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Research
Domain: Group Five - Informal Learning in Different Workplaces
Title
of Project: Women and Community Economic Development:
Changing Knowledge, Changing Practice
Start
Date: April 1, 1998
Academic Investigators: Dr. Ted Jackson (Carleton U.)
Student Researchers: Mary Stratton (Carleton U.)
What
are the learning processes and strategies for change
management used by CED practitioners committed to integrating
gender issues into their practice? To what extent has their
learning focussed substantially on gender issues? How do they
become informed and learn to introduce and management change?
In
addressing the above questions it is also necessary to ask
about the processes involved in learning and change: to what
extent have practitioners learned on-the-job and/or away
from-the job? What sources/methods of information and learning
have they utilized? What skill-sets and knowledge have they
found to be the most relevant? To what extent do they identify
the substance of what they have learned as professional,
political or personal in nature? How would they like to be
informed? What methods of information dissemination and
learning would work best for them? What do they need to
advance learning and practice that they do not now have?
Although
it is well established that the context of women's
social-economic relationships differ to those of men, current
literature provides little insight into the above questions.
Therefore, in keeping with the NALL commitment to
participatory processes, an interview schedule was
collaboratively developed, and pilot-tested by a focus group
of Toronto based CED workers. Subsequently, the interview
schedule, designed to collected closed-end quantitative and
in-depth qualitative information, was applied in a preliminary
study with 15 key informants currently employed by CED
organizations across Canada. Telephone interviews
(approximately one hour in length) were conducted with
practitioners fro a variety of different geographical,
economic and social contexts, who are concerned with promoting
CED activities that include women as clients.
The
research team views the present study as a stepping-stone to
further investigation of the complexities embedded in the
opening questions. Preliminary analysis suggests that CED
practitioners currently utilize a wide range of formal,
informal and semi-formal learning sources to meet their
work-related needs. Knowledge that integrates various types of
learning is the most highly valued. The lack of suitable
formal learning opportunities is an issue, however, in terms
of both availability and content. Theme of knowledge clashes
emerge, revealing tensions between theory and practice,
credentialized and experiential learning, and different
life-context (such as those pertaining to geography, class,
etc.)
Electronic
network and web sites were seen by a number of respondents as
one way to entrance informal learning opportunities, as well
as make formal knowledge more widely available. Practitioners,
nevertheless, identified this as an area that could be
improved by specifically focussed electronic networks that
provide relevant CED information and details about pertinent
web sites.
In
addition to the improvement of electronic networks, the data
point to other implications for improved education and
practice: funding formulas need to reflect the recognition of
the importance of on-going learning for CED practitioners, and
formal leaning programs need to be developed that value and
incorporate practitioners' collective and experientially based
knowledge.
It
is anticipated that information from the study will be useful
on four levels:
1)
to assist other practitioners in evaluating their learning
and practice opportunities and needs;
2) in developing a more sophisticated research instrument
for use in further research on these issues;
3) to identify theoretical and philosophical issues and
tensions involved in a consideration of work-place learning
processes and networks, and their implication for change in
everyday practice, and;
4) identifying specific concrete actions that can be taken
to provide practitioners with access to the knowledge they
need.
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