Between work and learning: on pedagogic practice and interstitial space

Abstract

In this paper I develop a response to a continuing problem in work–learning research, the connections between education, learning and work. These connections are commonly conceived in terms of the concept of transfer, integration or boundary crossing. Thinking these connections in this way, I claim, serves to consolidate a unitary, stable and fixed idea of the relationship between learning in educational institutions and work and inadvertently reduce its complexity. Drawing on empirical data collected over the course of qualitatively exploring the links between a problem-based program of teacher education (‘learning’) and the practice of participants in this program upon initial employment in schools (‘work’), and deploying actor network theory, I trace new sorts of associations between work and learning and propose a relational conception of their connection. Challenging the common counter-positioning of work and learning, empirical analysis reveals their mutual constitution and partial connection in practices, here, of a predominantly pedagogic and spatial/material kind. Practices that occupy interstitial spaces have a particular resonance with regard to challenging this counter-positioning and unsettling the hierarchies of value which often arise from it.

Keywords:

• workplace learning
• institutionalised learning
• pedagogic practice
• interstitial space
• relationality
• problem-based learning