No description available.

The aim of this study is to investigate the employee's view of the workplace's flexibility in two contexts, in the office and at home. The study has a qualitative approach based on six semi-structured interviews of employees in four different organizations. Furthermore, the employees' experience of support, routines and structures have been researched as well as the advantages and disadvantages of working in two contexts. The results indicate that all respondents appreciate the flexibility in their working life. It has contributed to a simplified everyday life that concerns private affairs such as child pickup, training, social life and a sense of freedom. However, flexible work has its challenges such as the demarcation between work and privacy becoming diffuse. Nevertheless, it is clear that the respondents value flexible workplace it feels that the opportunities weigh more than the challenges. The results also indicate that the employee's personal characteristics have a decisive factor in managing their workplace in two contexts. In accordance with Lave and Wenger's (1991) theory of context bounded learning, the context does not mean only one, it can mean several contexts. / Denna studies syfte är att studera medarbetarens syn på arbetsplatsens flexibilitet i två kontexter, på arbetsplatsen och i hemmet. Studien har en kvalitativ ansats som baseras på sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med medarbetare i fyra olika organisationer där samtliga arbetar i två olika kontexter. Vidare har medarbetarnas upplevelse av stöd, rutiner och strukturer studerats samt vilka för- och nackdelar detta innebär för medarbetarna i deras organisation vid arbete på två kontexter. Resultatet visar att samtliga respondenter visar uppskattning för flexibiliteten i deras arbetsliv. Den bidragande faktorn är en förenklad vardag där privata angelägenheter såsom hämtning av barn, träning, sociala livet blir en känsla av frihet. Dock har det flexibla arbetet utmaningar som att avgränsningen mellan arbete och privatliv blir diffus. Trots detta är det tydligt att respondenterna värderar flexibelt arbetssätt då det upplever att möjligheterna väger mer än utmaningarna. Resultatet visar även att medarbetarens personliga egenskaper har en avgörande faktor för att klara av en arbetsplats med två kontexter. I enlighet med Lave och Wengers (1991) teori om kontextbundet lärande behöverinte kontexten enbart vara en utan kan innebära flera kontexter.

This focused ethnography of Appalachian Trail (AT) long-distance hikers explored the situated and informal nature of individual knowledge construction as mediated through a community of practice. Unlike place-based or cyber-bound communities, the ever-changing membership and location dynamics of AT hikers offered a unique and researchable community for study. The complex and understudied sensemaking trajectories of individuals moving through this mobile community were investigated over three years through in-depth interviews and participant observations. Inductive analysis of expert and novice stories illuminated experiential patterns and collective traditions that comprise the AT learning culture. In contrast to traditional approaches to knowledge and skill acquisition, this study found socio-reflective exchanges, nested in hiking pods, to be critical sites for cognitive modeling and informal scaffolding between experts and novices. The situated encounters and developmental support of these nomadic pods were found to facilitate individuals' construction of community-based knowledge. / Ph. D.

This work centered on the Creating Creators Cinema Project (CCCP), a for-profit organization that works with K-12 school districts in California to integrate student filmmaking into core subjects. The qualitative case study documented the experiences of CCCP’s founders, the teaching artists who mentor filmmaking youth, and the students participating in year-long projects, providing a “thick description” of the creation, implementation, and impact of the program in a high school setting. The research addressed the dearth of arts programs in urban schools and their connection to representation in arts fields, particularly filmmaking. The study utilized three frameworks: Critical Pedagogy, Constructivism, and Situated Learning Theory to analyze data about pedagogical approaches and impact in the personal and professional lives of those involved in the project. Findings revealed participants in CCCP challenge traditional schooling practices and create a professional identity for students in the program. This study affirmed the importance of arts education in student lives and identifies how arts is a transformative vehicle for students and educators.

I slutet av 1990-talet beslöt den dåvarande regeringen att initiera ett antal projekt i medelstora och större svenska städer. Projekten skulle förläggas till förorternas miljonprogramsområden och målen skulle vara att stärka kompetensen hos de invandrare som bodde i bostadsområdena, öka deras arbetskraftsdeltagande och öka kontaktytorna mellan svenskar och invandrare. Kooperativet Latitud är ett av dessa projekt. Inom kooperativet arbetar flyktingar, långtidsarbetslösa och lågutbildade. Männen har kommit dit genom arbetsmarknadsplaceringar, praktikplatser, aktivitetsgaranti, medan de flesta av kvinnorna har kortvariga anställningar. Studien bygger på Lave och Wengers teorier kring legitimt perifert lärande och lärande i en handlingsgemenskap. Dessutom prövas teoriernas användbarhet i den kontext som kooperativet utgör. Grundläggande i dessa teorier är att lärandet är situerat och sker i handling i en social gemenskap och att lärande och utveckling av identitet är sammanvävda. Arbetsplatsen Latitud studeras i dess egenskap av en handlingsgemenskap, där människors lärande är beroende av och förknippat med den mening de finner i verksamheten och i sin egen tillvaro i kooperativet, lika väl som av den gemenskap de formar som arbetsgrupp. Lärandets betydelse för individens identitet tydliggörs i fyra individers lärande och agerande under deras tid i kooperativet. Avhandlingen visar att de använda teorierna är väl skickade för att studera Latitud som miljö för lärande, dock krävs ytterligare utveckling av teorierna för att utforska och förklara individens lärande och samspelet mellan individ och kontext. En fördjupning av teorin krävs för att beskriva hur en människas identitet byggs från deltagande och lärande i olika lokala praktiker och behov, och hur varje individs lapptäcke av livserfarenheter och lärande formar ett individuellt mönster. / At the end of the 1990s, the then Swedish Government initiated a number of projects in large and medium-sized Swedish cities. The projects were to be conducted in suburban housing areas built during the Million Programme and the objectives were to improve the skills of migrants living in these areas, increase their participation in the workforce and strengthen contacts between them and Swedish people. The Latitude Cooperative (Kooperativet Latitud) was one of these projects. Refugees, long-termed unemployed and low-educated people work within the cooperative. The men have arrived there as labour market placements, whilst most of the women are on short-term employment contracts. The study is based on Lave and Wenger's theories on Legitimate Peripheral Participation and learning in a Community of Practice. The applicability of these theories was also tested in the context of the cooperative. The basic premise of these theories is that learning is situated and occurs when participating in a social community and that learning and development of identity are interwoven. The Latitude Cooperative is studied in its capacity as a community of practice, where people's learning is dependent on and associated with the meaning they find in the activities and in their own existence in the cooperative, as well as on the community they shape as a working group. The significance of learning for individual identity is exemplified in the learning of four individuals and their actions during their time in the cooperative. The thesis shows that the theories employed are well suited to the study of Latitude as a learning environment. The theories require further development, however, in order to research and explain individual learning and the interplay between the individual and the context. Dreier provides the necessary further development of the theory to describe how a person's identity is constructed from participation and learning in different local practices and needs, and how each individual's patchwork of life experiences and learning forms an individual pattern.

The main thrust of this study argues that failure to account for the notion of power in considering learning in social contexts—like a working environment—inevitably presents an incomplete and unrealistic account of how learning actually is. Literature suggests that mainstream scholars and theorists have arguably pushed issues regarding the inter-connectedness of power and knowledge to the peripheral—resulting in both a paucity of theoretical coverage and empirical work on the subject. Through an interdisciplinary approach, this study takes inspiration from Foucault’s conceptualization of power—argued to provide a useful analytical framework for exploring power. Implications on how power impacts on learning in a contemporary workplace is viewed through the key ideas of ‘situated learning in communities of practice’ (Lave and Wenger). This study proposes that Foucault’s conceptualizations of power—regarding power as being relational and interconnected to knowledge—allows for a useful analytical framework that can sensitize our efforts towards understanding the power effects of knowledge with regards to learning at, and through, work practices, ultimately enabling us to re-work the concepts of ‘communities of practice’. The context of this study represents a professional knowledge-intensive workplace—Private Wealth Management (also referred to as Private Banking). Such contemporary work contexts—suggested to represent rather different environments vis-à-vis craft-like professions, for example—are argued to represent a more complex, conflicted and competitively-induced platform for learning. The wider regulatory environment was found to have strong influences in shaping the learning environment, representing both opportunities and restrictions for the bankers. Assessment based, compliant-driven and structured-training efforts were key drivers of the learning environment. Social interpersonal skills and professional relationships were observed as being integral and found to involve elements of power inequality, both within and across boundaries to which participants mediated, negotiated and often times obfuscated to effect power shifts through their discursive practices. Skills and perspectives, with regards to learning, evolved as the banker’s career trajectory progressed. Power punctuated not only the social network of relationships, but was also noted at the organizational level, via both explicit and implicit controls. Participants described purposeful thoughts and actions: mediating learning and strategizing outcomes in the respective environments with conflicted identity that requires balancing self, belongingness and directed efforts towards meeting the expectations of organization, respective clients and self.

The problem exists that there are no education initiatives focused on teaching and taking into practice the skills of effective interprofessional discourse in this online, asynchronous, professional environment. The purpose of this study was to examine whether it is possible for students in the health professions to learn to practice effective interprofesssional online discourse in an electronic health record. This was a mixed methods study that included both quantitative ad qualitative inquiry underpinned by post positivism and used a method triangulation research design model. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed from an educational intervention and simulated electronic health record exercise. The students' perceptions of their practice in an electronic health record did not necessarily match their knowledge and skills in this group of students. Emergent themes from the study pointed in the possible direction of perceived value of the exercise, prior experience in an electronic health record, and logistical barriers to the activity. Perceived time constraints was a particularly strong concern of the students. The emergent themes might be valuable considerations for other interprofessional programs looking to implement similar activities concerning the electronic health record.

No description available.

The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies managers in the online auction industry used to manage customer complaints to improve customer satisfaction. The targeted population consisted of 4 managers of online auction companies in the southwestern region of the United States. The conceptual framework for the study was Argyris and Sch�n's double-loop learning theory. Data were collected via semistructured interviews with business managers, observation of company operations and behaviors, review of documentation, and member-checking activities. Data analysis consisted of text interpretation of data and notes using coding techniques. Data analysis resulted in 5 themes: business orientation, customer purview, complaints handling, coping strategies, and learning abilities. The implications of this study for positive social change include facilitating the growth of online markets and increasing lower-cost purchasing opportunities for consumers with limited access to conventional marketplaces.

It seems that for many people, spaces on the web are an integral part of their lives. This may include seeking out learning opportunities in online communities. There is plenty of buzz about these cyberspaces whether they are part of new social media configurations or commercialized product-related spaces cultivated by enterprises. It is important to explore how online spaces mayor may notcreate new locations of educational possibilities for workers. The subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, fusion of these technologies into work-learning practices warrants attention. This research project focuses on online communities as sites of learning, with an over-arching question of: How do self-employed workers experience informal work-related learning in an online community? Community can describe a gathering of people online that is organic and driven by a shared interest. These online spaces may also be purposefully nurtured by professional associations, workplaces, or businesses. This research project focuses on these spacesoutside the auspices of formal online courses. I draw on Actor Network Theory (ANT) to explore how work-learning is enacted in online communities and the implications of the intertwining of people and objects in multiple, fluid and distributed actor-networks. I also use the notion of legitimate peripheral participation from Situated Learning theory to explore how different possibilities for learning are shaped by locations and trajectories within a work practice and larger community of practitioners. Data was collected by interviewing 11 self-employed workers and then following the actors as objects of interest surfaced. This dissertation is a collection of five papers as well as introduction and conclusion chapters and a background chapter on ANT. Findings explore notions of online collectives shifting to more networked configurations, the complexity of work-learning practices unfolding in multiple spaces, contradictions between Web2.0 rhetoric and practices as different associations with knowledge and novel ways of knowing are enacted, and questions about the politics of technology that emerge from uncertainties around delegation, invisible practices, and necessary literacies. Given the need to pull objects out of the background and into critical inquiry, I also explored how a researcher interviews technology objects as participants in a study. / Adult Education