Learning in the circumstances of practice

Abstract

Learning in the circumstances of practice stands as the commonest and most enduring way occupational capacities have been learnt across human history, and, likely, are currently learnt. Yet, a comprehensive account of this means of learning remains absent, which limits the legitimacy of workplaces as sites of learning, the learning arising from them and understandings of how to organize, promote and evaluate that learning. When advancing this account, it is necessary to avoid being constrained by the discourse of schooling and orthodoxies of schooled societies, which can distort considerations of learning through practice on its own terms. When reviewed, anthropological and historical literature on learning occupational practices outside of educational provisions offers fresh suggestions including that such an account likely comprise elements of practice curriculum and pedagogies and personal epistemologies, albeit set within particular complexes of cultural, societal and situational factors. A key distinction arising from such a review is the emphasis on individuals’ active processes of learning and how these are enacted in the circumstances of practice, rather than on teaching or instruction. Such a distinction runs deep in this literature and has consequences for conceptions of understandings and efforts to promote and improve learning through practice.

Keywords:

• learning
• learning through practice
• occupational knowledge
• workplace learning

Notes

1. This comment was made by the librarian at the Joseph Needham Centre at the University of Cambridge, John P.C. Moffett.

2. Prof Nigel Wood from the University of Oxford.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Billett

Stephen Billett is Professor of Adult and Vocational Education in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia and also an Australian Research Council Future Fellow.