Professional learning in new ecologies of knowledge

Approaches and concepts to explore

the relationship of knowledge to learning

in professional practice

ProPEL Symposium, Stirling, 24.06.10

Monika Nerland

Shifts in conditions for professional work

Professionalism infused with managerialism– Accountability regimes– Performance indicators, output measures– Individualization of responsibilities– But, also more emphasis on collaboration

Epistemification: A ’spill-over’ of epistemic culture– Increased emphasis on science-generated knowledge– More abstract and symbolic inputs– A quest for transparency in knowledge creation and use– The spread of epistemic practice – ways of exploring,

testing, validating, documenting knowledge

“The transition to knowledge societies “involves more than the presence of more experts, more technological gadgets, more specialist rather than participant interpretations. It involves the presence of knowledge processes themselves (…), the presence of epistemic practice”

(Knorr Cetina, 2001: 177)

In the professions

Increased focus on establishing links to science– Evidence-based practice– New academic disciplines established to serve the professions

Transnational discourses and complex circuits of knowledge– Knowledge ‘on its travels’ in a myriad of forms– Frame regulation and validation of professional knowledge and

competencies

More ‘epistemic’ modes of practice– Exploring, validating, documenting, testing, re-inventing,…– Use of more complex instruments and artifacts

Challenges for (researching) professional learning

Approaching abstract knowledge and to make use of such knowledge in professional work is increasingly important

Circuits of knowledge and participation structures stretch beyond the local community

Enrolment of practitioners in a profession-specific knowledge culture becomes a critical condition for engagement

Active and critical engagement depends on ‘epistemic reflexivity’ - understanding knowledge beyond the context of application

Accounting for the symbolic and material dimension of practice: the circulation and engagement with knowledge objects

Epistemic cultures and practices (Karin Knorr Cetina)

“Cultures that produce and warrant knowledge”

Constitutive of knowledge and the knower

Produce logics of engagement and responsibilities

Generate knowledge objects for practitioners to engage with

Operate across organizational boundaries

The relationship of knowledge processes to learning - two interrelated accounts

a) Epistemic cultures as ‘machineries of knowledge construction’

“those amalgams of arrangements and mechanisms - bonded through affinity, necessity, and historical coincidence which, in a given field, make up how we know what we know” (Knorr Cetina, 1999)

b) Epistemic cultures as collective ‘epistementalities’

“By a knowledge culture I mean (…) an ‘epistementality’ of particular beliefs about, for example, the correct distribution of knowledge, the naturalness of access to it, the particular ways knowledge should be handled and inserted into personal and organizational life. Such epistementalities also take form as particular organizational arrangements of roles and agencies”. (Knorr Cetina, 2006)

In the professions: The organization and collective comprehension of...

Knowledge production (e.g. scientific achievements, personal experiences, approaches to verification)

Knowledge accumulation (e.g. cumulative and vertical logics vs horizontal logics, unification vs. diversification)

Knowledge distribution (e.g. forms of mediation, patterns of codification, local-global outreach)

Knowledge application (e.g. ways of enacting general principles in particular settings, standards vs. differentiation)

Example www.pfi.uio.no/prolearn

Computer engineers Teachers (elementary)Production Technological advancements in

global marketsPersonal experience in local settings

Accumulation Vertical and horizontal structures

Organizational accumulation

Consistency, unification

Horizontal structures

Individual accumulation (?)

Diversification

Distribution Technological artefacts

Codified knowledge/procedures

Standards, ‘best practices’

Global arenas and authority

Personal interaction

Personal/tacit knowledge

Lack of collective standards (?)

Local arenas and authority (?)

Application Technical-experimental rationality

Specialized tasks

Work-based knowledge privileged over subject knowledge

Personalized judgement (?)

All-embracing tasks

Subject matter knowledge defined by teaching content

Knowledge objects and object-related learning

• Complex amalgams of material and symbolic resources which constitute a problem area

• Characterised by their question-generating character and their display of unfulfilled opportunities

• Invite different interpretations and patterns of use

• Potential for increased complexity

• Simultaneously ready to be used and in transformation

(Knorr Cetina 1997, 2001, 2006)

Since knowledge objects are always in the process of being materially defined, they continually acquire new properties and change the ones they have.

They should be understood “not only as the goal and target of professional work but as relational objects which make relational demands and offer relational opportunities to those who deal with them”. (Knorr Cetina, 2006, p. 32)

Examples: • Models for medical treatment, • Computer programmes, • Standards for auditing the potential value of firms,• The concept of care, • ...

Knowledge objects have the potential to

• Stimulate shifts between explorative - confirmative practice

• Link practitioners up with a wider knowledge culture

• Invite engagement within multiple time-scales

• Become objects of attachment –> socially binding

This perspective…

Highlights the interdependency between knowledge cultures, knowledge objects, and individuals’ commitment to a field of expertise

Sensitizes us to how objects link up different ’levels’ of practice within a wider knowledge culture

Draws attention to the interplay between experimental and confirming modes of practice – as dynamics of learning

Points to the social role of knowledge and its potentially enchanting and motivating capacity

But: Tensions and collective negotiations is perhaps not

sufficiently addressed

The epistemic dimension may be over-emphasized and the value of (bodily anchored) routines underplayed

Individuals’ ways of reasoning and understanding are blackboxed

In relation to other socio-material approaches

Compared with CHAT:• Sees the development and circulation of knowledge as the prime

source of change (more than contradictions – cf. Guile 2009) • ‘Knowledge object’ as both tool and object• Emphasis on mechanisms for attachment and affiliation

Compared with ANT:• Shares the notion of objects as ‘doers’• But: reinstalls the subject in a relational, dissociative dynamic between

subject and object• Accounts for knowledge - as self-multiplying• Attempts to conceptualize knowledge cultures at different societal

‘levels’

References

Abbott, A. (1988) The System of Professions. University of Chicago PressCallon, M. (2002) Writing and (re)writing devices as tools for managing complexity. In Law & Mol,

Eds, Complexities: Social studies of knowledge practices. Duke University Press Guile, D. (2009). Conceptualizing the transition from education to work as vocational practice: lessons

from the UK’s creative and cultural sector. British Educational Research Journal, 35 (3) , pp. 259-270.

Jensen, K., & Lahn, L. (2005). The binding role of knowledge. An analysis of nursing students' knowledge ties. Journal of Education and Work, 18, 305-318.

Lahn, L. C. & Jensen, K. (2007). Models of professional learning. Exploring the epistemic tool perspective. Knowledge, work & society, Vol 4 (3), 62-82.

Knorr Cetina, K. (2007). Culture in global knowledge societies: Knowledge cultures and epistemic cultures. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 32(4), 361-375.Knorr Cetina, K. (2006) Knowledge in a Knowledge Society: Five Transitions. Knowledge, Work and Society, 4(3), 23-41.

Knorr Cetina, K. (2001) Objectual Practice. In T. Schatzki, K. Knorr Cetina, E. von Savigny (Eds), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (pp. 175-188). London: Routledge.

Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nerland, M. (2008) Knowledge cultures and the shaping of work-based learning: the case of computer engineering. Vocations and Learning: Studies in vocational and professional education, 1, 49-69.

Nerland, M. & Jensen, K. (2010) Objectual practice in professional work. In S. Billett (Ed), Learning through practice. Springer