and Learning. In: Billett, S., Harteis, C., Gruber, H. (eds) International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-8901-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-8902-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)