Learning to Work is based on taped interviews with trainees in business, education, engineering, IT and nursing. Jo Reidy reveals the issues, challenges and rewards for undergraduates beginning to make the transition to work in their chosen profession. Her study also provides a revealing insight into Australian employers and workplaces, and how they can make traineeships valuable for employer, colleague and trainee.
Learning to Work Reidy
About the Author Dr Jo Reidy has had a diverse career as a teacher, a consultant, an academic in the area of literacy education and an Academic Skills Adviser. She is currently teaching at the Australian Catholic University. Dr Reidy’s research interests include academic literacies, international students’ experiences in Australia and the interface between higher education and work. She won RMIT’s University Research Prize in 2004 with the PhD thesis on work experience on which this book is based.
Learning to Work
This groundbreaking study of work placements looks at the experiences of 50 young short-term trainees in various Australian work settings.
Students’ experiences during work placements
Supplementary digital content is available from www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/ebooks/0-522-85238-6/index.html
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS •
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An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited www.mup.com.au
Joanne M. Reidy
Cover design by Phil Campbell
SOCIAL STUDIES
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Learning to Work
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Learning to Work
Students’ experiences during work placements
Joanne M. Reidy
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MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Ltd 187 Grattan Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
[email protected] www.mup.com.au First published 2006 Text Joanne M. Reidy 2006 Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Ltd 2006 This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers. Designed by Phil Campbell Typeset in Utopia by J&M Typesetting Printed in Australia by University of Melbourne Design & Print Centre National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Reidy, Joanne M. Learning to work : students’ experiences during work placements. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 0 522 85237 8. (paperback) ISBN 0 522 85238 6. (e-book) 1. Education, Cooperative - Australia. 2. Vocational education - Australia. 3. School-to-work transition Australia. I. Title. 370.1130994
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Contents Acknowledgements Introduction
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1
Learners in Unfamiliar Workplaces From significant approaches to significant images The learner as ‘potential’ The learner as agent The learner as apprentice The learner as performer The learner as new community member The learner as border crosser Further layers of complexity: the ideas of Bourdieu
19 23 25 27 36 42 51 54 59
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Belonging, Acquiring, Situated
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A time of great challenge Students’ perceptions of ‘the very beginning’: belonging and becoming competent Learning how to belong: greetings, gatherings and gifts Greetings Gatherings Gifts Performing the workplace self Belonging and performing competently: the initial tasks Building bridges from old worlds to new The importance of the initial period Bourdieu’s concept: ‘habitus’
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Becoming, Negotiating, Scaffolded Challenging interactions Selves, supervisors, significant tasks ‘Strategic silence’
66 67 68 73 78 85 86 92 94 96 100 100 101 112
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Empowerment through commitment and trust ‘Committed presence’ ‘Trusting space’ ‘Trusting dialogue’ ‘Trusting revelations’ ‘Committed presence’ and ‘enabling trust’
114 117 119 121 125 125
Networking, Transforming, Distributed Alternative interactions, alternative places Salient, friendly peers Friendly, accessible, competent peers Salient, accessible, expert intimates Bourdieu’s concept: having a ‘feel for the game’ Salient, accessible peers, friends and partners; salient, expert, professional families
127 127 129 133 142 151
The Centrality of Placements The first question The second question The third question Re-framing the placement experience Re-framing resources and support Re-framing the learner The fourth question Recommendations Final reflections
154 155 158 165 166 166 168 175 176 181
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Bibliography
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Index
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Acknowledgements A number of important people offered me wonderful resources and sustained support during the writing of this book, most importantly, Pam Green. The students I interviewed joined in the project with enthusiasm and Des Cahill offered valuable suggestions at key moments in the project. Finally, I would like to mention the small, but vitally important, network of ‘significant others’ who made the writing of the book both possible and enjoyable. To my husband, Michael McNamara, and my two daughters, Natasha and Helen, my mother, Cela Reidy, my brother, Patrick Reidy, my sister, Christine Nichols, and her family, David, Dave, Hannah, Madeline and Jack, and to my special friends, in particular, Pauline Nunan, I would like to say, thank you. While writing the following pages, I have thought often of my father, Patrick Reidy, and his sisters and brothers. This work is dedicated to them and, above all, to my mother, Cela Reidy. Throughout my life, she has been my most unwavering resource, my most constant support. In some fundamental way this work is hers as well. Naturally, I alone am responsible for any shortcomings that this book may have. Joanne M. Reidy Melbourne, 2006
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Introduction
My own first experience of work consisted of serving in a souvenir shop at a large tourist complex. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, it was a rainy summer and there was a noticeable lack of tourists. I soon found out that one of the main requirements of the job had not been specified at the job interview: from early in the morning to the final moments of those wet afternoons, I had to find ways of looking busy and productive even when there was absolutely nothing happening in the shop and not a single customer in sight! I had to learn to love my feather duster. Nor was my introduction to my first full-time job any easier. Preparing for my first day as a teacher meant that I was also preparing for my first prolonged and serious encounter with the world of work. Compared to the demands of teaching in a chalky, cheeky classroom, the trinkety world of the souvenir shop seemed like a piece of cake. I was also to discover that the actual work of preparing lessons and speaking to a large class was only one aspect of the challenge. Although it was true that the students overturned every assumption that I had, I found the life-style changes that were required even more difficult than inventing exciting lessons on the topic of Hadrian’s Wall. The pace of life was new—its tempo and its timing—but so was the amount of work I had to do after work. I also had to keep my emotions
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in check. Even when I cried after a spectacularly unsuccessful class, I had to act as if my eyes weren’t really red at all. Hence, although I have always been interested in general issues to do with work and workplaces, I am particularly interested in the transition to work, perhaps because I found each of my many different work transitions unexpectedly complex, demanding and, at times, simply overwhelming. As is true for most people, these feelings were quite surprising because I had expected to make the transition to work without much trouble. However, I was in for a great awakening. I found every aspect of my new role exhausting: the long hours, the unfamiliar people and their jokes, the endless work after work, and the Sunday evenings before the Monday mornings that always made me feel slightly sick in the stomach. Why was it all so unsettling? After all, work is part of our lives and our everyday landscapes. Even when we are on holidays or asleep we think and dream about work. We make lasting friendships at work, we talk about work over dinner and we have a great deal of our lives invested in our work—even after a bad day, we hope that the next will be better. After having worked for many years, the shock of those memories had faded and I had relegated my own first experiences of work to the back of my mind. However, it soon became apparent that many of the students I interviewed found work, workplaces and work colleagues very challenging which was surprising. They had to work at being workers—for many students the new role did not come easily. However, as often happens in new or difficult situations, the students utilised their existing resources and support networks in order to compensate for their own inefficiencies, inadequacies or understandable lack of expertise. The students So, perhaps unexpectedly, this book does not introduce you to groups of students called by intriguing names such as ‘The conformers’ or ‘The rebels’. Instead, the chapters are organised according to the resources the students called up and fell back on in their hour of need when they were tired and depressed or excited and challenged. In fact, the sheer number of times that people told me that they had accessed resources or social support was quite startling. Interestingly, though, they did not talk much about electronic resources and so
Introduction
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information technology in all its many forms does not loom large in this book. Surprisingly, and yet unsurprisingly, the students talked about people and indeed people throng this book—principals, supervisors and human resources managers, as well as mothers who stocked the fridge or friends who provided a sympathetic ear, reference books and useful, perfectly tailored advice. The placements While different societies have always prepared people for adult roles, including work, in a multiplicity of ways, contemporary societies use a mixed formula of study away from the workplace and controlled exposure to the workplace in which the newcomer’s role is often that of a master’s apprentice. A mixed bag of study and practical, workbased experience prepares people for a workplace that is constantly referred to, described and discussed in lectures and tutorials whether face-to-face or online. However, the workplaces spoken of with such authority in such contexts never quite exist. Located in the textbooks, in the lecturer’s anecdotes and in the stories of family members swapped over dinner, these workplaces are always safe. They lack the risk and the realities of the office, classroom or lab that kicks into life at eight o’clock or a bit later every Monday morning. The risk and the reality Not surprisingly then, the students that I interviewed often felt that there was a gap between their studies and the very real and the very specific demands of individual workplaces and workplace colleagues. Seemingly straightforward office protocols such as ‘Always use your own coffee mug’ came as a shock to the interviewees because many such unwritten rules were not made explicit until a boundary, only dimly perceived, had been crossed. The fact that most novices I interviewed for the book had worked at several quite responsible part-time jobs while completing their tertiary studies made this shock even more surprising. Some were simply not ready for the particular challenges and the ongoing demands of their new workplace or supervisor. Work and workplace training This book then is about work, workplaces, education and training. But most importantly, it is about the people who are getting ready for work Introduction
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in demanding workplaces such as hospitals, schools and companies, both large and small. The interviews In order to find out about people and their work-related placements, I interviewed fifty people who had volunteered to talk to me about this topic. They were not in their workplaces because they had parttime jobs in these locations, but because their university courses contained compulsory programs that were located in the workplace. For many of the people I spoke to this was the first time they had had contact with the real-world face of the professional occupation they hoped to be involved in for a large part of their lives. The people who so generously gave me these interviews were aged between twenty and fifty years and came from many different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Almost half of the interviewees were ‘international’ students, that is, students who had come to Australia to undertake an accredited course at an Australian university. One woman spoke Farsi as her first language and yet was a Swedish national studying in Australia. Many of these students talked about their families and their home communities as well as the Australian workplaces and, predictably enough, more than one student talked at length about the great differences between working at home and the work environment he was experiencing in Australia. Working lives The book will interest people who spend their lives in education and training, but it should also fascinate those who are fascinated by work, workplaces and work colleagues, by talk at work, time spent at work and changes in work practices—in other words, anything to do with the world of work. The writing of this book depended on the cooperation of many people. People in workplaces both large and small were unexpectedly co-operative and even though I had to observe the normal ethical conventions of privacy and confidentiality, even the large companies supplied me with a room for the interviews and gave me access to all the graduates who were undertaking work there. I interviewed a great range of students including would-be engineers, nurses, teachers, and communication and information technology specialists. I also
Introduction
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ate my lunch in many different staff canteens and had access to work environments and work practices radically dissimilar from the schools and universities in which I have spent my own working life. The workplaces themselves were fascinatingly diverse, ranging from a small school on the outskirts of Melbourne where the bush came up to the edges of the playground, to a large hi-tech multinational whose employees travelled internationally on a very regular basis. Very often, I interviewed the students-in-training in little rooms and sometimes I could hear the noises associated with a certain kind of human activity going on in the background as I interviewed. I always tried to keep the interview focused on work and workplaces as I had signed an ethics agreement telling my university that I would stay well within certain boundaries but, in a few cases, the students themselves added other stories to their accounts of work in order to stress a point or explain the real reason behind their seemingly novice behaviour. Resources in abundance The students’ stories have been arranged according to the key resources that they were given or that they were able to access during their workplace experience. The first group of interviews focuses on the resources that the students were given in their workplaces. Many students made it clear that their workplaces were extremely generous with their resources, time and personnel. The second crucially important resource focused on is the student’s immediate supervisor who again and again emerged from the interviews as a highly significant person. The third resource is that of the people outside the workplace—family, friends and the friends of families who rallied around the students at this taxing time to offer them extra support, encouragement, advice and other more tangible resources. Lacking resources It will also become apparent that some students lacked resources and that, as a consequence of this, their workplace experiences were difficult, frustrating or boring. It is to be hoped that these students had further opportunities to work and practise work in other places as, at the time I interviewed them, they had had very
Introduction
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negative experiences and were reconsidering their career choices or seeking to shed the professional identity that they had just tried on for size. Here then are the students, their voices and their stories. Although the students and their workplaces have been given pseudonyms, in most cases the students chose the names they are called by in this book. One student chose her mother’s name, while others chose names that reflected their ethnicity or linguistic background. It is hoped that by reading this book, you will gain some insight into people as novices, workplaces and the constant need for those who are able to supply resources, especially resources in the shape of finely tuned social support, to all those who are beginning a significant venture in new times and in a new world. Three questions For many years, my brother worked for a large multinational company. He often cited a little mantra that people in his office used to summarise the task of interviewing prospective employees. The questions always stuck in my mind even though he has probably long forgotten them. The questions that seemed to drive any interview were these: Can she do it? Will she do it? Will she fit in? However, as soon as I began interviewing the students, I realised that the question ‘Will she fit in?’ did not foreshadow the radical uncertainty contained in the question, ‘Will I fit in?’ and had even less to do with the anxious self-assessment that accompanied the question regarding expertise, ‘Can I do it?’ I realised, of course, that my brother’s colleagues were framing these questions from the employer’s point of view, but I became more interested in the stories of the employees, in this case, novice employees and their struggles to attain an appropriate workplace ‘self’, a satisfactory level of competence and even some idea of whether or not this would become for them a significant and satisfying professional role. Hence, the three questions seemed too light-hearted when compared to the soul searching that accompanied an individual novice’s decision to take another path after an unsatisfactory workplace experience. As a result of the interviews, the questions also seemed to need re-ordering: for most of the students, the issue of ‘fitting in’ was the primary one and the issue of expertise came a little bit later.
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Hence, one of the main chapters in this book deals with the issue of ‘belonging’. Finally, I think there is a great deal of wisdom in that old saying that there is nothing as practical as a good theory. Hence, several formidable theorists stroll through the following pages—people whose writings I always find interesting and thought-provoking even when they are talking about a topic that is very different from the one that I am addressing. Pre-eminent above these is the contemporary French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu’s ideas are emphasised, counterpointed or contradicted by other thinkers whose work has not been addressed as thoroughly in this space: Goffman, Foucault and Spivak and many others who I had often encountered as an undergraduate and then had a chance to meet up with again while writing this work. Hopefully, the brief excursions into theory do not render the book ‘heavy’ or ‘dry’ nor distract from the main purpose of the book, which is to present a range of people’s views on a very significant topic—that of learning to work. Readers who want to skip straight to the students and their experiences can now turn to the opening of the next chapter. The following section of the Introduction takes up the many complex theoretical issues that arise when we base new understandings on the findings derived from transcripts. Throughout the book as a whole, however, it is emphasised that the issues pertaining to work and work placements are both significant and very current. To take just one example, a recent government report has given sustained attention to the issue of work placements in the context of pre-service teacher training in Victoria, Australia (see Parliament of Victoria, Education and Training Committee, 2005). Many of the issues taken up in the report are foreshadowed in Patricia Benner’s (1984) earlier, but perennially fresh, account of the perceptions of novices and experts. Both the Victorian report and Benner’s major work offer paths into this vitally interesting and multi-faceted topic. Introducing the students’ accounts and the ‘lighthouse’ narratives This book is based on a series of fifty interviews conducted with university students during, or immediately after, their work placements. During the interviews, the students were encouraged to tell stories as
Introduction
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well as to answer questions, make comments and reflect on their experiences in a variety of ways. When the interviews had been recorded and transcribed, it seemed that some stories were more important than others, both within a single interview transcript and across the whole series of fifty interviews. The role of the most important stories can be usefully associated with the word ‘epiphany’, a word used by James Joyce (1922/1968) in various writings. Denzin (1995) has drawn attention to this word in his writings on interpretive interactionism, defining the ‘epiphanic moment’ as one that ‘leaves a mark on a person’s life’ (p. 83) and is most often experienced in moments of crisis. It is possible that Denzin has based his image of epiphanies on the earlier sociological idea of ‘turning points’. Both the idea of the turning point and the epiphanic moment are significant in sociological theory because each provides a vehicle for showing the ways in which individual biographies intersect with the ‘larger historical, institutional, and cultural arenas’ (p. 83) that also require analysis. In his writing, Denzin (1995) argues that there are four kinds of epiphanic ‘moment’—the ‘major upheaval’ and the ‘cumulative’, ‘illuminative’ and ‘relived’ moments (p. 83). Each meaning centres on the ‘problematic’ (p. 83) nature of the experience. However, Ellman (1968), a writer whose books have centred on Joyce’s life and works, defines the word epiphany rather differently. In contrast to that of Denzin (1995), his definition focuses on the ordinary moment rather than on a crisis or turning point. Ellman writes that, in Joyce’s work, ‘epiphanies’ can be understood as ‘sudden, unlooked for turns in experience—which could prove the more momentous for being modest’ (p. 708). The narratives told by the students often involved new or special experiences. However, the significance of these incidents for the student who recounted them could not have been predicted by their subject matter. To draw on Ellman’s (1968) definition once again, the incidents recounted were often ‘modest’ (p. 708). With Woolf’s (1927/1969) novel To the lighthouse in mind, it was decided to term these narratives ‘lighthouse’ stories. Often, however, the subject matter of the stories was ‘modest’ (Ellman, 1968, p. 708). The salience of the lighthouse narratives can be accounted for in several different ways. Firstly, certain narratives had been given
Introduction
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special prominence by the speaker in the course of the interview. For example, Keiko’s initial narrative about her supervisor’s absence was referred to several times in the interview. A second reason for the prominence of some stories seemed to lie in the clarity of an evaluation that was made in relation to the experience recounted. These narratives were linked to judgements that were made about the person or the incident described or the placement experience as a whole. Such evaluations made it possible to link narratives that had very different topics. Hence, a very positive evaluation of the supervision provided linked several stories. Thirdly, certain stories caught my attention during the interviews and so were accorded greater significance than others. Several of the lighthouse stories raised questions that were difficult to answer and remained in my mind long after other interviews had been conducted. Hence, Mark’s interview prompted the question: Why did Mark talk so much about his tie? Questions such as these made it possible to see that the lighthouse stories had a crucial function in the research in that they encouraged me to focus on data that had less arresting subject matter as well as the data that seemed to take up striking issues. Mark’s focus on his tie made it possible for me to see that all the students who talked about the initial phase of the placement were also talking about their struggles to cope with, forge, or resist a new workplace-based identity. The lighthouse story about the tie identified the issue and illuminated it simultaneously, while offering a way of setting up a network of connections between the groups of stories without making these mere examples that illustrated a single theme in a repetitive manner. The lighthouse narratives were given a special emphasis and were seen to function in much the same way as vignettes, which, according to Miles and Huberman (1994), may be given a ‘representative, typical, or emblematic’ (p. 81) place in an enquiry. Other stories, comments and observations While it seemed legitimate, given the interpretive basis of the research, to give certain key stories special prominence, it did not seem appropriate to overlook other accounts that had created a less immediate or complex response. Miles and Huberman’s (1994) suggestions regarding matrices were used to draw up grids so that the data could
Introduction
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be re-processed and checked over for pieces that had been overlooked or accorded little attention in the initial, more open-ended, readings. This strategy meant that the lighthouse narratives retained their significant roles, but ensured that other stories were also given due weight. Several different matrices based on Miles and Huberman’s (1994) ‘Table 5.3’ headed ‘Effects Matrix ...’ (p. 96) were used to analyse the data after an initial account of a lighthouse narrative had been arrived at. This method was found to be an effective way of showing alternative ways in which various narratives could be compared. Often it was found that an exhaustive attempt to put all the data on a grid revealed that some examples of certain phenomena had been missed. Diagrams were also used to explore and refine emergent concepts. Although the investigation did not draw on the grounded theories of Strauss and Corbin (1990) exclusively, their ideas on how to deal with qualitative data without imposing conceptual tools drawn from sociological writings or ‘common sense’ greatly influenced the way in which the interpretations were conducted. By writing memos and using these to compare ‘data with data’ (Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001, p. 162), it was possible to derive analytical categories from the transcripts and to name these in ways that were not confined to the concepts that sprang to mind from writers such as Goffman (1959, 1961). Reaching interpretive understanding One of the most critical tasks facing any writer is that of drawing conclusions but this can be very difficult if the conclusions are to be based on interpretations of textual material. The work of Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992a) made it possible to pose one of the main interpretive problems in the form of a question: How is it possible to circumnavigate various ‘pre-constructed’ (p. 235) categories and yet achieve readings of the students’ narratives that do more than achieve a ‘doubling of text’ (Derrida, 1996, p. 85) or ‘traditional doubling commentary’ (p. 86)? As has been indicated, ideas from two opposing strands of thought were found to be very interesting and thought provoking. Hence, Bourdieu’s (1992) belief that it is possible, albeit difficult, to
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Introduction
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find out about the world was entertained alongside Derrida’s (1996) radical claim that there is nothing outside the text— ‘il n’y a pas de hors-texte’ (p. 82). While the interpretations relied to a large extent on the emerging specificity of certain ‘issues’, I had been influenced by works such as Belsey (2002), and was therefore sympathetic to ideas that stressed that all texts were open to many interpretations and indeed invited multiple readings and reading positions. In many ways, all steps involved taking up and resolving (at least, for the time being) the opposing paradigms of interpretation offered by Belsey (2002) and Ricoeur (1991b), the first arguing that texts are open, the second that any text ‘seeks to place us in its meaning’ (p. 121) and is, therefore, not open to an unlimited number of interpretations. Hence, while the decision to focus on narrative approaches was easy to make, other decisions regarding the ways in which the narratives were to be interpreted were difficult. An awareness that there are many significant, but contradictory, approaches to narrative analysis meant that the task of making choices between the various ways of dealing with the transcripts was the most difficult one faced. Once the choices regarding certain ‘methods of narrative analysis’ (Boje, 2002, p. 11) had been made, these seemed to identify my position with even greater clarity than had any epistemological decisions. Defining the options In order to choose between the many rich ideas concerning narrative, significant streams of thought were identified and summarised. The process of linking such ideas had two main stages. Firstly, an important theoretical perspective was defined. Then, the discussion of the relevant theories was followed by a brief mention of the work of a recent writer (or writers) who had used the perspective to offer interpretations of narrative texts, either spoken or written. The choices have been written up in a conditional form as though the decisions were still to be made. •
Hermeneutic ideas on text and interpretation, elucidated in Ricoeur (1991a), could be drawn upon and Moloney’s (1995) study of ageing women used as a model on which to base interpretive readings oriented towards capturing the texts as wholes.
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Moloney’s (1995) study was based on interviews with older women. The study shows the ways in which research-related texts can be treated as wholes so that the ‘gestalt’ of each narrative is made the focal concern. In her writing, Moloney describes the ways in which the transcripts were read many times both alone and with others. She also describes the themes that ‘emerged’ from the interview transcripts including those of survival, strength in the midst of hardship and making a home in difficult circumstances. The study has a second attraction in that it highlights gender-related issues. However, these are not dealt with in a didactic manner. The exact nature of the themes elicited could not have been predicted, nor would the older women’s emphasis on ‘making a home’ been able to emerge if a narrowly defined feminist agenda had been the focus. •
Barthes’s (1975) ‘codes’ and his commitment to a ‘step-by-step’ reading could be used to structure the interpretations of the students’ narratives. Both the work of Barthes and that of Boje (2002) could be drawn upon.
Barthes (1975) has demonstrated how to achieve such readings in his own work on literary texts. In his account of Barthes’s ideas, Moriarty (1991) summarises Barthes’s reaction against thematic and generic categories. According to Moriarty, Barthes’s contribution to narrative theory lies in his belief that it is necessary to ‘keep the text open, plural’ (p. 121) and that a ‘step-by-step reading is therefore preferable to a synthetic overview that freezes the text in order to extract a theme or structure’ (p. 121). Meanings that are found in a text can be related to other meanings. Meaning is made possible because various ‘codes’ (p. 121) that have been used before in other writings are recognised by the reader. Hence, all works, even the most seemingly ‘original’, can be seen as an assemblage of quotations. More recently, Boje (2002), a writer who has used narrative theory extensively in his studies of organisational life, has offered guidance on how to make the ideas of Barthes (1975) and Derrida (1994) directly relevant to narrative-based research. •
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Fairclough’s (1992) critical discourse analysis could be used to focus on the power driven relationships within the text and the
Introduction
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work of Barker and Galasinski (2001) as a source for further ideas on how to carry out critical discourse analysis. Fairclough’s work is based on Foucauldian insights about the way in which language as ‘discourse’ is always constituted by, and constituting of, subjectivities, power relations and systems of hierarchy and subordination. The work of Barker and Galasinski (2001) offers a number of examples of the ways in which critical discourse analysis might be undertaken. Although Fairclough’s analytical strategies were thought to be rather rigid, his discussion of ‘discourse representation’ and ‘speech reportage’ (p. 118) was noted. This brief discussion underlined the significance of the many reported conversations that appeared in the transcripts. •
The ideas of Labov and Waletzky (1967/1997) and Hymes (1996) could be drawn on in order to offer readings of narrative ‘patterning’ (Hymes, 1996, p. 137) and significant aspects of individual texts. Several examples offered in these works, and also in an important collection of responses to the original article by Labov and Waletzky (see the Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7, 1997), could be modified.
The above perspectives were supplemented by several single works all of which offered detailed ideas on various ways of undertaking textual interpretation. Although the social construction of gender was not probed in any detail, some of the most useful studies that incorporated critical perspectives without imposing preordinate categories on the texts, were studies that had been carried out by scholars dedicated to the exploration of feminist issues. Works included those by Rich (1979), Kristeva (1986), Butler (1993) and hooks (1996). The research study on women’s conceptions of ‘knowing’ by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule (1986) was also very useful in that it offered research procedures related to the concept of ‘voice’. This concept provided the interviews and their interpretation with its ‘critical’ focus. On the basis of much reading and thinking, several decisions regarding interpretive strategies were made. The distinctions made by Fairclough (1992, p. 73) between understanding, interpretation
Introduction
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and analysis were rejected. Such distinctions were thought to imply that there was a radical difference between each category when it can be argued that, as textually oriented activities, all face the same ‘problem of fallibility’ (Latour and Woolgar, 1986, p. 283) which undermines all ‘description and analysis’ (p. 283). In the account of the research procedures, ‘interpretive understanding’ was used frequently to describe my goal. When necessary, ‘interpretation’ and ‘reading’ were deployed as synonyms. The word ‘analysis’ was used with caution lest it be thought that positivist knowledge claims were being made, or that it was possible to gain access to the ‘real truth’ (p. 282). Ricoeur’s (1991a; 1991b) work also clarified some of the central issues. In his own struggle to reconcile explanation (based on the natural sciences), and interpretation (based on hermeneutic understanding), Ricoeur argues that ‘structural analysis’ can be seen as a ‘stage’ between a ‘naive’ and a ‘critical’ (1991b, p. 121) interpretation. Hence, in accordance with Ricoeur’s advice, the interpretations of the transcripts proceeded in ‘stages’ and various aspects of the choices regarding narrative approaches and analytical methods referred to above were incorporated into the analysis at several points. However, while Ricoeur was able to bring explanation and understanding together in his ‘overall conception of reading as the recovery of meaning’ (p. 121), his confidence that the ‘intention of the text’ (p. 121) could be recovered was juggled with Barthes’s (1994) equally confident assertion that ‘a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multidimensional space ... a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture’ (p. 168). Theorising each interpretive step With Barthes’s (1994) postmodern scepticism and Ricoeur’s (1991b) hermeneutical methods in mind, it was decided to divide the interpretive strategies into two basic categories. These categories reflected Ricoeur’s division between ‘guessing’ and ‘validating’ (p. 158). The first interpretive moves, that is, the first readings of the transcripts, defined each text as a ‘cumulative, holistic process’ (p. 159), emphasised the whole text, and were based on the perception that if the text were seen as a whole, it was necessarily ‘open to several readings and several constructions’ (p. 159). Subsequent readings broke larger texts
14
Introduction
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into ‘details’ (p. 158) and reassembled a reading from these elements. Although the first strategy was consistent with my own view of text, it seemed to be more open to the danger that the reader would bring to the text the inevitably ‘preconstructed’ (p. 235) concepts that Bourdieu (1992) had warned against, but would have no way of perceiving, much less resisting, Ricoeur’s (1991b) ‘naive’ (p. 121) interpretations. In her study of ageing women, Moloney (1995) emphasised that it is necessary to gain a detailed knowledge of each transcript as a first step in trying to understand an interviewee’s experiences. Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) work also suggested that many careful readings of interview material have to be undertaken. Focused on inductive theorising and the delineation of appropriate procedures and techniques for achieving such ‘grounded’ theory, Strauss and Corbin’s work answered the need for an interpretive model that sought to discover categories and ideas rather than imposing on the transcripts frameworks and etic categories that had already been articulated. Comparison is at the heart of Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) methods of reaching a new theory. Each of the narratives was compared with other narratives on the basis of the ostensible topic of the narrative or the evaluation made before, throughout or at the end of its telling. This method of analysis was also suggested by Labov and Waletzky (1967/1997) whose influential work on narratives has been both used and developed by many different writers. Agar (1980), too, argues that comparisons underpin the research process. According to Agar, once certain pieces of data have been compared, recurring categories can be constructed. Then it is possible to ‘apply the next analytical device—the scissors—and cut up a copy of the transcripts according to the new topic-oriented code’ (p. 104). Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) detailed accounts of the research studies they had either initiated or participated in provided useful models and analytical tools. Their description of the ways in which an individual woman’s experience of pain and pain relief had been coded (see pp. 77–81) was read many times. A deep understanding of this one example encouraged me to find new ways of describing the students’ experiences by registering the students’ accounts as categories or codes and writing these directly on to each transcript. A different, but complementary, method involved using the ‘Find’ command on the computer to look at the number of times certain
Introduction
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words appeared in the students’ accounts. This strategy made it possible to see that the most common word used in accounts of the initial stage of the placement was not ‘shock’ or ‘surprise’ as had been anticipated, but ‘different’. Grounded theory, then, was used to great advantage to arrive at conceptual categories without taking for granted the strength of preexisting ‘classificatory notions’ (Bourdieu, 1992, p. 235). Strauss and Corbin (1990) comment on the importance of memos, stressing their role in the enterprise of theory-building as categories are developed. As the interviews were read and reflected upon many times, memos were elaborated as groups of narratives were considered. These memos were similar to Smith’s (1984) ‘interpretive asides’ (p. 174) and were used to record ‘a short comment to oneself about some hunch, bright idea or insight’ (p. 150) noted ‘along the way’ (p. 174). While the strategies of memo-writing and comparison were used frequently, such processes are not problem-free. One of the most obvious issues facing any reader of interviews is that by aligning extracts from different transcripts according to their ‘recurrent topics’ (Agar, 1980, p. 104) or named ‘conceptual labels ... [i.e.] categories’ (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 108), other features of the text have to be suppressed. Secondly, the activity of making detailed, line-by-line codes, which Strauss and Corbin see as an essential step to the writing of memos, means that the narratives can lose some of the unity they had been given by the students’ initial topic or subsequent evaluation. In order to emphasise the ‘wholeness’ of the narratives, each one was given a title. The title consisted of a phrase that had appeared in the story and crystallised something of the ‘essence’ (Gibbins & Thomson, 2001, p. 310) of the student’s experience. Thus, various procedures and techniques were drawn from Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) work. As has been outlined, the first involved the labelling of each student’s recounted experiences in such a way that the categories captured the texture of the experiences. The process of combining the categories allowed a broader concept to emerge from the data. In this part of the analytical process, the section of Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) book that describes a study of the experiences of pregnant mothers who were also chronically ill, was found to be both memorable and enlightening. The final construct that ‘emerged’ from the study described by Strauss and
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Corbin—the concept of ‘protective governing’ (p. 142)—seemed to capture with sympathy and precision the careful choices the mothers in the study had made in order to manage their own chronic illnesses without endangering their unborn children. The insights offered by the grounded theory methods of Strauss and Corbin (1990) were given a critical edge when the metaphor of ‘voice’ was used to discover whether or not the students had acquired some degree of agency during their placements. Following on the work of Hymes on narrative and voice (1996), Belenky et al. (1986, p. 16) on empowerment and voice, and feminist writers such as McNay (2000) on the issue of agency, it was decided to make ‘voice’ one of the key evaluative concepts and to use this as a basis for important ‘critical’ insights. Although Lather (2001) has questioned the usefulness of the concepts of empathy, voice and authenticity, voice has been seen as a useful metaphor for various concepts indicated by the words ‘power’ and ‘empowerment’. Hence, in order to ‘move beyond intelligent description’ (Bourdieu, 1992, p. 255), three questions regarding voice were asked after each key story had been read several times. The questions, which were based on the ideas of Belenky and her colleagues (1986, pp. 16–20), have been reproduced below: • • •
Did the student want to speak? Was he/she able to speak? What prevented him/her from speaking or gave him/her the ability to speak?
In this way, the ‘stance’ of the interpreter was made explicit and the ideas were given a ‘critical’ perspective that was congruent with an interpretivist approach. At the same time, the analytical framework used side-stepped the clusters of assumptions that have accrued around such words as gender, class and race. This was in keeping with Weedon’s (1999) insight to the effect that, we can use categories such as ‘gender’, ‘race’ and ‘class’ in social and cultural analysis but on the assumption that their meaning is plural, historically and socially specific. The effects of using such categories will depend on how
Introduction
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they are defined and on the social context in which they are used. (p. 130) Although Weedon (1999) identifies such a position with postmodern feminism, the adoption of such a perspective made it possible to articulate and define some of the ‘preconstructed’ categories that had been regarded as unproblematic before the first interview was recorded. A reading of Said (1995) made an important contribution to such reflexive ‘unlearning’ (Lather, 1993, p. 680). Towards an ‘emic’ view It is now felt that the constructs that come closest to the kind of sympathetic, insider, emic view that were modelled in Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) reporting of the ways in which the idea of ‘protective governing’ (p. 142) was reached have been recorded in Chapter 3 of this book. In this chapter, the concepts of ‘committed presence’, ‘trusting space’, ‘trusting revelation’, ‘trusting dialogue’ and ‘strategic silence’ as well as the enfolding categories of ‘committed presence’ and ‘enabling trust’ emerged. Whether taken separately or grouped together, the constructs were able to offer insights into the ways in which the students’ experiences of their workplaces were structured by their interactions with their supervisors, mentors or managers. The concepts also included understandings clustered around the idea of voice, silence and speaking forth. The constructs that emerged from the transcripts highlighted certain issues in the students’ experiences and made it possible to interpret these in a slightly more abstract way. A second level of interpretive understanding was offered by the work of Bourdieu (1992, 2001). Each of the following chapters includes commentaries that explore specific concepts elaborated by Bourdieu. These have special relevance to the students’ situations and recounted experiences.
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Chapter 1
Learners in Unfamiliar Workplaces
Before I began to write this book, I read the work of many interesting writers who had investigated the topic of placements, practicums and other kinds of work-related education, training and professional learning. Although I had always thought of work placements as activities that belonged to the students that I had trained in university settings during my own work life as a teacher educator, some of the most interesting writers pushed the problem of work placements back on to the workplaces asking very directly if the workplace could, in fact, provide the students with the experiences and mentoring required. Two Australian writers, Billett (1995) and Hughes (1998) tackled this question head on. A short article written by Billet and entitled, ‘Workplace learning: its potential and limitations’ grasped the nettle in the most appropriate fashion by directing our attention not simply to the students on work placements, but also to the workplaces in which the students in our universities are undertaking their training. Similarly, the word ‘perils’ in Hughes’s short article, ‘Practicum learning: perils of the authentic workplace’, seemed to warn students and workplace personnel alike, reminding both groups that the real workplace, as distinct from the one conjured up in textbooks and lectures, had advantages as a place of learning, but it also presented its own dangers and risks.
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However, few studies have evaluated a range of workplaces from the novice’s point of view. Nor have they compared workplaces, seriously taking on the idea that while one school, hospital, office or business may offer students who undertake their practicums within its environs diverse opportunities for professional learning, another school or office may cramp the learners and restrict their development. As will become clear in the following chapters in this book, there was a demonstrable difference between the opportunities offered by Company A and Company B to the students on placements. And yet the reasons for this were not easy to enumerate. Both companies produced goods for export, the physical environment was similar and the personnel managers in each were professional and well organised. Yet, all the students I interviewed at Company A had had a positive experience, while the students interviewed at Company B peppered their stories with tales of tepid welcomes and other more individually felt reservations. Most of the writing that I read on the topic of work placements preferred to examine the students’ points of view, their experiences and perspectives during the practicum experience. Studies from within a particular professional area were added to the more general ones on the effectiveness of various kinds of workplace programs. Particularly interesting in that many works focused on the students’ experiences and added to the writer’s own professional understandings, were the writings on teacher training and teaching placements. Many of these studies highlighted the experiences of preservice teachers, several writers, for example, MacDonald (1993), exploring the significantly stressful aspects of teaching practicums. Other studies focused on strategies and programs oriented towards improving the experience or the effectiveness of the practicum from the trainee teachers’ points of view. While many of those involved in teacher education used Donald Schön’s (1987) work on reflective practice as the basis of their work, others tried to improve the quality of the training without naming a key thinker as their guide. Morgan, Menlove, Salzberg and Hudson (1994), for example, trained peers to interact with, and give feedback to, other trainee teachers. According to the researchers, peer coaching was able to increase the ‘effective teaching behaviors’ (p. 59) of the five trainees who took part in the program.
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As I wanted to interview international students undertaking their placements as well as local or domestic Australian students, my reading also focused on international students’ experiences of studying in Australia. Such reading was complemented by studies of people in transition. Among these was the study of first-year university students’ experiences by McInnis and James (1995) already mentioned, a study that was interesting because of its findings as well as because it combined a broad survey of students with intensive followup interviews of a selected group from within the larger cohort that had been surveyed initially. As the reading progressed, certain issues in the literature became more salient. Hence, the issue of student ‘identity’ canvassed by McInnis, James and McNaught (1995) came into sharper focus as did the acquisition of both specific professional knowledge, understandings, skills, attitudes and values and more generic graduate capabilities. Finally, the ‘potential and limitations’ that Billett (1995) had discussed were shown to be critical issues once the students began talking about their workplace experiences. Problematising initial assumptions As I have already mentioned, my initial assumptions regarding the ways in which the ‘group’ of international students volunteered to become involved in the interview program, were problematised by the reading of Said’s (1995) book, Orientalism. The insights derived were further refined by the radical critiques of anthropological and ethnographic perspectives stimulated by the work of Clifford and Marcus (1986). They showed that the work of early anthropologists could not be divorced from the texts that created and gave significance to their work and detached it from the humdrum of learning a new language and adjusting to unfamiliar climates. I was also interested to see how the very pragmatic and realist assumptions, on which much workplace writing was based, could be linked with Lather’s (1993, 1994, 2001) radically postmodern perspectives on research and identity and Weedon’s (1987, 1999) work on the ways in which our subjectivities are produced in the situations that characterise the stuff of our lives. Before I took up the task of interviewing fifty students, I conducted six initial interviews just to see how they would go. I was quite
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nervous about interviewing anyone at all because I had not interviewed anyone for a serious purpose for some time and I didn’t know if people would be willing to talk to me while they were in the middle of their work placements. I dubbed the bundle of six my ‘pilot’ interviews, but they later became the first phase of the interviewing as each one of the six was so lively, so interesting and so memorable that I didn’t feel like jettisoning the material such as is often done when the initial ‘data’ is found to be inadequate in one way or another. What was striking about the first six interviews was the great differences in the accounts that students gave of their experiences. While such differences were seen positively from a methodological point of view because the sampling method that had been chosen stressed the need to gather a diverse range of data, the range of student responses suggested that several interpretive frames would be needed in order to make sense of the interviews and yet step outside the commonsense understandings that I had arrived at after years working as a teacher educator. One of the most significant differences between students was the degree to which students had had access to appropriate workrelated resources and support both inside and outside the workplace. The students’ access to, and deployment of, resources affected the degree to which they felt at home in the workplace and were able to insert themselves into a workplace’s ‘fundamental practices’, one of de Certeau’s many helpful phrases (1988, p. ix). Hence, the reading was interesting because it replicated the research process in that it was composed of several discrete phases. In each phase, reading extended the knowledge and understanding that I was beginning to accumulate by being involved in the interviewing process. The first intensive lot of reading was undertaken in order to make a list of what other writers thought were the main issues, while the second was undertaken in order to see if the insights I had come up with were matched, extended or contradicted by the theories about the social world that I was interested in exploring further, especially those to do with the central but fundamentally problematic words, ‘identity’ and ‘agency’. During the reading process, it became obvious that the ideas chosen to tie various concepts together would have to be consistent with each other on a number of different levels. Thus, the concepts
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selected to theorise the students’ identities and situations in the workplace would have to be consistent with the perspectives chosen to theorise learning. Bourdieu’s (1990) statement that it is not appropriate from a sociological perspective to simply comment on subjective viewpoints as these are ‘quite incapable of giving an account of the necessity of the social world’ (p. 52) provided much food for thought as the interviews progressed. Hence, the process of choosing the most appropriate theoretical umbrella was complicated by the need to find a way in which the students’ subjective accounts of their experiences could be interpreted so that the constraints and the historicity of the social world could also be taken into account.
From significant approaches to significant images The effort to organise the reading on learners and learning into a coherent framework was complicated by the wide variety of ‘levels’ of analysis and description. While some studies offered a rather generalised overview of learning in an organisation (see, for example, Trice and Beyer, 1993)—or ‘learning organizations’ (Senge, 2002, p. 3)— others offered learners’ perceptions of what they had gained (Gardiner & Singh, 1991) during their time in a specific workplace. Rather than compiling a long summary of all the main perspectives on the multifaceted topic of learning, the example of McNamara (1994) was followed and selections were made according to certain principles. In the introduction to the literature review of his exploration of literacy-focused teacher development, McNamara wrote, It is suggested, then, that an alternative to presenting overviews ... is to give a detailed account of the work of authors to which the writer attaches deep significance and to use the frameworks provided in their work as structures for analysing the work of others ... In this way, the reviewer makes explicit his position, narrows the focus of what is a vast field, while acknowledging the potential disservice that the act of summary does to the richness and complexity of writers’ original work. (p. 13) While McNamara used the work of Donald Schön as the foundation of his review, the following chapter has been organised around
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six key images of learners. These have been drawn from a number of significant works on learning. After the process of compiling the images was underway, it was found that the works from which key images had been drawn were very similar to the ones referred to in a list of approaches to adult learning in Garrick and Kirkpatrick’s (1998) article on ‘work-based learning degrees’ (p. 171). In an interesting section of their article, Garrick and Kirkpatrick argued that, theories of learning [that inform work-based and workplace learning] ... relate to reflection-in-action (Argyris & Schön, 1987), critical reflection (Mezirow, 1990), experiential learning (Boud, Cohen & Walker, 1993), self-directed learning (Candy, 1991) and independent learning (Brookfield, 1990). Others emanate from the field of cognitive psychology (Billett, 1994; Stevenson, 1994) and situated cognition (Lave & Wenger, 1991). (p. 172) Although the above list was similar to an initial one compiled by the present writer, it was also seen to have some gaps. These gaps were able to be identified because, as the interviews progressed, I realised that I was exploring important, often taken-for-granted, images of the learner, rather than particular theories of learning. Images and metaphors Images rather than approaches, then, form the basis of the following discussion. While they have not been drawn from a single epistemological orientation, they all capture significant aspects of learning and learning in workplaces. The discussion does not seek to evaluate and rank the images, all of which circulate in current educational thought, but rather explores them in order to choose several that might illuminate the issues that emerged from the students’ accounts of their experiences. The six central images, which will be discussed in order, are as follows: • •
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the learner as ‘potential’ the learner as agent
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• • • •
the learner as apprentice the learner as performer the learner as new community member the learner as border crosser.
The idea of using images as vehicles for discussion is not new. Discussions of poetry, and literary works in general, often proceed in this manner, using an exploration of key metaphors as the starting point of an interpretation. Moreover, as the much-cited work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) has shown, metaphors and images can be used fruitfully in all kinds of analysis because they are embedded in the taken-for-granted conversations and texts that both constitute and characterise so much of everyday life. The approach taken in this review is somewhat similar to that taken by Palmer and Dunford (1996) in a chapter entitled, ‘Understanding organisations through metaphor’ (see pp. 7–19). A second example that is similar in approach is that of Clegg and Gall (1998) whose study of the metaphors used by supervisors revealed the supervisors’ ‘implicit perceptions of what supervising involves’ (p. 325). Patrick’s (2000) study also offers an excellent model for those who wish to use metaphors as an analytical tool. Not only does Patrick explore various ‘conceptions’ of learning (p. 117), but she also gives a very detailed description of the ways in which ‘an analysis of metaphors’ (p. 122) can be undertaken in order to achieve further insights. As well as arranging the literature according to certain recurring images, the literature survey develops an argument. As the discussion unfolds, it will be demonstrated that each image of the learner carries with it either implicit or explicit understandings about the ways in which the learners have been viewed in relation to certain significant contexts, types of resources and sources of support. The discussion begins with the image of the learner as someone who is always in the process of ‘becoming’.
The learner as ‘potential’ Vygotsky’s (1962, 1978) work, in particular his ideas about the zone of proximal development, have achieved much scholarly recognition. Vygotsky’s ideas about learning can be described simply. In the first
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phase, the learner is unable to do something. In the second, the learner attempts to achieve that something and finds that it is possible to do so with assistance. In the third phase, the learner can carry out the ‘something’ that was learned quite independently and does not require assistance until a new cycle of learning begins. Vygotsky’s theories are liberating because they focus on potential rather than on actual achievement. The learner is always in the process of ‘becoming’. One of the simple and yet effective ways in which Vygotsky’s (1962, 1978) ideas about learning have been disseminated has been through the single word, ‘scaffolding’. By using this word, people can build on Vygotsky’s ideas about the zone of proximal development in order to emphasise that learning can be scaffolded by the person giving assistance. In a study of the ‘[t]utorial interactions’ (p. 89) of a single learner, Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) used the concept of scaffolding to good effect. In their seminal article, written nearly three decades ago, the researchers show that the tutor and the child are indeed able to work together in such a way that the child’s groping is turned into fruitful learning with the assistance of the more experienced tutor. A reading of the original study makes it possible to see that the dyad described in the original study was intimate and special. The interactions between tutor and child are described with such phrases as ‘appropriate orchestration’ (p. 89) and ‘scaffolding’ (p. 91) in order to avoid theories that equate learning with transmission. The article by Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) also makes it clear why the relationship between the idea of scaffolding and direct support for the learner has leached into much educational literature. To cite a contemporary example, a report by O’Dowd, Ryan and Broadbent (2001) discusses the ways in which ‘at-risk’ students might be encouraged to complete their secondary schooling while underlining that scaffolding means a certain type of support by inscribing both words in its title: Building scaffolds of support: Case management in schools. In both of the writings cited, the learner requires, and is given, social support by other people. Resources and support for the learner as potential In the works discussed, the person who offers to help construct the scaffolding needed during the tutorial ‘interactions’ (Wood, Bruner &
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Ross, 1976, p. 89) is an adult. The support offered is one-to-one support, the context is low in risk, and the main form of support is human interaction. In all of Vygotsky’s (1962, 1978) writing and in both cases referred to, language is the chief means by which the learning happens. However, the language used is not didactic, instructional language, but is deeply implicated in the whole process of learning. The learning and the mutually engaged talking that accompanies the learning are difficult to separate. As has been pointed out, Vygotskian ideas are focused on the potential of the learner. However, many images of the adult learner emphasise achievement rather than becoming and so stress the state towards which the learner is striving. Such an image is sustained by the idea of self-direction, an idea that has at its heart the notion of the agenic, individuated person.
The learner as agent In their work on promoting active learning in higher education classrooms, Meyers and Jones (1993) argue that the presence of adult learners in higher education has meant that traditional methods of teaching have had to change. According to these writers, adults learn most effectively using active-learning strategies in active-learning classrooms. They also make claims for an active-learning approach to teaching in terms that show that the broad aims that they have for students are very similar to those contained in the Australian government’s report (Kemp, 2001) on higher education. Meyers and Jones conclude that having opportunities to practise active learning strategies will enable students to ‘become self-directed and collaborative, critically reflective, politically savvy, empathic, and fair-minded, as well as competent in the skills that are essential to meaningful lives and careers’ (p. 156). Each of the words listed by these writers implies that the learner has agency. Self-directed Some two decades ago, Knowles (1981) stressed that teaching and learning in higher education would have to be transformed in order to prepare learners who would be able to assess their own learning needs, articulate learning objectives, identify a range of ‘appropriate learning resources’, decide on ways in which to use those resources,
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and assess the learning that had taken place. He argued that all higher education programs would have to be organised in two phases so that students could develop ‘the skills of autonomous learning’ in the first phase of the program and then engage in ‘self-directed learning activities’ (p. 8) in the second part of the program. Knowles (1981) went on to argue that the ‘process of learning’ (p. 8) and the ‘acquisition’ (p. 8) rather than the transmission of content knowledge, had to take precedence in all programs of higher education. Knowles predicted that people involved in higher education would find such a re-orientation difficult because each one would have to re-cast his or her teaching identity in order to become a ‘facilitator and resource person to self-directed learners’ (p. 8). In an earlier piece of writing, Knowles (1975) had described his own struggles during such changes, saying that the transition from ‘Content Transmitter’ (p. 31) to ‘facilitator of learning’ had been both ‘fundamental and terribly difficult’ (p. 33). An early reference to the concept of ‘problem-centred’ learning and many other influential ideas can be seen in a table drawn up by Knowles (1975, p. 60). The learner, an increasingly self-directed learner, becomes involved in learning that is task- or problemcentred rather than subject- or context-centred. Knowles summed up his point of view by saying that ‘the ability to learn on one’s own’ (p. 17) had become ‘a prerequisite for learning in this new world’ (p. 17). One further point made by Knowles must have seemed radical at the time his book was published given that so much learning was dominated by the textbook (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991). This was the point that learning and living were the same and that, as a consequence, We must learn from everything we do; we must exploit every experience as a ‘learning experience.’ Every institution in our community ... becomes a resource for learning ... Learning means making use of every resource—in or out of educational institutions—for our personal growth and development. (p. 16) Since Knowles’s (1975) ideas on self-directed learning were published, many different collections and writers have explored the
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implications of having the ability to learn on one’s own as a major educational goal. A collection of articles (Boud, 1981a) reported on various innovations developed in the area of teaching and learning in higher education. Student autonomy, self-direction and independence were the common themes of the articles although the ways in which these goals had been set about in practice varied greatly. Boud (1981b) in his own contribution to the collection, noted that various terms had proliferated in the area of ‘developing student autonomy’ in higher education. These included ‘independent study, self-directed learning, student-initiated learning and project orientation’. He went on to argue that all had important aspects in common: ‘the goals of developing independence, self-directedness, and responsibility for learning’, learning that could continue to take place without the teacher’s ‘constant presence or intervention’ (p. 11). Like Knowles (1975) had done some years earlier, Boud drew a picture of a relatively lonely learner, remarking that although a learner might not want to learn independently from a personal point of view, the ability to do so would enable that same person to ‘function effectively’ (p. 12) in contemporary settings. Hence, Boud (1981b) asserts that teachers in higher education should design programs that encourage the development of learner autonomy and the transition from learner dependence through ‘selfappropriated learning’ (p. 15) to learner independence. Resources are important, but it is the learner’s responsibility to determine what those resources are, where they are, and how they should best be used. This seems consistent with the image of the independent learner, although the costs of such learning have been described by an unidentified student (see Ferrier, Marrin & Seidman, 1981) who had studied Medicine at McMaster University in Canada. In her report, she commented on her involvement in a program that had emphasised independent learning, problem-solving, and self- and peer-evaluation. Students learned in intense bi-weekly tutorial meetings of five people and a tutor but had few other contacts and little time to make them. The student stated that she was ‘feverishly loyal’ (p. 133) to the program that had emphasised student autonomy. But some days the loneliness and struggle make me nauseous ... McMaster can be its own brand of hell on earth,
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and when you stand alone it’s just you and the flames. Loneliness and anxiety are rampant in the programme. I guess they are in life also. (p. 131) Candy (1991), however, provides a different view of self-directed learning from that provided by the student cited above when he stresses the types of support that might be offered to a learner at different phases in the learning process. In a section of his account of self-directed learning entitled ‘Implications for practice’ (p. 200), Candy discusses the role of the learner’s ‘assistant’ (p. 200) in some detail. Independent Boud (1981b) also refers to the significance of support. Writing briefly about his own experiences as a learner, Boud states that several early experiences of independent learning gave him a sense of ‘exhilaration’ (p. 15), ‘buoyancy and freedom’ (p. 15). While this sounds ideal, he also states that he was ‘forced by circumstances’ (p. 16) to become an independent learner. However, Boud was not alone in his learning situation, but was able to share ideas on a peer-like footing with other senior people in the educational institution where he was employed. Hence, the image of the somewhat solitary learner is softened by such statements as ‘Autonomy cannot be pursued in a vacuum: it does not necessitate isolation from the ideas and experience of others’ and, ‘Interdependence is therefore an essential component of autonomy in action’ (p. 23). The contributors to Boud’s (1981a) collection, in particular, Ferrier, Marrin and Seidman (1981), Potts (1981), and Buzzell and Roman (1981), are interested in developing learner independence, autonomy or self-directedness in their classrooms and lectures. However, when the complexities of such an approach have been reviewed, it can be argued that the programs may be developing attributes in the students that emphasise interdependence through learning in small groups as much as independence. In the study that had most relevance to my interviews because it was directed at a professional preparation program, Ferrier, Marrin and Seidman (1981) noted that the objectives of their medical program in Canada stated that students in their progress towards independent learning would also become skilled at ‘selecting appropriate
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learning resources and evaluating progress’ (p. 119). In their description of the program of study, there was great emphasis on small group learning and the ability to work with others. Hence, concurring with Boud’s (1981) statement that independence need not be at odds with interdependence, the writers stressed that the students in the course ‘must also accept responsibility for facilitating the learning ... of their peers’ (p. 119). Students in the course of study were expected to support the whole group so that ‘collectively ... all the members’ could meet the aims of the program. Ferrier, Marrin and Seidman (1981) describe their program discussing the orientation sessions that gave the new students some insights into group learning, problem-based learning and selfdirected learning. Hence, in their program of study, independent learning has a new face. The learner is no longer ‘on one’s own’ (Knowles, 1975, p. 17), but is immersed in a peer group that has the power to both support and evaluate the learner’s progress. It is not surprising, therefore, that these writers remark that, in their program, the autonomy that the students must develop during the course ‘is a conditional one’ (p. 119). Autonomous and active In his discussion of the autonomous learner, Betts (1992) uses the term interchangeably with some of the other terms that have been discussed already, including ‘self-directed’ (p. 2). In an introduction to the ‘Autonomous Learner Model’ (p. 1), Betts draws on his own earlier definition of the learner, writing ‘An autonomous learner ... is one who solves problems or develops new ideas through a combination of [different types of ] thinking and functions with minimal external guidance in selected areas of endeavour’ (p. 4). Knowles (1975) and Boud (1981b) have explored various ways in which learners can ‘develop and exercise autonomy in learning’ (p. 12). Many different strategies for encouraging this kind of learning have been developed including learning contracts (Anderson, Boud & Sampson, 1998); cooperative learning with peers and projectbased learning (Meyers & Jones, 1993); self-, peer- and collaborativeassessment initiatives (Boud, 1981b; Heron, 1981; Ferrier, Marrin & Seidman, 1981; Shelton, 1981) and independent study programs (Stephenson, 1981).
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Some of the above initiatives, a number of which are centred on peer-oriented learning, have been incorporated into higher education classrooms under the more general term of ‘active’ learning. Since this term can be used to cover many different types of learning and learning environments, just one example is used to illustrate the values, practices and resource-use required of ‘active’ learners. Meyers and Jones (1993) argue that ‘active’ learning rests on two key assumptions—that learning is ‘an active endeavour’ and that ‘different people learn in different ways’. They summarise the approach in the phrase ‘learning by doing’ (p. xi) stating that this is more appropriate for adult learners who ‘often feel frustrated and discounted when they are lectured to and are denied opportunities to share their experience’ (p. 7). Using various writers to support their arguments, Meyers and Jones point out that women and people from diverse cultural backgrounds bring a range of experiences and learning styles into every classroom and challenge educators to change their methods of teaching in order to accommodate the more varied audience. Although Meyers and Jones’s (1993) emphasis on active, selfdirected learning builds on themes already elaborated by Knowles (1975) and Boud (1981b), a close reading of their work shows that they have departed from the earlier works of these writers in important ways. As Meyers and Jones (1993) are conscious of the diversity of their students, they emphasise that active learning will suit people who are already self-directed learners when they come into higher education. Hence, strategies for creating ‘an active-learning environment’ (p. 33) such as small groups, co-operative work, case studies, simulations, discussions and journal writing are all ways in which the learners’ prior experiences and learning styles can be drawn upon as students ‘appropriate new knowledge’ (p. 21). Discussions and working in groups are emphasised at many points throughout the book. Also given a place among the strategies is ‘problem solving’ (p. 20), although this is not given extended treatment. Hence, these writers imagine learners who, because they have already had opportunities to become active learners, will be developing these skills further in higher education rather than ‘starting from scratch’. Meyers and Jones’s (1993) diagrammatic representation of ‘active’ learning includes a list of ‘Learning Strategies’ and a list of ‘Teaching Resources’ (see p. 20). Included among the resources are ‘readings’
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and ‘prepared educational materials’ (p. 20). As such resources are another route by which higher education has sought to prepare learners adequately for the workplace, three publications, all written for use by people before, during or after teaching practicums in Australia or the United States, are now discussed briefly in order to consider the question of how such resources can be seen in relation to workplace learning. The first publication (McBurney-Fry, 2002) offers advice on pedagogical theories, assessment and ethics, addressing the student teacher directly and interleaving pedagogical insights with useful documents including lesson plan outlines and seating charts. The second publication (Roe & Ross, 1998) follows a similar format, adding case studies taken from schools so that student teachers will be able to discuss problematic work-related issues in higher education settings. The third example (Posner, 1996) is also addressed to the student teacher and takes up some of the issues covered by the other publications. Posner’s work is oriented towards developing the students’ ability to reflect during their field experiences. The third chapter opens with the following ‘equation’ about learning: Experience + Reflection = Growth (p. 21). Posner (1996) recommends fieldwork logs based on the analysis of ‘one or two episodes that are significant’ (p. 27) as an effective means by which student teachers can become more reflective. Each of the resources referred to has been carefully prepared and makes reference to key educational thinkers such as Schön (1983) and Bruner (1990). However, the resources have not been able to address the complexities involved in the ‘messes’ of professional practice (see Schön, 1983, pp. 40–1), not only because as print materials they lack the ‘note and trick’ of life, but also because the authors have not been willing to construct in their commentary the kind of ‘implied reader’ (Iser, 1978, p. 34) who may experience the high levels of stress reported by student teachers before, during and after their teaching placements in studies conducted both in Australia and overseas (Baird, Fensham, Gunstone & White, 1989; MacDonald, 1993). The workplace photographs in Roe and Ross (1998) depict authoritative, friendly teachers and orderly, busy students in classrooms.
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More significantly, like many university tutorials, seminars and lectures, the books’ chapters separate the complex issues of professional work into significant ‘topics’ such as Human Relations, Curriculum Planning, and Teaching to Diversity. The problem with practice is that problems must be considered, as Schön (1987) and his many followers have explained, in the midst of action. Problems, predicaments and dilemmas have many strands and do not usually present as a single, easily identified ‘issue’ in practice. Some materials published for use by professional educators and students in programs such as nursing, ask the learner to tackle a ‘case’ in all its complexities as a single episode, critical incident or problem. As many of these course materials are based on the idea of the learner as one who actively engages in addressing and reflecting on difficult professional problems, they articulate an interest in active and ‘problem-based learning’ (Boud, Keogh & Walker, 1985; Boud & Feletti, 1997; Savin-Baden, 2000). Problem solving In the medical course reported on by Ferrier, Marrin and Seidman (1981), incoming students were told that self-directed learning and problem-solving abilities would be expected and developed during the program of study. Building on a theoretical perspective developed by Boud and Feletti (1997), Duch, Groh and Allen (2001) offer a comprehensive overview of problem-based learning, its various rationales and some of the ways in which it has been implemented in higher education. Cannon and Schell (2001) show that problem-based learning has many positive aspects if considered as an approach to preparing professionals such as nurses who will have to deal with situations that occur routinely as well as making decisions and solving problems that are related to the ‘safe, effective and efficient delivery of care’ (p. 165). After an extensive, if succinct, review of the literature on problem-based learning (PBL), Cannon and Schell (2001) offer a detailed example from one section of the nursing program at the University of Delaware (see p. 170). The strategies centre around the case study of a patient. Having been prepared beforehand to emphasise specific details related to haemorrhages (for example), the case study is analysed in small groups of two to five students. Then the same case is reintroduced in another course, this time the focus being
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shock related to blood loss. The writers offer further details, but their main point is clear: ‘Extending problems over several courses guides learning from the understanding of basic concepts to managing complex situations of increasing depth and breadth’ (p. 170). Various studies have discovered the wide differences between different practitioners in terms of expertise. Very striking in this respect is the work of Benner (1984) who draws attention to the ‘risky, situation-specific decisions’ (p. x) that nurses have to make. Benner’s scholarly study, which was based on both observations and interviews, distinguishes between five different levels of ‘clinical competency’ (p. xvii). The various levels of expertise are designated as ‘novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert’ (p. xvii). Problem-based learning offers a way of closing the gap between the learning that is offered by higher education and the problems that will face a professional in a workplace, as well as allowing novices to practise in a safe environment the types of skills that they will require during their professional lives. Resources and support for the learner as agent Like Knowles (1975), Boud (1981b) sees the learner as a person who can identify, assess, access and use ‘appropriate learning resources’ (p. 8) as they are needed. Knowles defined these learning resources as ‘material and human’ (p. 132) also emphasising the importance of other students in the same program and the prior experience of the learner as further resources. The relationship of the learner to the resources is one of ‘use’ (p. 132). Boud summarises the relationship between ‘autonomous learners’ (p. 12) and any potential resources in the following way: Anyone acting in a responsible position needs to be able to plan his or her own learning and draw upon a variety of resources to assist putting his or her learning plan into action. He or she needs to draw upon the experience and expertise of others, but it is his or her own responsibility to ensure that the answer needed is found. (p. 12) Seen from Betts’s (1992) perspective, the autonomous learner’s goal is to become a ‘responsible, creative, independent learner’ (p. 4).
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Betts states that the achievement of such goals will not be easy because it will require ‘new orientations to learning’ (p. 2). The resources required for the program that develops such skills appear in a short list towards the end of the publication. These are as follows: ‘Teacher/Facilitator; Content specialist; Mentor; Facilities; Research materials’ (p. 86). Resources are divided into two categories, the first in which people are important, and the second in which materials from the surrounding environment are significant.
The learner as apprentice The learner can also be seen as an apprentice. If the learner is positioned in this way, then, at times, he or she will experience moments or periods in which the mentor offers explicit instruction and continuing opportunities for learning. In relation to both learning in general and ‘coaching’ in particular, Schön’s (1987) work is important. His meta-cognitively oriented perspectives not only offer a coherent and convincing theory of learning in specific contexts, but also make possible the identification of the kind of areas that will pose special problems for the novice in any professional field. The richness of Schön’s (1987) work can be gauged by its impact on significant learning communities within such diverse fields as nursing (Short, Sharman & Speedy, 1995), teacher preparation (Loughran, 1996; Loughran; 2000; Loughran & Russell, 1997) and professional forestry and land management (Boyle & Trevitt, 1997). Commenting on the relationship between reflective practice and nursing, Short, Sharman and Speedy (1995) argue that, ‘Acceptance of reflective nursing practice as the dominant nursing paradigm would require all nurses at all levels in all areas of practice to address issues of power and control’ (p. 72). Given that ‘reflective nursing practice’ can achieve a great deal, it is not surprising that the writers also comment that such reflection ‘requires intellect, insight, knowledge, observation and creative capacity’ (p. 73). Schön (1987) is also able to provide people who are interested in practicums and other types of workplace learning because, with the tools that he provides, it is possible to differentiate between novices and those experienced professionals who manage competently the many ‘indeterminate zones of practice’ (p. 13) that characterise professional settings. Such predicaments arise when a professional
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situation is no longer a ‘situation of action’ to which the professional can ‘bring spontaneous, routinized responses’, the ‘knowing-inaction’ usually relied on. Such situations fall outside the boundaries of the ‘normal’ (p. 28). As such, they are within the scope of the experienced professional’s ability to reframe and problem solve, but lie beyond the novice’s capabilities. Schön (1987) argues that it is in situations, or zones, in which there are few obvious ‘rules and procedures’ (p. 35), that ‘unusually competent’ professionals or performers display ‘an exercise of intelligence, a kind of knowing’ a profound, not fully appreciated, ‘artistry’ (p. 13), as they solve the new problems that arise in the midst of practice. Firstly, professionals experience a situation as ‘problematic’ (p. 34) because some aspect of the new situation does not allow ‘a routine application of existing rules’ (p. 35). In one of the most important passages of his writing, Schön describes the way in which an experienced professional responds to a problematic situation: In such cases, the practitioner experiences a kind of surprise that leads her to rethink her knowing-in-action in ways that go beyond available rules, facts, theories, and operations. She responds to the unexpected or anomalous by restructuring some of her strategies of action, theories of phenomena, or ways of framing the problem; and she invents on-the-spot experiments to put her new understandings to the test. She behaves more like a researcher ... (p. 35) The practitioner, when faced with ‘an element of surprise’ can ignore the problem, or ‘respond to it by reflection ... in one of two ways’, the two ways being ‘reflect[ion]-in-action’ and reflection ‘on action’ (Schön, 1987, p. 26). In Schön’s (1987) writing, the two kinds of reflection are conceptualised and differentiated with great clarity. Reflection-in-action, a ‘kind of experimenting’ (p. 66), happens when the practitioner ‘reflects in the midst of action without interrupting it’ and involves on-the-spot decisions made to ‘reshape’ (p. 26) or fine-tune existing knowledge in order to meet the particular demands of unfamiliar situations ‘where the problem is not initially clear and there is no
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obvious fit between the characteristics of the situation and the available body of theories and techniques’ (p. 34). Reflection on action, on the other hand, is quite different. It is a process of detachment, a ‘thinking back’ that has no immediate connection to ‘present action’ (p. 26). If Schön’s (1987) work helps to illuminate the types of problems faced by professionals and the types of reflection that help them to solve such problems when they arise, his work also shows the ways in which novice professionals can be supported during their period of initiation into their professional work. Hence, Schön supplements his ideas about the ways in which skilled, reflective practitioners carry out their professional work by arguing that such skills can be made available to others during a ‘reflective practicum’—a practicum that can help a novice begin to acquire the professional ‘artistry’ (p. 13) displayed by competent practitioners. One way of doing this is through the relationship to another known as ‘coaching’ (p. 19). Since by definition, novices or apprentices have not acquired a fully professional competence or ‘artistry’ (Schön, 1987, p. 19), they find it difficult to manage ‘the use in practice of applied science and technique’ (p. 13) that challenging professional situations require. Novices can move forwards by encountering situations in which they ‘learn by doing’ (p. 37) and in which they can take the opportunities offered by skilled ‘coaching’ (p. 19). The student acquires new knowledge, skills and understandings by the means of coaching which, in its most advanced expression, also achieves the same ‘artistry’ (p. 19) that Schön (1987) associates with expert professional practice and performance. In order to explain what he means by skilled coaching, Schön describes in detail the ways in which a competent practitioner coaches, rather than teaches, a practicum student who is under his supervision. Schön argues that the novice, Petra, learns a great deal about the profession into which she is being inducted when she brings her design into the design studio, meets the skilled practitioner, Quist, also her supervisor, and enters into a special kind of dialogue about her design attempt in which ‘she listens to him with operative attention—that is, with a special readiness to translate what she hears into action’ (p. 103). Petra encounters what Schön had described earlier as the ‘experience of learning by doing and the artistry of good coaching’ (p. 17).
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The images of the novice and the learner who reflects in and on action assume the dyad of the learner and the coach or teacher. In the case of the problem-solving novice, a more experienced person must be relied upon to prepare, obtain and discuss the problem that the novices will solve. In the case of the reflective learner, both the skills-oriented debriefing session and the modelling of the professional language and implicit attitudes to work and workplace come from Quist. Although Petra talks and shows her drawing, she is only able to judge it by hearing about it from Quist. Hence, in both cases, even though they seem very different, the main resource is that of the mentor, coach, teacher or supervisor charged with the responsibility of re-shaping the novice’s work and implicit attitudes. Also committed to the understanding of practice are Lave and Wenger (1991). Theirs is a theoretical perspective that brings together theories about the production and the reproduction of the social world. Introducing their perspective as one in which social practices can take their rightful place, Lave and Wenger go on to deal with the concept of ‘legitimate, peripheral participation’ (also the subtitle of their 1991 book), a term that depicts learners in relation to their new settings. Influenced by anthropological rather than pedagogical models, both Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998) are interested in ‘communities of practice’ (p. 47) and the ways in which participation in any situation is not simply influenced by, but constituted by, the context. In this view of learning, much more is at stake than the acquisition of skills. Learning involves the acquisition of new identities and, as such, is a much more fundamental process than is suggested either by theories of change that use the notion of ‘role’ as their base, or theories of learning that involve general descriptions of a decontextualised ‘self’. In the writings of both Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998), the workplace is a community to which the learner has something of the same relationship as the apprentice painter in a Renaissance workshop in Siena, Florence or Padua (Norman, 1995). Although popular conceptions of the Italian Renaissance celebrate the achievements of heroic individuals such as Michelangelo and Raphael, the outpouring of creative activity that was the hallmark of the period was made possible by the existence of hundreds of small workshops in which craftsmen and their apprentices made objects
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for consumption by a wealthy European and Levantine clientele (Jardine, 1996). In the workshops of painters, which were usually run by networks of family members, apprentices were taken on to undertake tasks such as grinding the raw materials that went into the pigments. Such work was supportive of, and crucial to, the activities of those who executed the larger paintings or undertook more highly skilled work such as painting faces and portraits of contemporary citizens into the large narrative works that were then popular. In an examination of the arts of carving and casting during the fourteenth century, King (1995) argues that, in order to understand the expertise and the functions of the people who were skilled in these areas, it is also necessary to understand the ‘interplay’ of the ‘skills and ambitions of individual artists with the powers of their paymasters, their audiences and their fellow guildsmen’ (p. 98) among whom would be counted the apprentices once they had finished the initial years of their training. Resources and support for the learner as apprentice It can be appreciated that reflective apprentices need certain resources. Firstly, they need good coaches who are as astute, as committed and as skilled in their professional fields as the Quist described in Schön’s (1987) work. Other important resources needed by learners who are trying to achieve effective reflection on practice as well as reflection in practice are the attributes of perceptiveness and insight, capabilities that may develop rather slowly. That apprentices learn to see a professional situation in all its fullness only after a certain period of time has been demonstrated by Russell (1993) who has described his commitment to combining teacher education with a return to teaching in the physics classroom. Russell found that rather than learning simply from observing the practice of a skilled teacher, the student teachers who were arrayed at the back of the room observing the lesson could not discern that certain situations had been managed skilfully. The trainees did not have the experience needed to distinguish predicaments from other moments in the teaching. As a consequence, they were not able to pick up the strategies that they would have been able to perceive if they had had the professional ‘eyes’ needed to categorise the reality before them into different professional ‘moments’.
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Various writers have proposed ways in which reflection can be encouraged by resources other than the coach. Boud, Keogh & Walker (1985) recommend a phase-oriented process, while Prawat (1991) has argued that an explicit focus can be established for the reflection. These examples have been chosen to represent a few of the many strategies designed to support the learner’s development towards becoming a reflective practitioner. The literature on the area is replete with strategies for promoting ‘Effective reflective practice’, the title of one of Loughran’s (2000) many contributions to this area. Like Schön (1987) and Russell (1993), Benner (1984) has explored the differences between the practices and reflections of expert and novice practitioners. Her work, which was built on a series of comparisons between the ways in which experts and novices perceived and described the same professional situations, was ground breaking in that it assumed that practical knowledge had much to offer theoretical knowledge in the field of nursing. This overturned the common understanding that was enshrined by the structuring of programs and courses that theory came before practice and that their relationship was one of ‘application’. Like Meyers and Jones (1993) who assumed that the adult learner brought so much into higher education that higher education should respond accordingly, Benner’s (1984) work was highly original in its stress on practice as the locus of the most significant learning experiences and the dominant knowledge construction agency. She was able to argue that theory would benefit greatly from practice because, at its best, skilled practice was based on the kind of experience that enabled the expert to make ‘rapid decisions based on concrete examples’ (p. 187). Benner (1984) was also able to demonstrate that the high levels of expertise shown by the most proficient practitioners could not always be articulated, but could be demonstrated. For these reasons, ‘the theoretician must always depend on the practitioner for clinical knowledge development and for finding puzzles and questions that current theorizing does not predict or cover’ (p. 187). Although various workplace-based programs of training have not always invoked Benner’s ideas, many of their principles are in harmony with her ideas as they also stress the significance of practice in relation to theory. Such ideas have been explored in Australia by Lee and
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Loughran (2000), some of whose work has centred on ‘school based’ teacher training, a type of training that allows student-teachers to undertake their practicums on a more intensive, longer term basis.
The learner as performer Bourgeois, Duke, Guyot and Merrill (1999) state in their book, The adult university, that the number of studies that have emphasised the ‘viewpoint of the actors’ (p. 99) in relation to the issue of access to higher education is meagre but increasing in volume. At various points throughout their book, they make use of Goffman’s (1959, 1961) ideas, incorporating his concepts of ‘frame’ (see p. 98) and ‘secondary adjustment’ (p. 106) into their work. Goffman’s (1959) work, which describes and explores his ‘dramaturgical’ perspective (see preface, n. p.), makes creative use of the concepts of ‘theatrical performance’ (p. 79), ‘cues, hints, and stage directions’ (p. 79) and ‘repertoire’ (p. 80) in order to describe the ways in which social actors orient their performances and positions to each other as discerning audiences. Goffman’s work draws on the metaphor of the self as an actor who can take on and perform certain ways of presenting the self to others. His work offers a way of thinking about the strategies adults use in order to learn to change in new situations, and seem especially appropriate to the first phase of the placement experience. The idea of role seems both pervasive and persuasive because it offers a way of explaining the continuity of social life in a general sense while enabling theorists to describe the changes that individuals may undergo in the course of their lives. Although it can be seen as a concept unable to accommodate change, the term ‘role’ is often accompanied by a modifier so that the general concept becomes more dynamic. Hence, roles have been described as being at once ascribed and achieved, negotiated, ambiguous, in conflict with other roles, and part of a ‘set’ of slightly differing roles that together make up a larger identification (Jary & Jary, 2000). Although they do not make the point explicitly themselves, Bourgeois, Duke, Guyot and Merrill’s (1999) work also demonstrates that the concept of role is useful because it can explain the ways in which the adult learner can ‘adapt quickly’ (p. 100) to a new situation. Goffman’s (1959) most relevant theories are now outlined briefly and then discussed in relation to ‘support’ and ‘resources’.
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In an extended account of the social life that takes place within ‘the physical confines of a building ... be it domestic, industrial, or commercial’ (Preface, n. p.), Goffman (1959) explores the identity and impressions created by ‘the individual in ordinary work situations’. In order to do this, he defines various concepts needed to undertake this task before he begins. Importantly, face-to-face interaction involves much more than speaking or listening and can be seen as the ‘reciprocal influence’ people have on each other when they are together. Interaction, in Goffman’s terms, is ‘all the interaction which occurs throughout any one occasion when a given set of individuals are in one another’s continuous presence’ (p. 26). A single interaction, then, can be seen as an ‘encounter’ (p. 26). Performance, another of Goffman’s key terms, also contains the concept of influence and seeks to define the ways in which participants organise their activities in order to have a certain impact on other people who then serve as ‘the audience, observers, or co-participants’ (p. 27) of the performance. Goffman’s (1959) concept of ‘social role’ (p. 27) has several aspects. Firstly, the role involves the acting out of certain rights and obligations that have been ‘attached’ (p. 27) to a given status or position. Secondly, the role is made up of one of more parts or routines (p. 27). A ‘“part” or “routine”’ (p. 27) is not synonymous with ‘role’ as might be expected, but can be defined as the ‘pre-established pattern of action which is unfolded during a performance’ (p. 27). Hence, rather than necessarily being unitary, roles can be made up of several different parts. This is an important point that culminates in the following statement: a social role will involve one or more parts ... each of these different parts may be presented by the performer on a series of occasions to the same kinds of audience or to an audience of the same persons. (p. 27) The concept of role has been criticised for its rather rigid view of social life and institutions. However, Goffman’s (1959) emphasis on the many parts that can contribute to a role allows the concept to attain some complexity. Although Goffman does not elaborate on this point in great detail, it seems clear that if many roles contain several
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different parts, these may be taken up by individual performers in more complex and varied ways than if every role were always an unchanging list of rights and responsibilities. More importantly, Goffman stresses that roles are not easily carried out. Hence, the difficulties facing performers are of major interest. Goffman sums this up by saying that the ‘dramaturgical problems of presenting the activity before others’ (p. 26) provide his book with its raison d’être. Goffman’s (1959) concept of role emphasises the ways in which presenting the self can be hazardous. He shows that hesitations, embarrassment and being ‘caught out’ are all possible when the self is involved in many roles or cannot commit to the one that is being performed at any given moment. Some performances are easier to give than others. Hence, the roles of ‘prizefighters, surgeons, violinists, and policemen’ (p. 41) offer a great deal of scope for expression and confirmation as the essential aspects of the role are easily accessed by an audience. Other performances take more work and entail many ‘expressive stresses’ (p. 47). This is often the case when performers are doing more than simply modifying their performance to fit audience expectations, but are trying to present ‘idealized performances’ (p. 45). Goffman explains that, ‘when the individual presents himself before others, his performances will tend to incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society, more so, in fact, than does his behaviour as a whole’ (p. 45). The questions ‘How does the performer come to learn the role?’ and ‘What sort of support can the learner expect?’ cannot be addressed by simply invoking the dramaturgical metaphor because the work of an actor involves the prior learning of a script before the performance as well as the actual performing in front of an audience. In the social world, however, scripts and performances are accomplished simultaneously. Goffman (1959) himself pointing out that they are ‘sometimes not well rehearsed’ (Preface, n. p.). Goffman does not explore the question of how individuals come to take on their roles directly, simply referring to ‘our socialized selves’ (p. 63) and ‘the socialization process’ (p. 64). However, he provides examples of people who have chosen, or been forced to, take on certain roles that they have, after some time, become accustomed to performing, giving some insights into the process as he does so.
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In order to describe the trajectory from ‘disbelief-to-belief’ (p. 31) in a certain performance (or its mirror image—that from belief to cynicism), Goffman (1959) takes an example from his own doctoral work, ‘the Shetland Isle study’ (p. 30). In this example, a couple who had come from a crofter background took over a tourist hotel and, in having to provide amenities for the middle-class people who could afford to travel, they themselves became more gentrified. While there is no detailed examination of the ways in which the crofters achieved this change in role or ‘performance’ (p. 31), Goffman’s brief description implies that the crofters were able to achieve this transformation, firstly, by being implicated in a certain type of ‘setting’ (p. 33) and then by being perceived in certain ways by the clients who came to the hotel and found the crofters in this setting. It is also probable that the hotel keepers were able to achieve a ‘confirming consistency’ between the middle-class ‘setting’ and the ‘appearance and manner’ (p. 35) that seem to be required by this particular ‘social front’ (p. 37). In order to discover more about the ways in which people can be seen to move from role to role and ‘fumble their way through a learning period’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 56), it is necessary to examine Goffman’s (1961) analysis of the ways in which people become inmates of a closed institution. Goffman stresses that his analysis applies to ‘total institutions’ (p. 12) such as asylums, prisons and the army, those institutional settings in which a person sleeps, plays and works under a centrally organised set of rules. However, while such a warning suggests that the analysis cannot be used to explain the ways in which students become student-workers or worker-students, Goffman’s essay entitled ‘On the characteristics of total institutions’ (pp. 1–124) expands on the concept of role in ways that extend his definition of the term in earlier work. His ideas can be used to understand some aspects of the students’ transitions from roles in higher education to roles in workplaces. Goffman’s (1961) description shows that the change in role from non-inmate to inmate has several key characteristics all of which involve restriction and constriction. The ‘stripping’ that characterises a person’s entry into a total institution is identified with the loss of certain roles that must be abandoned ‘by virtue of the barrier that separates him from the outside world’ (p. 16). Firstly, individuals change their locations in the worlds of home, work and leisure to that
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of the asylum. Secondly, individuals’ involvements in many roles are exchanged for the single one of ‘inmate’. Thirdly, the many roles— those of student, worker, parent, lover—all of which have dynamic, changing elements, cannot be performed alongside the timeless one of inmate. Some of these roles may be lost to the individual, never to be recovered. Finally, the taking on of the new role involves an ‘entrance’ in which individuals are ‘immediately stripped’ of many characteristics that have been allowed and even encouraged by their former roles. Goffman sums up the change by observing that, as a consequence of the inmates’ separation from the wider social world, ‘[r]ole dispossession ... occurs’ (p. 14). Hence, if the learner is seen as a performer, the challenges of transition and learning will lie in the degree to which the novice performer can sustain the performance needed to maintain the definition of the situation and of the self in it that other people in that situation want the novice to sustain. Outward appearances and people’s judgements regarding the degree to which the performance has been convincing will be of the greatest importance and the stress of the situation will lie in one’s estimation of how easy or difficult it will be to produce and maintain the performance required. In Goffman’s (1959) memorable phrases, a ‘perfectly homogeneous performance’ will be bought at the cost of ‘a certain bureaucratization of the spirit’ (p. 64) and ‘a mask of manner ... held in place from within’ only by ‘social discipline’ (p. 65). Goffman (1959) shows that in order to inhabit any role, even a very mundane one that has nothing to do with life in a total institution, the performer has to ‘pass a strict test’ related to the appropriateness of the performance being given. Importantly, then, learners as ‘characters put on for an audience’ (p. 63), cannot be conceived of outside their relationship with that audience, an audience who participates in the performance while watching it and evaluating it. However, the task facing the performer who is moving into a new role is not an easy one. Goffman (1959) adds several further difficulties to the ones already outlined. The first has its roots in the fact that only ‘meagre stage directions’ will be given to any performer, because it is assumed that ‘a good deal’ (p. 79) will already be known about the role. Goffman explains:
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Socialization may not so much involve a learning of the many specific details of a single concrete part—often there could not be enough time or energy for this. What does seem to be required of the individual is that he learn enough pieces of expression to be able to ‘fill in’ and manage, more or less, any part that he is likely to be given. (p. 79) Another difficulty lies in the fact that the performance, the management of the overall impression, has to be sustained over a period of time. Hence, possessing certain characteristics associated with the role is not adequate. The performer has to accomplish the social role. Goffman (1959) states that the social position must be ‘realized’ because it is not something that can be owned but is a ‘pattern of appropriate conduct’ (p. 81) that must be performed. A third difficulty faced by performers is that they must often depend on the other people in ‘the team’ in order to sustain their performance and the desired definition of the situation at hand. If the performance is sustained in front of another audience, the ‘team’ of performers will be ‘in the know’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 88) about the exact nature of the performance. Hence, loyalty to one’s team and one’s team mates will become very important so that even if one team member should make a ‘mistake’ (p. 94) in front of others, this will not be referred to until the audience has disappeared. Goffman adds to his observations about ‘teams’ by showing that certain team members can endanger the ability of any performer to achieve an effective performance or ‘front’ before others: ‘It is apparent that if performers are concerned with maintaining a line they will select as team-mates those who can be trusted to perform properly’ (p. 95). Hence, if the students are seen in Goffman’s (1959) ‘dramaturgical’ terms as performers, the students will have to learn to: • • •
present an appropriate first impression in relation to appearance and manner perform effectively even if a role is not ‘believed in’ fully at the beginning deploy various ‘sign-equipment’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 39) relevant to their role
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• • •
• • •
make up for the lack of detailed guidelines regarding their performance of a role realise that the taking up of a new role might also involve the loss of old roles realise that the taking up of new roles may involve the self in the loss of certain significant ‘identity equipment’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 21) cope with co-participants as observers and evaluators cope with the dependence on others as team members cope with the desire for other performers to have team members with whom an effective performance can be maintained in front of an audience.
Resources and support for the learner as performer The performer’s main resources are other people. These provide the audience that requires, constrains and gives meaning to the performer’s everyday presentation of the self. In order to present the performance of self, the learner as performer needs an ‘identity kit’ or ‘identity equipment’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 21). If learners are seen as performers, then the elements of the ‘identity kit’ that help the performer to create a certain impression will have to be present and deployed in a satisfactory way so that the elements of manner, appearance and setting are in harmony with each other. Their main requirements will be the support of those ‘team’ members with whom they are performing and the audience’s confirming belief that the performance has been seamless or appropriate for that situation. The main difficulties that the performing learners face in the workplace relate to the meagre scripts that have been set forth for them and the skilled improvisation that they have to carry out without extra props or preparation. Performers also face the problem that their identity equipment can be taken away from them (in extreme situations) or may prove to be inappropriate or open to misinterpretation in new situations (a much more common experience). Goffman (1959, 1961) writes about transitions that involve a change from one role to a very different one—from Shetland Isle crofter to tourist hotel manager; from employee and parent to inmate; from civilian to army recruit. In each process, the self that comes to be presented is very different from the one that was performed in the
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previous situation and the participating and watching audience is different also. The new audience can preside over a humiliating ‘welcome’, take away the individual’s ‘identity kit’ (1961, p. 21)—those ‘tools’ that enable a person to present a certain front to any audience—and maintain a situation in which patterns of extreme deference and other kinds of humiliation are practised in order to keep the newcomers in their ‘place’. Such activities also quicken the process of change—people are ‘stripped’ (p. 21) of their former images of self and forced to take up a new identity. Hence, one identity is swapped for another, the outward changes, at least, taking very little time to achieve. While Goffman (1959, 1961) offers us many insights into the way in which the newcomer might enter one world from a very different one, other groups of works explore the situation in which there is great congruity between the culture the individual is leaving and the one the individual is entering. Polsky (1971) describes how his entry into the world of ‘hustlers’ is accomplished with ease because he is already a very proficient snooker player. Willis’s (1977) famous ‘lads’ make an even smoother transition to the world of work because there is ‘a clear experiential continuity’ between the seemingly disparate worlds of the workplace and the ‘counter-school culture’ (p. 95) that the non-conformist working-class boys participate in and maintain at school. Hence, the ‘masculine expression, divisions and “laffs” as learnt creatively in the counter-school culture’ (p. 100) are the strategies that enable the lads to survive the demands of physically demanding, yet repetitive, work. Willis (1977) explains that the lads’ emphasis on the extrinsic, group-oriented benefits of work exist alongside a holding back from deep involvement in other aspects of work. Hence, although work is looked forward to, the general attitude to work is ‘contained, limited and minimised’ (p. 102). Involvement in the cultural and symbolic aspects of work is highly developed. This means that work takes on a ‘sensuous human face’ (p. 102) for the ‘lads’ and this is what they orient towards at school rather than any interest in the work itself. In order to make this point in the lads’ own words, Willis provides an extract in which Will and Joey, two of the boys who appear quite often in the book, are talking about their future work. In this extract, Joey comments, ‘I think every job’s got, has a degree of unpleasantness,
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but it’s up to you to mek ... to push that unpleasantness aside and mek it as good and as pleasant as possible’ (p. 102). In anthropological work, the ability to understand unfamiliar linguistic meanings is considered a vital part of gaining access to the meaning making activities, interactions and images that ‘glue’ communities together (Geertz, 1973a). Hence, various writers offer accounts of learning the spoken language of the group in which they are the stranger, Powdermaker (1966), for example, reflecting on the ways in which friendly ‘insiders’ were willing to give her explicit insights into the community’s language. Writers also try to offer their readers glimpses of the meanings accessed. Jackson’s (1989) book on the Kuranko of north-eastern Sierra Leone is dotted with italicised local terms and their meanings in English (see p. 81), while Rosaldo (1993) offers the reader an extended glossary (see pp. 236–57), commenting that the glossary may make ‘accessible to the reader certain aspects of the Ilongot language’ (p. 236). Willis (1977) also focuses on language, spending much time on showing the ways in which the ‘continuities’ between the counterschool culture and the masculine, ‘shop floor culture’ (p. 52) of the factories and foundries are forged by linguistic means. Hence, the lads as a group create ‘fun, atmosphere and a social identity’ (p. 23) by ‘having a laff’ (p. 29) and provide rich opportunities for humour. The lads also use language that is ‘full of spat out swear words, vigorous use of local dialect and special argot’ (p. 33). As Joey comments, ‘... we could talk forever, when we get together, it’s talk, talk, talk’ (p. 33). Given the relationship between talking and being, it is not surprising then that talking is one of the main ways in which the ‘many profound similarities’ (p. 39) between the counter culture of the lads at school and the culture of the shop floor are maintained and strengthened. Language is one of the most important avenues by which the lads can show that they have ties with the world of masculine work and set themselves apart from the other boys at school. The lads’ out-of-school involvement in violence and sexual activity needs to be transformed into anecdotes before these experiences can be used to gain respect at school. While the concept of ‘role’ has been used widely both in scholarly writing and in educational literature in general, it has obvious weaknesses. The first lies in the implication that the person performing the role is distanced from it in the same way as an actor can shrug on and 50
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slough off a part on stage. However, it is obvious that it is difficult to take on and put off the roles of parent or teacher with the same ease. Secondly, the concept of role differentiates too sharply between the actor and the setting in which the performance takes place. Thirdly, the concepts of role, performance and setting are quite static and cannot account for the way in which the actor, the script and the setting, indeed the whole performance, can change and often do so quite rapidly. If the social world were really constituted as a play, then the same roles and performances would be given from one century to the next. In the social world, actors, performances and ‘settings’ are interwoven in a dynamic way. Time and technology are crucially important elements and cannot be considered as mere ‘props’. It is not surprising, therefore, that theorists such as Davies and Harré (1990) have sought to replace the concept of role with that of ‘positioning’ (p. 43) and ‘position’ (p. 44) in order to present a more dynamic, linguistically constituted, social being.
The learner as new community member It is possible to see workplaces as cultures. Writing under the aegis of the Institute of Personnel Development in London, Baron and Walters (1994) use the term ‘culture’ to refer to a diverse array of organisational characteristics. They refer initially to the ‘culture literature’ (p. 1) and, then, more specifically, to national cultures, management and corporate cultures, questions of culture, successful cultures and ‘good practice in culture management’. Their interest in culture has been stimulated by the sense that globalisation has brought with it many new issues, all of which have something to do with the ‘elusive’ concept of culture, which they describe in relation to corporate culture using the colloquial term, ‘ how we do things around here’ (p. 1). While the concept of culture has often been used to serve as the unifying idea for comparative anthropological and ethnographic studies, it is a valuable idea to bring to the consideration of workplaces. This is because it offers an array of categories that can be used to describe specific workplaces as well as offering the researcher tools with which to ‘defamiliarise’ workplaces so that they become objects of inquiry rather than places that are known and understood. Handy (1993) and Trice and Beyer (1993) are among those writers who have argued that organisations can be seen as cultures. These writers have been chosen to introduce the discussion for four Learners in Unfamiliar Workplaces
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reasons. Firstly, their insights can be applied to a wide variety of organisations and workplaces. Secondly, they give attention to both language and practices within their broader description of the ways in which cultural meanings are created and maintained. Thirdly, their description of organisations rests on the work of theorists such as Mead (1934) and Berger and Luckmann (1967) whose interest in the role of language, spoken interaction and symbols was salient given that the students’ narratives in their interviews were often organised around the re-telling of significant spoken interactions. Finally, in their description of the way in which people are socialised into organisational cultures, Trice and Beyer make an important distinction between socialisation into an occupational culture and socialisation into an organisational culture. This is a useful distinction because some of the students were undertaking work within a workplace setting for the first time, while others had prior work experiences that were relevant to both the workplace and their profession. According to Trice and Beyer (1993), cultures involve ‘shared views of the world’ (p. 83). A central activity in any culture is that of ‘sense making’ (p. 81), a complex process involving ‘knowing and perceiving ... doing things and ... doing things together’ (p. 81). Social processes of many kinds give the culture coherence and make it possible for people ‘to share similar interpretations of familiar and unfamiliar situations’ (p. 83). Socialisation into an organisational culture is achieved by the deployment of various ‘cultural forms’ (Trice & Beyer, 1993, p. 77) that convey cultural meanings, enabling people in the organisation to make sense of the culture and maintain the culture simultaneously. The cultural forms that are most significant are symbols, language, narratives and practices. Each of these general categories can be divided into subcategories (though such distinctions inevitably give rise to problems of overlap). Cultural forms are significant in that they are central to sense making, crystallising the often implicit ideas, norms and rules of the organisation and continually creating and recreating the meanings that people need in order to accomplish their everyday activities. At different points in Trice and Beyer’s (1993) book, insights are given into the functions that the major cultural forms might have for new members of the organisation. Firstly, forms provide a ‘concrete
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anchoring point’ (p. 85) around which various meanings, even vague ones, can coalesce. Secondly, language in general and narratives in particular can provide kinds of ‘scripts’ (p. 85) for people to follow. Thirdly, frequently repeated practices convey ‘prescriptions and prohibitions’ (p. 107) so that people can participate appropriately (or inappropriately) in specific situations. In this depiction of organisations as cultures, language plays a significant role. Trice and Beyer (1993) argue that ‘Organizations have no objective reality’ (p. 90), but are created by people’s everyday interactions within the organisation. As a result, new members must learn the languages of the organisation before they can fully understand the culture and participate in it. However, the language learning extends beyond that, as new members will also need to learn further organisational languages so that they can engage in ‘specific work activities’ (p. 90) and function within organisational ‘subcultures’ (p. 90). In this perspective of the organisation as a culture, the new member must learn one or more ‘languages’. The learning will involve the acquisition of language that seems to resemble the acquisition of a second language, which, according to Ellis (1986) in his survey of second language acquisition, can be achieved by using a ‘natural route’ (p. 123) via ‘informal environments’ (p. 231) and/or a process of explicit instruction. Billett (1995) makes a similar distinction when he argues that the learner’s ability to learn in the workplace is the result of participation in workplace activities and ‘the direct and indirect guidance provided’ (p. 22). If Trice and Beyer (1993) conceptualise the new member as a learner of significant cultural forms including ‘languages’, Ellis’s (1986) work contains a list of the characteristics students require in order to be seen as ‘good’ language learners. All of Ellis’s nine characteristics are important, but four are particularly important. Ellis argues that good learners will ‘seek out all opportunities to use the target language’ (p. 122); have a strong motivation for learning the language; take risks even if this causes embarrassment; and be able to adapt to a variety of learning situations. Resources and support for learners as new community members If the workplace is seen as a culture, students undertaking the workplace component of their program of study have important
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similarities with groups or individuals entering a relatively unfamiliar culture for the first time. If interaction is the key to this kind of learning, then the learner’s most pressing requirement is interaction with others in such a way that cultural forms can be accorded their relative significance even if that significance cannot be articulated precisely. Various writings have shown that the relationship of the newcomer to the new culture can be one of estrangement in which local knowledges, symbolic meanings and language are learned over a period of time. In the second scenario, carefully described in the work of Willis (1977), the new culture and the old culture have significant similarities and so the learning that has to be undertaken by the newcomer is not as great. Similarities in the identities and in the activities and linguistic means by which these identities are accomplished mean that the transition from place of learning to place of work is not difficult or even very challenging. However, some transitions are so challenging that they can be described accurately as hazardous. One final image, of particular relevance to those who must make transitions, can now be discussed. This image defines the learner as a border crosser.
The learner as border crosser The image of the learner as border crosser has been taken from the work of Aronowitz and Giroux (1991), not only because they are writing from within an explicitly educational framework, but also because their writings on postmodernism include discussions of ‘power and politics’ (p. 73), emphasising that groups can appear to have voices while remaining essentially marginalised. In an important comment, Aronowitz and Giroux state that, Within the postmodern discourse of culture and Otherness there is a privileging of space, textuality, signs and surfaces that runs the risk of abandoning all forms of historicity. While some critics rightly argue that postmodernism offers the opportunity to repossess those human histories barred from the script of dominant historical narratives ... more often than not, such opportunities remain concretely unrealized. (p. 74)
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In order to develop a positive alternative notion of what postmodern education might look like, Aronowitz and Giroux (1991) offer a new image of learners whose experiences and identities are formed by ‘complex, multiple and heterogeneous realities’ (p. 120). Contemporary students are engaged in border crossing. However, this should not be seen as an unsettling, anxiety-producing state, but can be seen as an opportunity to participate in and re-negotiate the many possible cultural, political and social codes that exist. Hence, students as border crossers do not have to dwell on the difficulties that such a position might present, but can see themselves as people who are crossing into ‘realms of meaning—maps of knowledge, social relations, and values that are increasingly being negotiated and rewritten’ as social rules are both ‘destabilized and reshaped’ (p. 119). The consequences for the students who are border crossers are very different from those of Willis’s (1977) lads who, as he has shown, crossed few borders of any significance in order to enter the world of work. By contrast, Aronowitz and Giroux (1991) insist that many opportunities await the border crosser because new positions are made possible by the multiple identities on offer. However, while Aronowitz and Giroux’s (1991) image of the border-crossing learner is an optimistic one, the same image has been used to illustrate the hazards that real attempts to cross borders can have. Although these writings do not take up the issue of learning directly, they offer an important corrective to the postmodern myth that identities can be forged ahistorically. Munro (1997) states that it is difficult for those who are not committed to any particular set of views, explaining that those who ‘dodge and podge, and try to see the world from ‘in-between’ divisions ... can enjoy no membership of it’ (p. 5). However, the nature of such an ‘in-between’ state takes on a new dimension of it that is not simply a matter of the ways of seeing, perspectives or views that Munro discusses, but is the result of circumstances that have erased any sense of agency. Merewether (1996), who, like Aronowitz and Giroux (1991), writes from a postmodern perspective, also takes up many of these ideas. Rather than offering an optimistic picture of border crossing, Merewether underlines the hazards of the transitional phase. He uses the image of border crossing in order to talk about the spaces around third-world cities in which women and children who have tried to
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make a successful transition from rural areas into the large cities find that their only option is to exist on the cities’ outskirts and work as poorly paid domestic workers in the large cities. Unlike Aronowitz and Giroux’s image, Merewether’s discussion is historically grounded and describes embodied subjects in real-world situations. However, border crossing is not an activity that is engaged in solely by those who are located in ‘other’ places. The same experiences of dislocation and loss can be felt in many different situations. Studies of transition have focused on a wide variety of roles—or changes in positioning—and have articulated the difficulties associated with specific transitions in ways that reflect the transitional context. In an Australian study conducted by Green (1997, 1998) it was found that the transition from primary school to secondary school had a profound impact on some of the children who took part in this experience. This was not surprising given that entry into Australian secondary schools involves leaving behind many of the most salient features of the primary school including the one teacher-one grade relationship, the integrated nature of the curriculum and the strong links between home and school, which gain much of their strength from the parental ‘drop-off’ in the morning. What was surprising about the transition made by the children in Green’s study was the intensity of the impact on individual children. To take just one case, one girl’s involvement in reading dropped quite markedly when compared with the reading she had undertaken during the final year of primary school. Other difficult transitions are those made by women who have become first-time mothers (Heritage and Sefi, 1992; Sullivan, 1997), nurses making the swap from enrolled to registered nurse roles (Paech, 2002), and old people going into nursing homes (Minichiello, Alexander & Jones, 1990). Each of these experiences can be described as ‘a major life transition’ (Minichiello, Alexander & Jones, 1990, p. 323). The difficulties of each transition arise from both the general and the particular characteristics of each situation and centre around the interconnected notions of identity and expertise. Elderly people find the transition to the nursing home difficult because they do not wish to leave their own dwellings and the identities that each home maintains and develops. They also fear the closed nature of the options offered. They know that the nursing home—referred to in
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the Australian vernacular as ‘God’s waiting room’—can be perceived as a final destination. Like the elderly people described by Minichiello, Alexander and Jones (1990), new mothers can also experience a sense of loss of status. Obviously, this loss of status does not usually involve the possession or lack of a home, but the possession of certain kinds of expertise. New mothers perceive their own lack of expertise in that they are aware that they find it difficult to identify the source of the baby’s discomfort (Sullivan, 1997). They are also aware that this lack of expertise can be perceived by those who have had more experience with babies and that such perceptions can translate their position as ‘first-time’ mothers into that of subordinate in relation to babies and their care. Although undertaken in order to investigate spoken interaction rather than the situation of new mothers, Heritage and Sefi’s (1992) study shows that the new mothers both dislike, and subtly resist, the health carer’s implication that first-time mothers do not know what they are doing. Hence, both elderly people and new mothers can experience a loss of ‘autonomy and control’ (Minichiello, Alexander & Jones, 1990, p. 323) or agency during the transitional period described. In both cases, people move from a situation in which they are often seen as ‘having’ (a house) or ‘being’ (pregnant) to a situation in which they are ‘lacking’ (their own dwelling or expertise in caring for a young baby). However, people’s responses to the situation vary greatly, some of the mothers resisting the negative interpretations of their competence betrayed by visiting health workers and some elderly people perceiving that the nursing home would give them greater freedom than living with a married child (Minichiello, Alexander & Jones, 1990). In the studies cited, people’s perceptions of the transitional period are influenced by the extent to which they can participate in the decisions that affect them and gain positive perceptions of their competence from the others with whom they come in contact. However, while the existence of the phrase ‘a smooth transition’ bears witness to the possibility that many transitions can be undertaken with relative ease, the reverse is also true. Hence, studies of the transition from school to university (McInnis & James, 1995; Watson, Johnson & Billett, 2003) have shown that students vary in the extent
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to which they are prepared for the change and the relative ease with which they make it. The high incidence of attrition during and after the first year of university study in many university programs across Australia demonstrates that transitions can be problematic experiences. Not all who take on the transition make it to the next phase of greater knowledge, understanding or expertise. Merewether’s (1996) work, which discusses a very different sort of transition from the ones already described, focuses attention on the potentially hazardous nature of any transition. In his assessment of the work of the two Columbian artists, Hincapie and Salcedo, Merewether asks the following question, ‘What of the people who do not make it across the border, who are turned back as they traverse the “middle passage”?’ (p. 102). By emphasising that one group of people who have not been able to move successfully between one place and another are women and children from among the rural poor of Colombia, Merewether shows that certain groups find transitions so difficult that they ‘fall inbetween’, never making it through the transitional phase but ‘always occupying a space between places’ (p. 103). The work placement and the learner as border crosser The perspective on the learning undertaken during a placement changes if the workplace experience is viewed as a border crossing. While in normal circumstances such crossings are routine, they always involve a certain degree of risk and redefinition, as does any journey from the safety of the familiar to the unknown. Images of the learner as a border crosser seem to suit most transitions and most work placements as well. Not only are they challenging to undertake, but also their outcomes can be a diminishing of opportunities rather than an enhancement of them. In other words, border crossing can be hazardous. The writings of Giroux (1993), Merewether (1996) and Min-ha (1998) allow us to see that transition and the learning that accompanies changes in everyday practices and the identities they constitute, cannot be considered without looking at the ways in which some people require many kinds of ‘resources’ and a great deal of ‘support’ in order to both achieve and learn effectively. Furthermore, the amount or type of resources required might go beyond what most
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people within an already constituted ‘community of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 47) may deem appropriate. Even if the image of the border crosser seems overly romantic or heroic, the image of learning implied seems to point to the possibility that actors who are undertaking placements will inevitably become involved in various exchanges, negotiations and struggles regarding resources and that the various people concerned with the placement experience will have interpreted the meanings, availability and potential of various resources in very different ways. Resources and support for learners as border crossers What are appropriate resources for border crossers? These are of a rather different order from the five sets already considered because in each image, the context and the significant others that have been presented—either explicitly or by implication—have been supportive of the learner. However, the border crosser is in a different situation. As this kind of learner requires greater support in order to make the rather difficult transition, those who scaffold the learning or regard the day-to-day performance must negotiate with the learners the extent to which they can be self-directed, independent or autonomous learners in any given situation. The presence of scaffolding interactions or supportive human resources is not sufficient for border crossers. The border-crossing learner requires interactions that are based on empowering expectations. In this way, the learner as border crosser may engage most satisfactorily with those who are committed to notions such as those outlined by Giroux (1992) or Aronowitz and Giroux (1991). Such guides or coaches will seek ‘the emancipatory possibilities of teaching and learning’ (p. 82) and view learning of all kinds as much a ‘political as it is a pedagogical project, one that demands that educators combine a democratic public philosophy with a postmodern theory of resistance’ (p. 82).
Further layers of complexity: the ideas of Bourdieu Thus far we have seen that the situation of the student in the workplace can be described using a variety of images and learning processes. In the first set of ideas, all of which see the learner to a greater or lesser extent as agenic, there is an emphasis on the degree to which
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the learner must speak and act in order to become. In the second group of images, the student is the legitimately peripheral inhabitant of a community or culture. The learner is also a performer who must rely on the face-to-face interactions with others for cues and clues that offer further directions. While their work has stimulated much debate, the works of Goffman (1959, 1961) and Willis (1977) retain their power because, in their work, narrative, explanation and a critical stance combine to form perspectives on people’s ‘struggle for life’ (de Certeau, 1988, p. ix). The writings of Goffman and Willis also show that any analysis of the social world has to take into account the interactions of people with other people as well as with the contexts of situation in which people live out their social identities. Bourdieu (1990) has remarked that ‘the progress of knowledge presupposes progress in our knowledge of the conditions of knowledge’ (p. 1). Hence, it is impossible to understand the struggles and dilemmas of students during work placements unless we have the means to probe the meaning of practice itself. However, the ways in which practice should or can be described and investigated are beyond many analytical frames. Bourdieu has commented that practice has its own ‘logic’ that lies outside reflection and control. Analysis of practice is difficult to accomplish because it is so much in the present that it eludes concerted inquiry. In the first part of this survey, it was argued that one of the most persistent images of the adult learner has been that of the agenic self who undertakes learning as a result of gaps being identified by the self or others or as a result of changes in one’s situation. In its clearest expression, the learner is seen as the ‘self-directed learner’ (Knowles, 1975) who obtains the knowledge and the resources needed to carry out a particular task. Bourdieu’s (1992, 2001) work allows us to see that the image of the agenic learner can be used to ascribe both the learner’s successes and the learner’s hesitations or failures to individual learners rather than to their situations. Bourdieu (1990) has often argued against the idea of the agenic, ‘rational actor’ (p. 50) stating that: The principle of practices has to be sought instead in the relationship between external constraints which leave a very variable margin for choice, and dispositions which are
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the product of economic and social processes that are more or less completely reducible to these constraints, as defined at a particular moment. (p. 50) If this seems rather deterministic, Bourdieu (1990) stresses that the same social pattern can be seen or experienced as both constraining and decision-oriented. Hence, marriage rituals in certain communities can be seen both as a set of ritual practices and as a ‘system of strategies’ (p. 16) taken to maximise the partners’ economic and symbolic capital. The image of the self-directed learner is appealing in that it offers the learner wide scope for accessing resources and seeking to fill in any gaps in the knowledge, understandings and skills one already has. However, the message that ‘self -directed learning is the best way to learn’ (Knowles, 1975, p. 10) is qualified by the difficulties faced by those who wish to undertake their own learning. These difficulties are centred around the complexities of the learner’s situation, or, more precisely, the context of the situation and the nature of the learning site. Bourdieu’s (1990) concept of habitus—‘the system of structured, structuring dispositions ... which is constituted in practice’ (p. 52) — depicts the complexities of the constructed relationships between selves, notions of agency, time and the social world. By developing this concept, Bourdieu has been able to generate many valuable insights into the problem of thinking about ‘practices’. Throughout his writing, Bourdieu has tried to describe the ways in which practice is the crucially important ‘site’ (p. 52) in which the historical conditions and the ‘durable, transposable dispositions’ (p. 53) that people inhabit come together to guide what is socially possible in the present and what is not—the ‘things to do or not to do, things to say or not to say’ (p. 53). In Bourdieu’s (1990) description, the habitus produces both ‘individual and collective’ (p. 54) practices in accordance with people’s early experiences and can be understood as ‘an acquired system of generative schemes’ (p. 55). Such a definition allows Bourdieu’s insights into practices to avoid the class-based determinism of Marxism or the orderly mechanism of structural functionalism. Stressing that such binaries as ‘determinism and freedom, conditioning and creativity,
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consciousness and the unconscious, or the individual and society’ (p. 55) should be resisted, Bourdieu argues that the concept of habitus enables thinkers to see that ‘thoughts, perceptions, expressions and actions’ (p. 55) operate within a ‘conditioned and conditional freedom’ (p. 55). Hence, practices arise from the ‘necessary yet unpredictable confrontation between the habitus and an event’ (p. 55). Bourdieu (1990) sums up his ideas on the ‘logic of action’ (p. 57) in the following important extract taken from a very dense piece of writing entitled, ‘Structures, Habitus, Practices’. In this piece, Bourdieu shows clearly how he wants us to understand the term ‘habitus’ when he compares the relationship of bodies and historically produced social conditions with the relationship between language in use and the genres that precede it. Bourdieu explains that, the real logic of action brings together two objectifications of history, objectification in bodies and objectifications in institutions or, which amounts to the same thing, two states of capital, objectified and incorporated ... This logic is seen in paradigmatic form in the dialectic of expressive dispositions and instituted means of expression (... literary genres, etc.) which is observed in the intentionless invention of regulated improvisation. (p. 57) While it might be thought that Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b) concepts are, in his own words, ‘formidably deterministic’ (p. 136), he wishes to stress that ‘social agents’ should not be seen as determined ‘particles of matter’ nor ‘little monads’ (p. 136) whose actions are guided by rational decision making. The point about ‘freedom’ that is important is that it is the way in which one perceives, appreciates and responds to any position that is ‘inscribed’ (p. 136). Hence, like the boys in Willis’s (1977) study, social beings actively construct the situation that is also constructed. However, there is a sense in which one is able to move away from a position. Dispositions can be seen for what they are when they are considered reflexively. However, as Bourdieu emphasises in various discussions (see, for example, Bourdieu & Wacquant [1992b], pp. 211–15), such reflexivity is not mere reflection, but rather involves the difficult process of understanding the intellectual and social assumptions on which one’s position is founded. 62
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How do Bourdieu’s (1990, 1992) ideas illuminate the situation of the students in the workplaces they have entered? Theories that describe the workplace in terms of a ‘culture’ depict the newcomer as one who lacks some of the essential knowledge or understandings necessary to become a full member of the culture (or of one of its sub-cultures). However, as Bourdieu (in Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b) points out, their presence in a field suggests that individuals already have some of the essential properties needed for entry. What will determine both the support they have and the success they win, is the extent to which they can either bring with them, or acquire, certain forms of ‘capital’ associated with that field. It is logical then that the ‘forces’ (p. 101) that confront each other in a field also define the kinds of capital that are appropriate for each other to have. In a single line, Bourdieu summarises this insight stating that, ‘A capital does not exist and function except in relation to a field’ (p. 101; words italicised in original). Four other observations about fields can be made. Firstly, groups within a field—whether ‘intellectuals, artists, politicians, or construction companies’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 105) —work to distinguish themselves from others in the field. Secondly, the field can be seen as a space in which struggles for preservation or transformation take place. As Bourdieu observes succinctly, ‘the field is also a field of struggles’ (p. 101). Thirdly, the ‘strategies’ used by ‘agents’ to improve their positions within a field are always tied to their specific position in that field. Finally, both their relationship to specific capital and the perspective they take ‘on the field’ will depend on the position they occupy ‘in the field’ (p. 101; words italicised in original). Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu, 2001; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992a) ideas of ‘habitus’ and ‘field’ are given further definition in relation to another central concept, that of ‘capital’. Bourdieu is often remembered for the phrase ‘cultural capital’ which has been used very widely since first coined in ‘the early sixties’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 160) as Wacquant (1992) has observed (see p. 4, fn. 4). Bourdieu has further refined his ideas regarding capital and now differentiates between several different kinds, supplementing the influential idea of cultural capital with other major types including economic and social. The three fundamental kinds are supplemented by sub-types including juridical and intellectual capital. In an important comment on these central insights, Bourdieu explains that each of the major Learners in Unfamiliar Workplaces
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types of capital becomes ‘symbolic capital’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 119) when perceived in certain ways. Bourdieu also argues that cultural capital can also be seen as ‘informational’ capital (see p. 119 for a discussion of this idea). Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b) argues that people can enter a field only because they possess ‘a definite configuration of properties’ (p. 107). Forms of capital that are specific to a field are possessed by certain people. Hence, rather than being conceptualised as overly determined atoms, people are seen in Bourdieu’s theoretical universe as the ‘bearers of capitals’ (p. 108), the ‘s’ denoting that certain agents may possess more than one form of capital. By using terms that seem uncharacteristically dualistic, Bourdieu makes a distinction between ‘small capital holders’ and ‘big capital holders’ (p. 109). However, such insights are not in themselves of great interest as many traditions of thought, as well as common sense, have assigned people to positions based on notions of property, namely economic capital. What is interesting about Bourdieu’s analysis is that he is able to show that the possession of certain forms of capital, for example, symbolic capital, gives social agents access to certain forms of participation that they could not otherwise have experienced. Furthermore, capital is never inert. The usefulness of various forms of capital—economic, cultural, social and symbolic—will vary across fields, and even within different sectors of the one field. Capital can be also be transformed into other types of capital, including the all-important symbolic capital. In the following chapters, the images of learners that have been described in this one will be explored further. This exploration will take two paths, one directed by a close examination of the interviews with students, the second by central concepts taken from the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The accounts offered by one group of social actors, students undertaking their course-related placements in Australian workplaces, are the focus of this work. As the students’ voices speak, the three themes of identity, resources and support, and learning become more interesting, but also more complex.
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Chapter 2
Belonging, Acquiring, Situated
A time of great challenge Central to the present exploration of the work placement is the argument that this particular time of transition can be characterised as one of great challenge, the daunting nature of which can only be fully appreciated by those who are student trainees themselves. Many of the challenges to be met by the students exist independently of them. The people in the workplace, the furniture and the fittings, the routine activities and familiar jokes all pre-date the students’ arrival. Even the tasks that the students will undertake are rarely their own—the classes are running, the companies have drawn up the projects they wish to have completed, the clients’ accounts are already waiting to be checked, the shares have been bought and are waiting to be sold online. The interviews showed that the first phase of the placement revolved around the tensions and dilemmas caused by the paradoxical situation that the students felt that they had to be seen to act competently and comfortably at work even though they were newcomers and novices who, by definition, had a rather uncertain status in their workplaces. The narratives also revealed that the challenges of this period were different from those that arose later on in the placement. The initial period of the placement posed its own
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dilemmas for the students as they attempted to find ways in which to present the self as proficient while coping with the many demands associated with new opportunities, new people and specific kinds of expertise. When asked to tell a story about their placements, many students chose to tell stories that involved their initial meetings with people, the social events that were organised for them, they were included in or invited to, and the resources that they were given. These activities can be seen as interactions and transactions that happen at the borders between the new world and the old. Hence, the initial face-to-face interactions offered the students opportunities for coming to terms with the environment that they had just entered. This enabled them to reflect on and make decisions about the extent to which they were ready to take on the identities that the workplace seemed to demand of them.
Students’ perceptions of ‘the very beginning’: belonging and becoming competent Two of the most important tasks of the initial period were defined by Zita and James. Zita spoke about the process of acquiring ‘some sense of belonging’ while James talked about his feeling of being under pressure to demonstrate an appropriate level of competence that he expressed in the observation, ‘you’ve got to get up to speed’. James used this phrase to describe his goal of attaining the kind of competence that would enable him to meet the demands of a fast-paced company whose goods were at the cutting edge of its field of production. The pressure to meet the external goals manifested by the workplace as well as his own desire for high achievement are both summarised in his phrase ‘up to speed’. The stories told by the students about the initial phase of their placements were grouped according to a series of significant challenges faced by each of the students interviewed. Each challenge was linked to a significant goal. The challenges can be summarised in the following way: •
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to understand the meaning of places and spaces, the physical environment and appropriate bodily presentations (to achieve ‘professional presence’)
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•
•
to understand the arrangement of existing relationships and to achieve a recognisable self within those relationships (to achieve ‘professional ease’) to manage initial tasks to the level expected (to achieve ‘professional competence’).
The stories from the ‘very beginning’ have been arranged in two main groups. The first group is composed of the stories the students told about their initial encounters. These stories have been organised according to the themes of greetings, gatherings and gifts. All relate to the larger issue of belonging. The second group of stories is centred on the tasks that the students carried out during the first part of their placement. The accounts reveal that the students were given many different types of tasks and that these tasks fulfilled a variety of functions. The stories in this section of the chapter both illustrate and define the ways in which the students were able to manage the first stage in their development as participants in a specific workplace community. Hence, while each story contributes to a further understanding of the process of belonging, it does so by focusing on the ways in which the students learn to become competent.
Learning how to belong: greetings, gatherings and gifts The importance of greetings and gatherings can only be understood if the extent to which the student trainee felt nervous or estranged is understood. Students described their initial feelings in various ways in order to emphasise how difficult it was at the beginning of the placement or to foreground their newness and inexperience. Several students used words such as ‘unsure’ (Mai), ‘nervous’ (Anna) and ‘worried’ (James) to describe their responses to the situations they found themselves in, while words such as ‘daunting’ (Francesca) and ‘quite a big deal’ (Emily) were used to describe the work they were given to do. The transcripts showed that nearly all students used the word ‘different’ to describe various aspects of the workplace. After the words ‘shock’, ‘surprise’, ‘embarrass’, ‘expect’, ‘new’, ‘strange’ and ‘different’ had been counted, the word ‘different’ outnumbered all of the other words. The analysis of the word ‘different’ and its many contexts made it possible to see that students were registering differences between
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their new workplace and already known and familiar routines and places throughout the duration of their various placements. Although the students interviewed did not articulate the challenges they faced by using words such as ‘identity’ or ‘self’, their narratives took up issues of becoming and belonging. While stressing their initial feelings of difference, separation or even isolation, many students recounted stories about the various ways in which they had been introduced to their new context. Small wonder, then, that all of the students who talked about the initial stages of their placements and told stories about ‘the very beginning’ stressed that the exact nature of the introduction, welcome or induction that they had received in the beginning was very important.
Greetings And placing his hand on mine, with a cheerful countenance that comforted me, he led me into the secret things. Dante, Inferno, Canto 111, 19–21 The students were welcomed and introduced to people in the workplace, like Dante had been in the Inferno, by individuals who had been charged with that responsibility. In many cases, the task of greeting the student was assigned to the person who was to be their supervisor, mentor or coach, but this was not always the case. Some workplaces assigned the welcoming activities a larger role in the student’s placement and gave these responsibilities to someone whose work included such activities, for example, Human Resources personnel. Just as the greetings varied in the ways in which they were given, they also varied in terms of their ‘friendliness’. George described the way in which friendliness could be demonstrated in an unambiguous manner: George: As a new person, I didn’t know what I was going to be involved in. All the people are very nice so I got a good first impression. JR: How did they show their niceness? George: When you talked to them, they looked you in the eye. They’re not frowning or anything. They’re
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not impatient. They’re actually able to talk in a friendly manner. George’s description had several different interactional elements—he emphasised eye-contact, facial expression, and the quality of the spoken interaction. Zita: ‘We felt we weren’t lost’ Zita contrasted her experiences with those of other students whose experiences she seemed to know about. On the basis of such knowledge, Zita was able to make the following comparison, her use of the phrase ‘went through’ implying that other students in the same course had had to endure, rather than enjoy, their work placements. Zita: I think just knowing what other people in other companies went through, I think what helped [the student trainees at Company A] most was that they took us around, they showed us the company and included us in their staff meetings as well. They introduced us to people. So right from the beginning we felt we weren’t lost. We had a sense of belonging right from the start. Showed, included, introduced—these highly significant words combine to form a summary of Zita’s induction and lead directly to the key word in her comment—belonging. In Zita’s discussion, it is shown that the student’s ability to achieve an initial sense of belonging was an interactive process that involved the workplace in giving and expecting and the student in accepting and reconstituting. Although such a description of the process makes it sound rather easy to set up, this was not so. In many cases, the student responded to the workplace’s offerings with great vigour and there was a ‘fit’ between the ‘positions’ and the ‘position-taking’ that formed the social practices and processes of the workplace. In some cases, however, the workplace neither gave nor provided various positions and the student did not reciprocate with appropriate position taking.
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David: ‘They just talked to each other’ David described his colleagues in a far from positive manner. Interestingly, his underlying criteria were similar to those of George, a feature that was surprising given that George was talking about his experiences within a big company and David in a large secondary school. Both extracts used the ideas of comfortable gaze, the absence of negative affect and the presence of spoken interaction to organise their ideas about the attributes of their colleagues. David: Well, at Mawdown Secondary School, it wasn’t— one reason I didn’t really like the school, because they were all older. There was no young staff and they were all very old and crabby, in a way—they ... weren’t really friendly and they used to just sit there and they wouldn’t talk and if they talked, they just talked to each other and they just talked about stupid things that weren’t really valid to me in a way, but they just didn’t make anyone feel comfortable. Mark: ‘You need to wear a tie’ Mark was urged to dress differently when he arrived at school on the first morning of his teaching practicum. In his story, his lack of a tie was brought to his attention by a senior person in the school who was also in charge of student teachers. The story recreates the sense that the senior teacher was distracted initially, but then saw the student teacher for the first time. In the student’s description, the observing, evaluating gaze had three stages. The senior teacher at first observed the student, then the student’s shirt and, finally, an absence—the absence of an important cultural symbol, the tie. Mark: He led me down to the staff room, and as he opened up, it opened up to a really formal common room thing, staff room ... and probably the first thing when we walk into the staff room he looks down at me—like—looked down at my shirt and sees that I haven’t got a tie and goes, You need to wear a tie ... he made it clear that it
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was pretty important, yeah ... I think if he had’ve had one, he would’ve made me wear it straight away. Mark had had his own schooling in a very free atmosphere: ‘we didn’t even have a uniform’. Unaccustomed to wearing a tie, he discovered that he had just two ties in his wardrobe, but decided that the second one, a comic tie, was unsuitable for his teaching round in an expensive, private school. As Mark remarked, ‘I wanted to make a good impression, so I wore the proper silver one every day, which no one seemed to notice—no one made any comment’. It is significant that the exchange between Mark and his supervisor concerned a tie. A tie is a highly visible part of the school culture and can be read with great ease by all those within the culture and by those at similar schools throughout Australia. The tie sets its wearers apart from students of other schools who may wear similar suits, shirts or shoes and also differentiates groups of students within the school. (At a school similar to the one Mark was in, students who have achieved excellence in sporting or scholastic endeavours can purchase a second, more elaborate school tie, which gives testimony to their scholarly or sporting prowess.) The wearing of the tie also denotes compliance with school rules and at least outward conformity to the school’s culture. Not surprisingly, ‘the lads’ in Willis’s famous (1977) study, ‘rarely’ wore a tie (p. 17), while in Measor’s (1984) study, a student removed his tie in order to show his disdain for Music, the lesson he was about to attend. In schools with strict uniform policies, the teachers’ ties serve the same potent symbolic functions. Ties also allow members of staff to mingle on a more or less equal basis with the highly paid members of the professions who, as parents of the students they teach, are simultaneously the teachers’ clients and their employers. Finally, the presence of a tie allows the students to join the junior ranks of the professions of their fathers, mimicking their dress by donning suits and ties at an early age. By wearing a tie as directed, Mark showed that he was willing, at least for a time, to take up a place in the school community. However, by wearing the same tie all week, he also showed (although he did not seem fully aware of this in the interview), that he had not wholly
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embraced the ethos of the school. Like David, Mark was able to understand the expectations of his environment when these were made explicit by one of its spokespersons, but found himself not wholly in sympathy with the world view that the tie both represented and summarised within the school culture. Mai: ‘The room didn’t belong to me’ Mai, like Mark, was shown she did not belong. Her feelings of uncertainty were exacerbated by the lack of warmth shown or care given to her welcome. Also lacking were specific instructions, the sense of being ‘shown around’ that so many of the students from Company A had described as being part of their introduction. Mai:
JR: Mai:
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The first day I went there I felt very unsure … I didn’t know where I could sit because the teacher was teaching in the front. So I didn’t know where I could stand or where I could—I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t fit in very well. And because my language is a problem—if I were teaching in Australia, but fortunately I’m not [going to in the future]. Yeah, I just feel the first day I was very unsure what I should do. I generally just took observations of the class. What did you do to make yourself feel more comfortable? Did anyone help you? I think this really depends on the person you work with. My previous placement—some of the staff were very nice so I felt very comfortable. They would tell me: Now you do this or You can sit here and put your bag in here—so I felt comfortable. The room didn’t belong to me—it belonged to another teacher. I didn’t know what to do to let her feel comfortable as well as me. In this placement, the teacher is a bit younger. She doesn’t really care much, so she just tells me: Just put your bag there and sit wherever you want, so I feel very unsure about what to do all the time.
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Gatherings Some students were given access to, and made known to, the wider workplace community by means of various social activities, many of which involved food and drink. Several students, including Pam, Ines, Ken and James, described the ways in which various kinds of socialising carried out at the workplaces they were in played an important role in making them feel as if they were accepted colleagues rather than strangers. On such occasions, the challenge of meeting people, being introduced and learning many new names seemed somewhat easier, perhaps because interaction could be made the focus of the activities rather than one of the many aspects of doing a task or completing a project on time. Pam, a student whose work involved doing the accounts at a large institution, recounted a story that highlighted her luck in beginning her placement just before Christmas. Invited to the staff Christmas party, she met people from all areas of her workplace and, as a result, was able to meet them much more confidently when they returned from holidays in the New Year. Ken: ‘Sort of part of the team’ Ken, one of two students interviewed who had chosen to do a work placement in Sydney rather than in Melbourne, was also very aware of gatherings as a way of being included in a network of new relationships. Ken emphasised that because the student trainees were invited to the Christmas party ‘and things like that’, he could claim by the time of the interview that he knew ‘a lot of people’. He went on to describe the friendly informality that allowed the students to join in: Ken:
Like people who are working on a project with, like, ten people or something and if they go out for lunch or have a day-trip somewhere they invite the students along with them. Because they were sort of part of the team, even though they are only there once a week or whatever. But they bring them along.
Ken described several dimensions of the students’ roles in their large workplace. Firstly, even though the students were not on
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full-time work placements, several efforts were made to integrate them into the work teams that divided the employees between various departments within the company. Secondly, such efforts gave them an interesting relationship with the rest of their colleagues: ‘they were sort of part of the team’. The students’ relationship with the company had not as yet been formalised by the offer of permanent positions and until that happened, the students had to cope with their roles as ‘sort of’ colleagues—they were insiders to some extent, but ones whose future was yet to be determined. In their extended accounts of the social occasions held at the beginning of their placements, both Ines and James described the somewhat conflicting characteristics of many workplace functions. While the students in Ken’s stories were somewhat at the periphery, James’s and Ines’s involvement was more central, but was therefore more demanding and, at times, also quite stressful. This was because the social situations were conducted with fellow employees and therefore the roles expected of people were likely to clash with each other. Hence, as the audience the students had to perform in front of and impress at work was present at the social gatherings, the students could not indulge in the ‘reciprocal familiarity’ (Goffman, 1971, p. 129) that might have characterised the students’ manner had they been away from the gaze of their colleagues. James: ‘I really enjoyed it’ James’s account of the swimming race held by his company showed that he wanted to portray the company in a good light because he had been included in the corporate triathlon. On the other hand, his story also contained the word, ‘worried’ when he observed, ‘I was a bit worried about the swimming’ and even though the story was recounted some weeks after the event had taken place, there was relief in his voice when he told the interviewer how the story ended. James’s story has been reproduced in full because it shows that, for many student trainees, even the best experiences were ones of great challenge due to the students’ perception that in all situations they were being measured and tested by their colleagues. Hence, they were always on stage and could not take part in the ‘back region’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 114) behaviour that long-term employees could enjoy to some extent even when at work.
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James: I guess the thing that comes to mind ... [Company A] encouraged people to do the triathlon, it was the [a company name was mentioned here] corporate triathlon and I got involved with that, as a [specific university program] student which was really good. We had, I think it was about four to six weeks of training beforehand, so Company A was really, really nice. They hired a trainer, a personal trainer, which—who took us through the various bits of how to prepare for a triathlon. We had a swimming session every week, we had a running session every week, and a cycling session every week on a Saturday. The swimming was on a Wednesday and the running was on a Monday night. And so, I went along to these training sessions and it was really, really good. A fellow senior student, [Charlie], was also doing that with me and you do this triathlon in groups of three, so the third person was a new graduate at Company A, and that was really, really good. I got to do all the training, and the triathlon, it was really fun—a bit hard work, but it was good and I really enjoyed it ... JR: Gee—so your sporting skills are up to that— James: I wouldn’t say that too, but see at Company A, they encourage everyone to do it whether or not they’re a triathlete or not, and there were people who had never done triathlon, like myself, who went out and did it, and I think it was just a lot of fun. Um, I was a bit worried about the swimming—a lot of people were, but the personal trainer—I guess he sort of told us that a lot of people usually are, and once they do all the training, they are a lot more comfortable with it at the end, and I was the same. In the end, I was lucky, I didn’t have to do the swimming because, on the day after the triathlon there was—a few
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days before that there was a lot of rain, and there was a lot of bad weather, so there was a lot of junk in the bay and they cancelled the swimming leg and made it into an extra-run leg so, it was a run, run and a ride, so it worked out in the end. I enjoyed it—yeah. ... JR: OK—so why did that story—why was that the one that you plucked out of all the things that had happened to you during all this long time— why was that the one? James: I guess it’s because, it’s something that I never saw—a company would really promote that sort of stuff, like Company A did, especially that I wasn’t a full-time employee for Company A—I was there on a contract to do my final year project. James’s story can be compared with Ines’s account of a birthday party given by work colleagues. Both stories highlight the mixture of pressure and excitement that the students had to respond to and manage in their new roles. Ines: ‘A surprise party for me’ Like James, Ines was working for a multinational company, although the settings of the students’ stories were very different—Chicago, USA, and Melbourne, Australia. Like James, Ines had mixed feelings about the social event that she described. While flattered by the attention her colleagues gave her, she found many aspects of the social event alienating and stressful, chiefly because a personal event had become a work-related social occasion, allowing another student from whom she felt distanced, to organise her party. Ines explained the many conflicting responses she had to her party in the following narrative: Ines: When you go to Chicago you can’t not meet people that you get along with because there are so many people. It’s just like a big university— there are thousands of people there, all learning and all working for [Company C]. So, yeah—after
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the first couple of days I was very relaxed. The classes weren’t threatening—I was very used to giving presentations. For some people it might have been, but I don’t have a fear of public speaking, so I was fine. A lot of plays—and I’d done drama before, so I was fine that way, too. I was very comfortable. Other people might not have been. And also I got to know the people that I thought I didn’t like and I liked them more just because they were in my class, but not in my space. I didn’t have to make an effort to get along with them, but I was around them. So I was getting to know them a bit better. It was actually one of the reasons that I didn’t want to go to Chicago is that it was my twenty-first birthday in the middle of all of it. And I thought I hate the people I work with. I hate my work. On my twenty-first no one is going to know and no one is going to care! And I was devastated ... My twenty-first party was organised for Saturday night and I got back from Chicago on Saturday morning. So it was just a very difficult time for me. But on my actual twenty-first in Chicago they organised a big cake and everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me and everyone in my class (there were about fifty or sixty) threw a surprise party for me. And the girl from work that I hated the most—and I still have a similar opinion of her—but I like her a lot—she is what I thought she was [very competitive and very superficial], but she has a really good heart—she was the one who organised the party for me and it was the best birthday! And then I got home and my twenty-first was on. It was really, really good. The stories of James and Ines can be read as accounts of the strain caused by the need to be seen to be relaxed and in control of a performance considered appropriate for a person who might become
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a permanent employee. If James had done badly at the swimming leg of the triathlon or if Ines had consumed too many cocktails at her birthday party, their actions would have ‘contradicted the impression fostered’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 120) by their performance at work. Because their status was uncertain and they desired the rewards that future employment with their respective companies would bring, they could not afford to compromise the ‘personal front’ (p. 123) they had tried to present. The front the company seemed to require was articulated by Ines as her self-image: ‘I’m doing very well! ... we’re all so young. And we’re all so smart. And we’re all—I don’t know— competitive. And high achievers’.
Gifts Most workplaces prompted the students to change some aspects of their life-style or aspirations. Some felt that their new workplace was their whole life, but others found the unfamiliar expectations rather oppressive. Some workplaces gave the students resources including money and equipment so that they would find the demands made easier to bear. Some of these resources were related to the students’ appearance. James was given a full set of clothes for his triathlon, while Ravi and Ken were given state-of-the-art computers. One student, Emily, described her new name tag as if she had been given a very special gift. Emily:
... just another thing that really struck me about Company A was that when I first started, I got a name tag, and I saw everyone wearing name tags. Yeah—so—like everyone, so—like I’d never seen that before. I love that, that was fantastic just to—I don’t know—because that’s one of the most overwhelming things, I think, not knowing who people are, and just being—especially when you’re new and you’ve gotta remember a couple of hundred different names. So, that was something that was really good.
The language Emily used to describe the idea of the name tag at first seemed overly emotive: she used ‘love’, ‘fantastic’ and ‘really good’ to describe a practice, that of wearing a name tag, that is quite common
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in many different institutional settings. However, her warm response to the name tag can be explained by her tacit understanding that people’s names are of special significance and that a sign of being on the inside of any social situation or community is familiarity with other members’ names. Emily experienced the power of having her workplace identity affirmed by others. As it can be argued that, ‘Naming, in fact, reflects the progress of a person’s identity and awareness’ (Rosaldo, 1993, p. 85), Emily’s name tag enabled her to interact with people more easily and helped her to establish an initial workplace identity. Josh: ‘They came through with whatever we needed’ For some of the other students their ‘gift’ was not a name tag, but state-of-the-art computer equipment. Ravi showed the researcher the computers in offices similar to his own with some pride, while Josh and Quoc reacted to the company’s readiness to provide assistance for technological problems with pleasure. Both perceived in the company’s support a willingness to invest in the students’ work and an important means of ensuring that their contribution to the workplace would be of a high quality. Josh: In some of the stuff we were working on we had big problems with the equipment or something and it turned out that it was broken. We had to end up ordering replacement parts just so we could keep working. The company got somebody in the same day and they organised it and paid money for it. We don’t even know why it broke. But they’ve always sort of helped out. If we needed something to keep working, they came through with whatever we needed, which was good. It always seemed like, from a lot of things, that we’ve had a lot of support for what we’re doing. Even though it’s only a student project, people have put real effort into it, too, not saying, Oh it’s just students. Many of the students wanted to be seen as employees rather than ‘just students’ and worked hard to establish their competence in a particular area.
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Ines: ‘The most dressed-up person out of everyone’ Ines’s gift from the company was not a name tag nor the latest computer, but a gift voucher of money. When asked to recount how she knew what to wear, Ines described in some detail the processes by which the voucher was given and spent. Ines: Before we started we got a $500 gift voucher from David Jones. They had a parade and showed us what corporate wear was. They were amazing! ... [At the] corporate fashion parade ... they had cocktails and finger food. They had two people who work at Company C (both a female and a male) parading some of the clothes that were appropriate. But I’ve grown up with my dad being in the same industry and seeing him going to work and I actually helped him out a couple of times, so I was a bit more prepared than someone who was used to wearing jeans to Uni. and all of a sudden having to wear a suit. It wasn’t like that for me. Much of Ines’s interview was taken up with descriptions of how hard she had tried to succeed in a very demanding climate. Commenting that although she was young —‘I’m twenty-one’—she always wore a ‘proper suit’, Ines added by way of explanation: Ines: You’re working with people in the company (at your client site) who are very, very important. I know clothes don’t really say who you are—show the knowledge that you have—but I feel that if you look professional that the impression of you will be that you are. So a lot of the time I’m the most dressed-up person out of everyone. However, in spite of the pressures that she experienced at work, Ines had managed to carve out her own response to the issue of dress. She explained that as a result of being so dressed up at work, she now
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dressed much more casually at home. ‘I’m in jeans and a jumper now ... it’s funny because when I was at Uni. I always dressed up. But now, because I’m at work and always dressed up, I just wear jeans’. Dress and bodily presentation were commented on by other students although these were not given money with which to buy clothes. However, as with Mark and the tie, workplace expectations regarding dress were very salient to the students. Gary: ‘Very clean’ Gary articulated a similar position to that of Ines. He brought to the foreground the issue of cleanliness, not only because he was working with primary-aged children and would have had Health Education as part of his responsibilities: ‘I have a shave ... I always make sure my clothes are very clean ... In weekends, I go in jeans’. Gary also commented, ‘I smile a lot more here and that’s probably because I enjoy it so much’, while Ophelia stated that she was more ‘reserved’ with certain students, especially those that she hadn’t as yet ‘come to a sense of how to deal with ... I guess I’m trying to feel my way into where they’re at somehow’. Gary was outwardly cheery, while Ophelia showed a more serious face to the classes unless she was with the younger children with whom she felt ‘very comfortable’. Both were feeling their way into a variety of expressions that would form, in Goffman’s (1959) phrase, ‘a mask of manner’ (p. 65) appropriate for a teacher in an Australian primary school. David: ‘I used to look like I was a P.E. teacher’ Of all the students who talked about the first phase of their workplace practice, David talked at most length about the difficulties of becoming what he felt he was required to be. Although other students, such as Mark and Paul, indicated that they did not enjoy meeting all of the workplace demands, it was David who articulated this struggle most vividly in his description of the choices to be made between the casual, sporty self implied by Physical Education (P.E.) and primary teaching, and the trousered, well-prepared Geography teacher self demanded of him by the secondary school. While Ines and Gary resolved the issue of dress and professional demeanour by distinguishing between their professional, work-oriented clothes and identity and the more relaxed, private, home-oriented self, David had yet
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to resolve this conflict as neatly as they had. David’s anxieties about dress mirrored his anxieties about the conflicting roles he was asked to play in his workplace. As he worked out what to do about his dress, he was also solving a much deeper conflict about his identity as a future teacher and his gendered place within his family. The difficult issue that David faced was that, unlike many teachers and the student-teachers they supervise, his knowledge areas and activities were derived from two very different areas of the school curriculum. As a student who had specialised in the disciplines of Social Education and Health Studies at university, his areas were much more sharply defined by the conventional subject disciplines of his supervisors—Geography and Physical Education. Much of David’s very long interview was taken up with stories that showed him trying to reconcile the boyish, active, game-playing persona he had in both his family and his part-time job as the co-ordinator of the after-school-hours program in a primary school, with the more serious, intellectually demanding role he was required to play in a secondary school. Of the stories he told, a number made a contrast between the demands of home or his part-time job and the demands of his secondary-school practicum. In his preferred self-definition, David was a P.E. teacher. In his interview, he contrasted the world of his secondary practicum with an earlier one in a primary school, which he had enjoyed much more. ‘I don’t really like being a classroom teacher at a high school ... outside’s better, I like being in the outside environment ... I just feel more comfortable outside’. At first, David seemed to be making a point about comfort and the appropriate clothes for hot weather, but as he added more detail to his initial ideas, a deeper conflict between his professional roles and the ways in which he wanted to present himself opened up. David: The only things I suppose I would have changed, I’d shave—I didn’t like shaving—I don’t shave very often ... Like at [Trent] Primary [School], ’cos it was hot ... and it was, like a primary school—it’s more casual, so I just wore shorts and a T-shirt, shorts and a shirt, a short-sleeved shirt, and runners, and so that was good that I
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could wear that type of thing ’cos it’s more comfortable. When I did the rounds at [Bateman Secondary College], because I did P.E., I wore trackies or shorts or something that I could be active in. But when I did Geography, because I was doing P.E. and Geography, when it came to Geography, I used to look like I was a P.E. teacher ... which [meant] that, in a way, I lost that professionalism as a Geography teacher, rather than a P.E. teacher. After defining the ways in which the disciplines of Geography and P.E. set up a conflict between the ‘professional’ demeanour required of the Geography teacher and the ‘comfortable’ dress of the P.E. teacher, David developed the central dilemma further by showing the practical ways in which the problem was impossible to solve. David: ... but how do I get around that?—I can’t—Both classes are on the same day, and I’m not taking a change of clothes just to change to do each class. I’m not going to wear jeans and a shirt in my P.E. lesson—because you can’t do anything about it. You can’t wear—well, you can, but I don’t feel comfortable in jeans doing P.E. —showing kids how to run—how to kick something—you can’t do it—you can’t be active in jeans, whereas in shorts and a trackie you can be, whereas in the classroom, you just look like another student or just a big kid P.E. teacher. David’s problem was that if he wanted to exert his authority over the students in the Geography class, he could not do so if he was seen as a teacher who lacked the appropriate authority that is nearly always emphasised by certain dress codes. He implied that the students and other staff members were observing him as he articulated their judgement: ‘another student or just a big kid P.E. teacher’. Stressing that he wanted to feel relaxed about his clothing, he stated that if he wore ‘something that I feel comfortable in ... then I don’t
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have to worry about me!’. The ‘comfortable’ clothes were associated with his ordinary life away from the Geography class that he found so confronting. Although David had been out to buy ‘pants and some shirts’, the purchase of these left him with the dilemma of how to wear both sets of clothes. David also pointed out that the dilemma was heightened by the advice university staff had offered student teachers before the teaching rounds: ‘Dress sensibly! Dress professionally!’. If he dressed sensibly for P.E., how could he dress professionally for Geography? If he dressed appropriately for Geography, the students might think he was ‘just a Maths-Science, Geography, Humanities type person. So, that’s another downfall which you just can’t win’. In a very fundamental way, then, David’s dress was at one his world view, life-style and values and was therefore very difficult to change. During the teaching round, David encountered major difficulties in the Geography area over lesson planning, supervision and student management. It was quite possible that at least some of his difficulties were due to the ‘tendency to fragmentation in geography’ (Goodson, 1984, p. 29). However, given that his father also endorsed a physically active way of life, it was not surprising to find that, by the end of the teaching round, David had opted for his comfortable P.E. clothes and persona and had rejected the idea of becoming a Geography teacher because, in his own words, ‘outside’s better’. That the issues of dress and identity are inextricably intertwined can be seen in Lynch’s (1999) study of the clothing worn by Laotian Hmong communities, many of whom had left the hilly environment of Laos for a new home in New York. Lynch emphasises the social significance of clothing, stressing that dress is a very important means by which all social groups mark their boundaries, signify individual status within a group and denote the significance of certain activities and rituals. Dress is a central vehicle for displaying the cultural allegiances of a family or group, enabling them to maintain a coherent identity even when transplanted to a radically different setting. Like all socially constructed meanings, dress can only be interpreted fully by those who participate in those meanings. The students in these interviews were deeply aware of these issues even though they did not articulate them with Lynch’s theoretical finesse.
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Performing the workplace self Goffman’s (1959) conceptual tools add to our appreciation of the significance of the students’ choices. While Lynch’s (1999) work on dress allows us to see the ways in which dress constructs social meanings, Goffman’s analysis of ‘regions and region behaviour’ (p. 109) can be used to explain the adoption of certain kinds of dress. Goffman categorises social ‘performances’ according to the bounded places in which they take place. He describes ‘front region’ (p. 109) and ‘back region or backstage’ (p. 114) activities stating that ‘there are many regions which function at one time and in one sense as a front region and at another time and in another sense as a back region’ (p. 127). Goffman gives the example of the executive whose office shows off his status and can be used for performances, but who can also use it as a backstage region if he wants to have a few relaxed drinks with colleagues who are also friends. Such conceptual tools are useful for deepening our appreciation of why the issue of dress was so important to the students. Dress, too, can be used to define the functions of the various regions people are in. Hence, the home worlds of Ines and Gary acted as backstage venues in relation to their workplaces in which the maintenance of a ‘particular performance’ (p. 135) was expected. In his interview and the stories concerning his ‘trackies’, David implied that he did not wish to differentiate between the ‘front and back regions’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 115), whereas Ines and Gary were happy to, most probably because they assumed that this was an inevitable part of professional life having lived with a businessman father (Ines) and a teacher mother (Gary). In these households, dress had been used to indicate that a family member was about to take up their professional performance or was ready to resume an off-stage role. Both students seemed quite relaxed about their dress because they had set up specific sets of clothing for the two life-styles they now inhabited. Hence, the conversations they had, the observations they made and the transformations they undertook with regard to dress gave the students opportunities to gain many insights into the cultures of the workplaces they were in. They could also use the issue of dress as a focus for making judgements about their workplace and the people in it. If the students described above had been interviewed only about
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the issue of dress, it might have been possible to predict that David and Mark would end their practicums with serious reservations about their workplaces. By the conclusion of their teaching ‘rounds’, these students had made decisions to pursue other kinds of work in rather different settings. Ines and Gary, however, had already decided to embrace the career path of the parent they referred to in their interviews and were going to become a business consultant and a primary teacher respectively.
Belonging and performing competently: the initial tasks As was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, the students highlighted two main issues when they recounted stories about the initial period of their placements. It has already been shown that the process of belonging was supported by welcoming greetings and gatherings. The ‘gifts’ given to some students had several functions. These enabled the student to achieve a workplace identity more quickly and also facilitated the production of good work. In the following section, it can be seen that the tasks assigned to the students on their arrival also played important roles in both achieving for the students a sense of belonging and helping them to familiarise themselves with the workplace and its characteristic ways of reaching certain goals. Martin: ‘Were they going to expect me to know everything?’ Martin, an Engineering student, summed up many of the students’ responses to the first week (or weeks) of their placement in the following way: Martin: I guess when I came first week, I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen. What were they going to get me to do? I hoped it wasn’t too hard. Were they going to expect me to know everything? Martin expresses in two questions the students’ need to know what they were going to be assigned to do and also expressed a common anxiety about whether or not the level of expertise they had already attained would match the allotted tasks. When talking about the first phase of the placement, many students remembered it as a time in which they were worried that they would be unmasked, found
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wanting or have their weaknesses revealed in front of their new workplace community. In several accounts (Mark, David, Sobash), people in the community were described as having watching roles. Some students felt vulnerable and relatively unprepared for the major tasks they had to undertake in the first weeks of their placements—to identify significant places and people in the workplace while understanding as quickly as possible the nature of the work that they had to do. Martin: ‘Walking around the site’ Martin, studying Engineering and interested in robotics, used the word ‘enjoyable’ to describe his first week with a large manufacturing plant. During this time, he was assigned a task that required him to walk around the site. Somewhat unexpectedly, this turned out to be a most welcome, and welcoming, task. Martin: But the first week, the most enjoyable thing was that they got me to do a project that involved walking around the site and making sure certain things were in their places. At first I thought, ‘Why am I doing this? —this is a pretty silly project—I’m supposed to be an engineer, not some guy that just walks round ... but I absolutely loved doing it! Because I got to see everything on site—all the cool machines and stuff like that. And especially because I’m doing Robotics—the machines here are just awesome! The arms going up and down and ‘round and dropping stuff! I enjoyed it thoroughly! Got an idea of everything on site. So now when people say, Go to Building C105, I can say, Oh yeah— that’s over there. Before that it was, like, What? ... I had no idea. In a very direct way, the company that Martin was placed with provided him with a very empowering introduction to his work. Not only did he see the scope of the company’s production, but he was also able to find his way around a large and sprawling work site where much of the raw material was piled and stacked in large yards. As a
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result, Martin gained an insider’s knowledge and confidence very quickly. His delight in becoming an insider was reflected in the way in which he represented his own speech: ‘Oh, yeah—that’s over there’. Martin’s tour also allowed him to see how sophisticated the robots used at the plant really were and further fuelled his interest in the company’s highly specialised area of work. Emily: ‘An overview of the company’ Emily’s initial task also allowed her to understand the place she was working in. As she was about to undertake the workplace component of her course in the Marketing division of a large, multinational company, the understanding of the place that she was required to have was focused on the way in which the various divisions related to one another. In her interview, Emily described the ways in which people within marketing had to work with their colleagues from other parts of the company. Engineers, sales people and advertising experts were brought together in order to produce a brochure. Initially, she had been asked to prepare a presentation about the company. Emily:
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I actually started with two other [student trainees] during the same time, Ted, Suzi and I— the three of us started together in the Marketing department, and one of the assignments they gave us was to do just an overview of the company and where [she names a specific section of the company], which is where we work—where that fits in, and also then within that, all the different components like Finance, [Marketing], how all that works together, and ... we had to actually prepare a presentation to give the graduates, which were starting in January ... it was a really good assignment to give us, because this is the first—I mean I’ve had other jobs but I haven’t had, like a proper office type job that’s—you know—what I want my career to be, and it was quite, sort of—not intimidating— but quite big deal, just coming into an office’s environment and trying to work out how it all
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fits together. So the first couple of weeks was spent, just talking to different people from different sections and then just sort of putting together all the information, making a slide show. Sean: ‘A lot of meetings’ Another student, in a very different professional role from that of either Martin or Emily, was also given time to settle in. Instead of ‘just talking to people’ as Emily had, Sean spent much of the initial period in meetings. In these meetings, his role was that of an observer. But his observations were very active ones, which involved feelings of amazement and admiration for the skills of his colleagues. Sean: When I first started, I was just helping out— nothing major. I sat in on a lot of meetings—that sort of stuff—to get a feel for the place ... I guess it sort of blew me away when I first got here, the ideas and what it’s all about. You sort of come up with ideas to improve products ... but I guess it amazed me how quickly people came up with very good ideas. Common threads run through the accounts of the three students in that they reveal that their positive view of their workplace was fostered by the roles they were assigned in the very first week. In Martin’s case, the small checking task that he had to do as he walked around the work site gave him a feeling of legitimacy and purpose. Sean was similarly anchored in the meetings because his own manager had a very special role to play in the meetings and this meant that Sean had a definite role as his trainee and an added incentive to observe each meeting with acute interest. It is interesting to note that both students were surprised by the activities they observed. Martin found the machines awe-inspiring, while the ideas aired in the meetings amazed Sean. Their expressions of surprise are important because they show that the students had revised their expectations of the workplace. Such expressions conveyed that Benner’s (1984) ‘turning around of preconceptions’ (p. 7) had taken place and that the students’ limited knowledge had become a professional attitude based on respect for
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the sophistication of the technology and the colleagues observed. Such an attitude could be regarded as a necessary part of the knowledge required to work in a highly competitive industry whose very existence depends on new ideas, new products and interaction. The students’ observations allowed them to recognise that the workplace was a demanding one before they had to demonstrate their own skills within it. Both students had been given a breathing space in which to take stock of their new workplace, and a chance to re-assess what they had to offer as well. However, even though they had been given an opportunity to participate at a less demanding level, they had been introduced to the site and its demands very efficiently. Martin had been inducted much more thoroughly than if he had been given a quick tour around the work site. Sean knew much more about the complex ways in which the product-improvement meetings worked than someone who had just heard about them in an introductory talk. Each of the above stories shows that many different strategies can be used to integrate the student trainee into the workplace and that each of these is perceived in a very positive way by the student. However, some workplaces face a dilemma when it comes to deciding which tasks will be carried out by students. In places such as hospitals, it is difficult to provide a meaningful introductory period that places few demands on the student trainee because, very often, the work placements are quite short. Furthermore, it can be difficult to find tasks that provide students with the stimulation, challenge and encouragement that they desire and need without risking a patient’s well-being or the alienation of an experienced, often frantically busy, staff member. Paul: ‘doing their blood pressure and their temperature’ Paul, a student nurse, complained about the initial phase of his nursing clinical because he was given tasks to do that were of such a low level that he found them frustrating and tedious. He made the point in the following way: Paul: Basically what I’m trying to say is we didn’t have much to do. And I don’t say that in a negative sort of way, but it was really frustrating because
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when you’re going out and doing their blood pressure and their temperature and doing their pulse rates, it does get a bit tedious. I mean I can do that as much as I want in my spare time. Paul’s difficulties dominated his clinical placement. The tensions between what he would have liked to have done, his perceptions of what people felt he was able to do, and the level of the tasks he was assigned to do, ran like a bright thread through his interview. However, given that he failed to perform well in an emergency situation that arose, and also overheard experienced staff complaining that the trainee nurses did very little work, it is not surprising that his tasks failed to increase in complexity as the placement continued. This may seem anomalous when Arthur, a second Nursing student whose clinical placement was on at the same time as Paul’s, recounted stories that showed that he had been placed in very responsible roles during his Clinical practice. The differences between other nurses’ expectations of Paul and Arthur cannot be fully explained by the wellstaffed hospital setting in which Arthur was placed. Rather, the tasks assigned to the two trainee nurses seemed to have been assigned according to silent assessments made by experienced staff, assessments that were based on evaluations of the students’ expertise and the ways in which they presented themselves and their knowledge in the first few days of the placement. Hence, while Paul found few challenges in the activities he was asked to undertake, it was unlikely that he would have been given more demanding tasks on his next Clinical unless he had acquired a more professional knowledge base in the meantime. This could be done either by studying more and impressing new colleagues with his commitment to the knowledge areas that his profession rests upon, or by working, as Arthur had done, in a place that had close links with the work carried out in hospitals such as an elderly people’s home. This kind of work would have given Paul ways of acting and speaking that might have encouraged new colleagues in future hospital settings to share the more interesting tasks with him. The period of the work placement is an active one in which two of the main orientations of the student are performance and evaluation. Many of the students discussed the perceptions others had had
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of them in the workplace and their wish to maintain, modify or reinvent the self that others perceived. Hence, what emerged in a striking way from the interviews was the finding that students met the workplace’s challenge to perform and transform their identity in a variety of ways. While some students immediately adopted the ways of being that the workplace implied as ideal, other students struggled to construct an identity that met workplace expectations and yet maintained the sense of the self that had been constructed in other more familiar situations and places.
Building bridges from old worlds to new One of the most noticeable features of the stories told about the ‘initial phase’ of the students’ work placements is that none of the students described the welcoming or induction procedures in ways that indicated that they had been consulted about their own introduction to the workplace. As Mark explained rather self-deprecatingly in order to rationalise his failure to wear the regulation jacket and tie, no ‘preround’ visit to the school had been offered. He had not been sent the booklet that purported to explain the school and its requirements to student teachers, much less consulted about how he would like to have been introduced to his new colleagues, students and the school environment. Far from being a bridge between old worlds and new, even the most welcoming induction processes had been developed by the workplace and, accordingly, emphasised how things were already ‘done’ in the new situation. No student reported that any of their previous experiences had been sought or taken into account, even when, as was the case for each of the mature-age students interviewed, a large part of his or her life had been spent in other occupations and workplaces. All inductions, even those that the students found enjoyable or interesting, were depicted as directive, top-down operations. Such welcomes silently cemented into place the student’s novice position and ensured that the student had to forge a new voice, a new set of initiative-taking strategies and a new identity. Rather than being able to take the former self and ways of being that had been used to good effect in former situations and the ‘home world’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 14), many students were asked to change in significant ways.
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Zita attached the words ‘very friendly’ to the general environment, meetings, higher management, and colleagues in general. She reacted very positively to many aspects of her work placement with Company A. In contrast, Tania found her workplace, Company B, alienating. She ascribed the paucity of her welcome—a very lukewarm greeting and no gatherings or ‘gifts’—to the large number of male employees. Tania:
... more women should be in the department for sure. JR: What difference would that make? Tania: A huge difference! It’s a very male-dominated department and the women are just pushed back. It’s not a sexist thing or anything—I think it’s natural that if there are more men, the women are going to be pushed back a bit. It’s a huge difference! If that section up there was half women, that would be fantastic! JR: Then you wouldn’t be ... Tania: Not at all! I relate better—I know personally—I relate better to women than I do to men. I went to an all-girls’ school. I mean, I can talk to men. But it would make it a lot easier. It certainly made the time ... on Thursday they do tea. They didn’t have anything—there were no name tags set up; there were no pens ... and you know, give a bit of background and say, Please make her feel welcome—all that sort of stuff. But there was nothing for me ... I’d do that sort of thing.
Tania’s initial representation in terms of gender was never replaced by a more complex, task or expertise-based representation. Gender issues dominated Tania’s interview and since she could not undo the ways in which she presented her bodily self, she could take few steps to become part of the workplace. At the end of the interview, she said that she was looking forward to leaving.
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The importance of the initial period Many of the students interviewed made a distinction between an initial period in which they were less secure, less expert or had fewer contacts with other people in the workplace and a period in which they felt both more comfortable and more competent. James linked the initial period of his work placement with the period of triathlon training that the company offered to him. The training lasted more than a month. Zita described the way in which the very formal clothing that she had worn initially gave way to a slightly more relaxed style of dress as she became more comfortable in the workplace after two or three weeks. Tania, who had gained her work placement in a large engineering firm, said it ‘took me a month to find my feet’. For some students the initial period went on for longer. Two students, Josh and Sobash, whose family backgrounds, university programs and workplaces were very different, said that the initial period had lasted approximately two months. An examination of the accounts given by these students showed that their descriptions of the settling-in period covered a range of issues. Josh was given a demanding task to do as soon as he arrived at his workplace and felt that it took him two months to become more proficient at understanding all the complexities of his task. Sobash said that the initial period at work was marked by ‘quite a lot of mistakes’, this description applying to the taxation work he was given and to his use of English, in particular, his ability to understand Australian English and to have his own accent understood. The students experienced a period of anxiety and newness that was quite protracted because their ‘outsider’ status was maintained by their ongoing inability to meet certain workplace requirements. In two cases, this situation eventually changed: Sobash found that he could understand his employer more adequately and that his own English was more easily understood as people in the workplace adjusted to his accent, while Josh gained in confidence as the complexities of the project he was assigned to began to diminish. Tania’s situation, however, did not change radically as it never became easier for her to establish friendly relationships with the men with whom she was working. While her feelings of isolation were eased to some extent when she found a few other young women to join for lunch, she had few opportunities to interact with the male employees, never
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really felt ‘at home’ in the workplace during her placement, and was relieved when given an opportunity to change workplaces. At the conclusion of her interview, Tania said that she was preparing for the student who would take her place at Company B. The detailed list of the preparations she was making represented a ‘wishlist’ of the ways in which Tania would have liked to have been introduced to the workplace. Her activities can be seen as constituting an evaluation of the perceived inadequacies of her own induction—‘So, on the first day they took me around to say “Hi”. I shook everyone’s hands and forgot their names and that was it’. In order to make the introduction more meaningful for the next student, she had put together a folder with a name tag, a calendar and a list of instructions in it. She had also arranged for a week’s overlap so that she would be able to introduce the incoming person to both the people and the tasks. From the energetic way in which she described these preparations, it was possible to surmise that her strongest criticism—‘Not one person came up to me and asked: Would you like to come to lunch?’—would be redressed in the next student’s favour. As can be seen from the foregoing remarks, learning in this chapter has been framed as acculturation in order to show that much learning of great importance to the student takes place in activities and in places that the student might not associate with formal learning. Van Maanen (1988) writes that culture can be seen as, the knowledge members (‘natives’) of a given group are thought to more or less share; knowledge of the sort that is said to inform, embed, shape, and account for the routine and not-so-routine activities of the members of the culture. (p. 3) Seen from this perspective, the students have been invited to become part of a work culture, to belong to a group, to learn how to belong through activities that some would not necessarily associate with formal learning. However, while Van Maanen’s (1988) definition stresses to a great extent the informing, shaping processes by which people enter a new environment, his perspective needs to be joined by one that emphasises the extent to which agency can be claimed by people at
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work. Such depictions can be found in Goffman (1959) because he can use his theatrical images of the ways in which people become social to underline the extent to which people can put on or take off or partly inhabit the roles scripted for them. Hence, Goffman considers the way in which the individual in ordinary work situations presents himself and his activity to others, the way in which he guides and controls the impression they form of him, and the kinds of things he may and may not do while sustaining his performance before them. (p. 9) Such words as ‘presents’, ‘guides’ and ‘controls’ reveal that Goffman’s (1959) worker has an identity in the workplace already and plays an active part in guiding and controlling the sorts of impressions that others will take away from his performance of the role he has assumed in the workplace. Some students did not perceive themselves as free to ‘guide and control’ the impressions they were making in the workplace as Goffman’s (1959) imagined ‘individual’ (p. 9) seems to have done. The students’ activities and outward appearances were often dictated by the workplace environment. Norms of dress were assumed and the expectations articulated quite clearly by workplace representatives if the students were thought to be presented in an inappropriate way.
Bourdieu’s concept: ‘habitus’ Bourdieu’s (1993) ‘notion of habitus’ (p. 86) was also shown to be useful for thinking about the very first phase of the work placement because the struggle to ‘belong’ inevitably involved the further acquisition of ‘principles of choice ... “embodied”, turned into postures, dispositions of the body ... [Habitus is] that which one has acquired ... this capacity for generating practices or utterances or works is in no way innate and is historically constituted’ (pp. 86–7). Hence, the students’ struggles to belong can be seen as one of the most important of the many ‘adjustments that are constantly required by new and unforeseen situations’ and which ‘may bring about durable transformations of the habitus’ best understood as ‘a system of schemes for generating and perceiving practices’ (p. 87). Experiencing the new situation involved the students’ efforts to come to terms with certain
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workplace demands. While these demands took many forms and challenged the newcomers’ identities in various ways, the issue that was chosen for special attention was that of dress. All stories that involved references to items of clothing and dress in general showed very clearly that when the students were making even minor changes to their dress, they were ‘performing’ certain struggles about their identity and enacting decisions directed at managing certain tensions between preferred identities inside and outside the workplace. As Bourdieu (1990) has observed, many symbols and ritual acts are both ambiguous and contradictory (p. 13). These are significant in any work culture and can become the means by which students acquire knowledge about the workplace and their own roles in that workplace. That such knowledge had to be acquired was the case even when the students concerned had gained their workplace experience at the end of a rigorous interviewing process and already knew quite a lot about the context in which they were about to undertake their placement. The ‘welcomes’ accorded the students were critical in the first phase. If the welcomes offered were rich and characterised by meaningful introductions and tours, they gave the students feelings of confidence. Just as importantly, such opportunities gave the students a chance to meet people. Although these people could not be appreciated fully in workplace terms at the beginning of the placement, they could be re-engaged with at a later date when their support was needed. The welcomes, introductions and tours given to students also enabled them to embark on the task of ‘researching’ their own role. This task is necessary because they must become a member of the workplace while they are there, even if they do not particularly want to. In order to become a member, students need to become ‘culturally reflective’ (Munro, 1997, p. 18). The meanings summarised or elaborated by greetings, gatherings and gifts were on offer in order to be interpreted by the students who had to begin the process of becoming culturally ‘literate’ and able to read the workplace, its practices and people. The students were welcomed and given initial tasks, but both sets of practices underlined the newness of their membership and increased their visibility. The task of walking around the yards of raw material was attractive, not only because such a task
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could be carried out with confidence, but also because those same yards were far from the evaluative, distancing, othering ‘gaze’ that Foucault (1991, p. 191) has described with such power. One of the striking things about the data assembled under the rather broad label of ‘Belonging’ was the dominance of the word ‘different’ and the ubiquity of visual images. Students did not express their feelings in terms of shock or anxiety, but in terms of their ‘difference’ from others or the ‘differences’ they perceived between the university and the workplace or their identity in the workplace and that same identity in other places. The feeling of ‘difference’ was lessened when some sense of sameness was achieved, either by dress or displays of expertise, but was exacerbated when the students felt that others were watching, as in the case of David’s watching older teachers. Many students found the tasks of ‘belonging’ and ‘performing competently’ challenging. Some students were not able to belong, while others did not want to. The same was true of the students’ efforts to attain certain types of expertise that the workplace defined as either crucial or important—sometimes they were not able to attain the skills demanded or, after a period of time or on reflection, they did not want to anyway. A few students were surprised by the extent to which they were expected to display their commitment to the role by outward demonstrations of their membership or by high levels of expertise. Hence, from the beginning, the students were involved in a series of self-assessments, challenges and struggles in which they were both positioned and position-takers, performers and audiences of their own performances. However, Mai, David and Tania had very different experiences from those who were able to enter the workplace culture, take part in its offerings and present themselves as worthy members. While students faced the ongoing tasks of becoming and belonging, they had not yet become ‘ordinary’ (Sacks, 1992b, p. 413). Some students seemed destined to remain ‘in-between’ in ways that they did not like. Finally, it can be seen in the data that Bourdieu’s (1990) insights into the ways in which people become parts of social life can also be used to interpret the students’ narratives. If we return to his notion of habitus, it is possible to reflect on the ways in which the students
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both inhabited and appropriated the workplaces they were placed in. In Bourdieu’s memorable phrase, the students, within their individual life histories and alongside the colleagues they had just met, were involved in revivifying their workplaces from the ‘state of dead letters’ (p. 57) by investing them with meaning or ‘reviving the sense deposited in them’ (p. 57). Hence, the triathlon costume and the tie, the suits, the shirts and trousers and the computers were not incidental or unimportant. Instead, they could be seen as the silent vehicles by which the students were socialised very directly into the workplaces, a process by which the workplaces were also given continued life. It can be seen, then, that Bourdieu’s insight seems apt. At least in the early period of the placement, it could be claimed that ‘Property appropriates its owner, embodying itself in the form of a structure generating practices perfectly conforming with its logic and its demands’ (p. 57). In the initial period of their placements, the students learned that, as Baron and Walters (1994) have observed, culture is the ‘glue’ that makes workplaces cohere. Workplace cultures have to be learned and the learning of unfamiliar cultures can be much more challenging than phrases such as ‘how things are done around here’ or ‘the way people think about things around here’ (p. 9) would suggest.
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Chapter 3
Becoming, Negotiating, Scaffolded
Challenging interactions The students interviewed about the initial period of their work placement reported having various intense feelings when faced with their new environment including anxiety, excitement and a heightened sense that they could, in this new environment, ‘prove’ themselves. In the first phase of the placement, students responded positively when it was made apparent by various people and activities that their uncertainty could be seen as part of the experience of being a newcomer and would therefore be responded to with a range of welcoming, integrating strategies. That this was very important was made clear when some students depicted their initial feelings of uncertainty as short-lived, while others felt partly or significantly estranged from the people around them or the activities they were engaged in up until the time they departed the workplace. Interpretations of the interview transcripts revealed that while the exact nature of the welcoming strategies varied according to the specific workplace involved, by accepting and participating in particular gatherings and tasks, the students were able to learn about aspects of the workplace including the self that they were required to perform on their way to ‘being an ordinary person’ (Sacks, 1992b, p. 415) in that workplace.
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The acculturating process was experienced by some students as one of appropriation. Other students, however, most notably those who had gained their placement after an interview and had already accepted that their workplace would require certain transformations, were more than happy to comply with the demands that were made. These students perceived that the rewards to be conferred on them by the workplace—either a high-quality experience or employment at the end of the placement—would more than compensate for any changes they had made to their normal activities or embodied selves. This chapter continues to look at the students’ accounts of an important transition in their lives, for some their very first experience of full-time work. The chapter examines the struggles involved in becoming more expert while interacting with certain ‘significant others’ (Goffman, 1961, p. 14) and explores various facets of the students’ relationships with their supervisors. Three themes dominated the students’ interviews in relation to their supervision, namely, their accounts of the spoken interactions they had with the supervising person; the opportunities they had been given to make decisions, take risks and display their developing expertise, and the support they were offered or given in situations that were particularly challenging.
Selves, supervisors, significant tasks Words referring to the person appointed by the workplace to guide, teach, support and evaluate the student abound in the interview transcripts. The very general term ‘supervisor’, used frequently by the interviewer during the first six interviews without a great deal of reflection, was not always used by the interviewees even when a question or a prompt had included the term. Students tended to use discipline-specific terms such as nursing’s ‘clinical educator’ (Wilma) or more general descriptions such as ‘One person that I report to for the project I’m managing now’ (Eugene) and ‘my manager’ (Eugene). Many students used ‘my’ to distinguish the person in the supervising role from other people on the same staff. In four transcripts, each containing lengthy narratives about supervising personnel, various terms were used to describe the supervisory person. David, the student who had completed both primary- and secondary-school teaching practicums, referred to ‘the P.E. [Physical Education] teacher’, ‘my P.E. supervisor’, ‘my supervisor’, ‘my supervising teacher’, ‘the
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teacher’, ‘that teacher’ and ‘my teacher’. An Engineering student, Suresh, talked about ‘my supervisor for the project’, ‘the supervisor’, ‘my supervisor’. Keiko, a primary-school student-teacher, referred to the ‘supervisor teacher’, ‘my supervisor’, ‘my teacher’ and ‘the teacher’. One of the Nursing students, Wilma, referred to ‘my clinical educator’, ‘my clinical supervisor’, ‘my clinical teacher’ and ‘our clinical teacher’. While the term used to designate the supervising person varied, students across a wide range of workplaces seemed to share many common perceptions about the role of their supervisors and the relative worth of their contributions to each placement. This was made evident by the long interview with Keiko that focused almost exclusively on relationships with supervisory personnel. The exploration begins with a discussion of the accounts of students who thought that their supervision had not been satisfactory. These are followed by accounts given by students who reported having very positive and rewarding relationships with their supervisors. This part of the discussion, then, answers the following question: In what ways can the students’ accounts of their experiences of supervision be understood? The perspectives of Keiko, Wilma, Mai and Mike Keiko’s and Mai’s teaching practicums were conducted in primary schools, while Wilma, a student nurse, undertook her clinical placement in a large, busy city hospital. The fourth practicum discussed, Mike’s, offered some contrasts to the placements of the other students, but also has many similar themes. The oldest of the students in this group of interviewees, Mike, had had two other careers before enrolling for a Graduate Diploma in Education. In this section of the study, the experiences of the three women, Keiko, Mai and Wilma, are discussed and then Mike’s story is introduced separately. As Mai’s experience was very similar to that of Keiko, it has not been treated in any great detail. Both Keiko and Mai were international students, while Wilma and Mike had been born in Australia. Keiko, Wilma and Mai expressed dissatisfaction with the placement they had just finished, or were still engaged in, at the time their interviews were recorded. Each speaker gave a detailed picture of the challenges she had faced during the placement from both a professional and a personal point of view. All three students said that they
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found the placement stressful for a variety of reasons and expressed reservations about the supervision they had been given. They also described the various pressures that their supervisors had been under during the round in order to explain why the supervisor had not given them sufficient attention. All three people compared the placement unfavourably with a previous placement in which they had experienced much better supervision. Keiko: ‘It could have been better’ Keiko: My teacher was really nice and she was very experienced and I think she was very professional. But when I went [to the primary school] she was sick and I was there for three weeks and she was not there for half the time. So, it was a bit hard for me because there were always other teachers and, because they didn’t know me, they really didn’t know I was a student teacher. So if I did the lessons, they were not sure [unclear]. Because they had to evaluate my lessons and because they couldn’t see my progress or [unclear]. So it was a bit hard, so I had to explain all the time ... But the Grade-6’s—because the teacher was not there—so the kids were out of control. So it means that a lot of kids were joking with me and they didn’t take it seriously. Keiko’s situation seemed particularly unsatisfactory as the school she was placed in responded to her supervisor’s illness by asking substitute-teachers to act as supervisors in individual lessons. As she had been catered for to some extent, the consequences of her real supervisor’s absence were hidden from view and became more difficult to overcome. The consequences of the supervisor’s absence were felt immediately in the classroom. Keiko described her feelings of uncertainty, lack of linguistic confidence, lack of confidence in her interactions with the class as a whole, and a general sense of anxiety about her own competence as a classroom teacher.
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Linguistic and interactional issues The lack of a reliable supervisor had many undesirable consequences for Keiko. Firstly, because her main supervisor was away from school so much, Keiko had no consistent role model for learning the language appropriate to classroom situations. During the interview, she stated that she had often used careful listening and controlled usage as strategies for introducing new forms of spoken English into her own linguistic repertoire. Keiko outlined these strategies in the following way: ‘If the teachers used it all the time, I can hear particular words and I realised, “Oh that’s the word I have to use!” That’s the way I would remember it’. Although she had a strategy for countering the children’s repeated requests for further explanation (she simply asked them to articulate what they had been asked to do), Keiko felt as though she had not been able to manage the interactions successfully: ‘They still couldn’t get it—and they were asking me questions’. In the absence of the day-to-day support of an ongoing supervisor, Keiko lacked a person to mediate between herself and the children. She needed a supervisor who was interculturally aware, someone who could appreciate that she had made several attempts to explain the work and who could take over with sensitivity, simultaneously answering the children’s questions and modelling for Keiko’s benefit ways in which persistent questions could be dealt with when they arose in the classroom. In failing to clear up the children’s problems quickly, it is possible that Keiko signalled a lack of authority to the class members who then used the situation to disrupt the orderly atmosphere that she had been trying to achieve. Her sense of failure in this regard was made more intense by the image she had of classrooms in her own education system: ‘In Taiwan ... teachers are more strict’. When the children in the Australian classroom were disruptive, she felt unable to ‘use the expressions’, the authoritative phrases most appropriate for that situation, grade level, group or individual. She summed up the situation by saying, ‘when I wanted to control students, I didn’t know the right words to use, so that was a bit hard’. Further difficulties Keiko experienced various forms of student disruption during her classes. She stated that some children joked, made fun of her, did not work well, were ‘out of control’, and failed to take the lesson seriously.
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Because as a novice she needed the teacher’s presence to create a safe atmosphere in which to practise, she was undermined by the students and, later, due to her lack of expertise, by the teacher as well. Her sense of powerlessness was summed up when she said that she could not tell if one student was laughing with her or at her: ‘I’m not sure—he didn’t understand or was trying to be funny’. It is not clear which one of the teachers who had watched her lessons was present in the class when this happened, but the incident culminated in the teacher’s own laughter. Instead of supporting the student trainee by clearing up the student’s misunderstanding or indicating to him that his wit was inappropriate or rude, the experienced teacher aligned herself with the children so that, in the student’s words, ‘she was laughing as well’. The supervising teacher’s lack of ongoing support meant that Keiko not only missed out on her supervisor’s verbal leadership and support, but also felt that the clearly understood role of novice teacher could not be maintained because it was not assigned to her at the beginning of the teaching round. Hence, she explained that by not making formal introductions at the beginning of the teaching round, her main supervisor had omitted to make explicit to the children that she was ‘not a proper teacher’ and could not therefore be expected to act or speak with the complete authority, expertise or content knowledge, of the main classroom teacher. Keiko needed the support of an ongoing supervising teacher to enhance her authority with the children and ensure that they responded to her teaching in a co-operative manner. In contrast to a previous round that had resulted in ‘very good memories’, Keiko used the word ‘lonely’ to describe her feelings of alienation, embarrassment and inadequacy at the primary school. She had compromised her own sense of presenting as a ‘professional’. Reluctant to judge either the teachers or the pupils harshly, she seemed to accept what had happened when she commented, ‘I know it’s not their style to look after me’. However, later on in the interview, she summarised her difficulties in a more critical way: Keiko:
I wish they were more organised so I could fit in better. The students had to know who I was so ... they knew I was a student teacher and I was not a proper teacher ... At least give them my name
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or my background to the students so they know I’m not from Australia. Mai also stressed that she had been treated with indifference by her supervisor. Like Keiko, Mai felt that her limitations as a teacher were not dealt with subtly by the supervising teacher but were made to seem more obvious in her classroom. Wilma’s narratives also highlighted her difficulties. Wilma: ‘My clinical teacher wasn’t there all morning’ Wilma’s supervisor was also absent a great deal of the time. In this case, the reason was not that of illness, but was based on the supervisor’s responsibility for a large number of student nurses, eight in all. Wilma’s supervisor, although neither ill nor remote, seemed to have many different responsibilities. Wilma described the way in which the small amount of supervisory attention she had received during the first week diminished steadily over the placement. Her explanation for the lack of attention she received centred around two factors: the demanding nature of the nursing duties carried out at certain peak times and the large number of student nurses attending the hospital at the same time. Wilma: I mean, obviously she [the clinical supervisor] can’t cut herself into eight. So ... things I’d do with her would be like drugs, medication ... She had a really good knowledge about that ... I didn’t spend a great deal of time with her in the first week. In the second week I spent, I think, even less and the third week even less. [The interviewer asked why this happened.] Because of time constraints. Because it was a small hospital ... There were two surgical wards in this hospital, so every nurse had a student, which can cause a bit of friction. I personally believe that too many students were all on a.m. shifts. Staff were getting a bit edgy with having that many students.
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Wilma described the impact a large group of students had on the hospital by telling another narrative. In this story, she described the ways in which a theatre nurse had reacted to her requests to observe operations while they were in progress. Wilma: [I wanted to go to theatre to] observe a procedure and—basically—the Charge nurse yelling at me—absolutely screaming at me—that she was sick of students. That she had it up to here with having student nurses! I was coming on to the p.m. shift and it was my day to go into theatre and she had had them all morning. She wasn’t very nice. My clinical teacher wasn’t there all morning. I never got into theatre. I’d nearly finished my third year and had not been to theatre. I got to see a procedure where I didn’t even have the gown and gloves and all that. But, yeah, that’s basically a lot of the attitudes and stuff for students, and it is a major teaching hospital and a lot of it is like that now. You can’t go into that area. Students can’t go into that area. While Keiko’s supervisor’s absences and lack of support could be accounted for by her illness, Mai perceived the supervising teacher as indifferent to both her personal comfort and her professional development. Faced with the challenges of unfamiliar demands and extremely busy staff members, the students wanted to be supported by a supervisor who was, in Keiko’s words, ‘really nice’ and ‘very experienced’ and ‘very professional’. However, although their desires for supportive supervision were articulated at several points in each interview, none of the three students felt that such support had been made available. Moreover, rather than being supervised well, or even in a rather minimalist manner, each felt that she had been treated badly. Keiko’s substitute teachers knew little about her, Mai’s teacher did not ‘really care much’ and when Wilma’s clinical teacher was somewhere else, another staff member had shouted at Wilma. The reasons for the lack of support that each perceived and commented on varied, but one feature was common to all three accounts: the
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students felt that the supervisors demonstrated a lack of commitment to the task of training the student. The lack of commitment was defined by the meagre amounts of time that each supervisor spent with the student concerned or the distance she maintained between herself and the student by her physical or emotional absence. Each of the three women expressed an understanding of the pressures on the supervisor, but their absences from the workplace had many different consequences for the students. In each of these cases, the perception that the supervisor was ‘very professional’ or ‘had a really good knowledge’ about her professional area, was extinguished by the anxiety that each student experienced when the supervisor was either physically absent or lacked the ongoing, readily accessible presence of a committed mentor or adviser. Hence, the resources that the student trainees most wanted were the supervisors’ time and their personal and professional commitment to the students’ well-being as persons and their development as competent practitioners. Even though the students, Keiko, Mai and Wilma, could see that the situation was not entirely in the hands of the supervisor, this did not prevent them from feeling disappointed, frustrated and stressed when each had to face the consequences of their lack of guidance or preparation. During their teaching rounds, both Keiko and Mai felt that several lessons that they had put much time into preparing had been poorly received by the children they were teaching, while Wilma was shouted at by the Charge sister for her attempts to see an operation in progress. Hence, all felt keenly the lack of the supervisor as gobetween or link person, the person who opened doors for them and made opportunities happen in the workplace setting, the person whose presence might have resulted in a more pleasant and productive set of interactions with the children in the classes and the other members of staff in both school and hospital environments. The perception that the rounds had not been successful was further exacerbated by each student’s sense that they had a great deal to cope with during the practicum. In their interviews, both international students described the ways in which their anxieties about their spoken English made them feel less adequate in class. As has been discussed, their anxieties in this area affected their delivery of the curriculum (Keiko), their management of the whole class (Mai)
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and their interaction with individual children (Keiko). Wilma’s problems lay in a different direction. Put under considerable pressure by the full-time nature of the clinical placement, Wilma indicated during the interview that her financial difficulties were very troubling. She had continued working during her placement, starting her shifts in an elderly people’s home where she worked on a regular basis as soon as the shift she had been given in the teaching hospital was over for the day. It should be noted that all three students, in particular the two international students, were at pains to qualify their critical statements throughout the interview, lest the interviewer think that they were complaining. Each offered cogent explanations for the supervisor’s lack of commitment—in Keiko’s case the supervisor had been sick; in Mai’s, the supervisor’s space had been invaded; Wilma had seen that her supervisor was in the centre of many conflicting demands. However, each of the three women had had highly unsatisfactory placements partly because the supervisor had not been willing (in Mai’s case), or had not been able (in the case of Keiko and Wilma) to direct, advise, teach or guide the trainees. Such insights provided the link between these students and those of Mike, a student whose gender, age group, previous work experience and successful teaching practicum made his case quite different from the three students whose accounts have been discussed above. Mike: ‘I was shocked’ In answer to the standard request made by the interviewer at the beginning of nearly every interview to ‘tell a story’, Mike responded with the following story about one of his two supervisors. (In Australian secondary schools it is usual to have a supervisor for each of the two main content areas in which the teacher trainee is specialising.) In contrast to the interactions reported above, Mike’s tale emphasised the degree to which he felt compelled to keep his views to himself. Mike:
Perhaps the first thing that pops out is a story one teacher said to me (and I taught two VCE [Victorian Certificate of Education] subjects in my rounds)—and I needed to be picked up off
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the floor afterwards. She said: Never ever give a student an A plus to a student, because in Year 12, that automatically creates a situation where your work will be assessed by the Department. Do you understand that that’s how it’s structured in Year 12? You can have work called in. The school can randomly call their work in, check it for consistency of marking. And she said that she will never, ever give an A+, because the moment you start that, then work will be assessed. And I thought: What a ridiculous attitude! Because if a student deserves an A+ ... And I couldn’t ... I was shocked. Now I know you’re setting up to make it an extreme story, but it’s the one that keeps jumping up. But it’s so beneficial to everything we’re learning! Reward has to be appropriate to the work put in, and if a student’s work is outstanding and that student deserves an A+, how dare you not give that student an A+ simply because you didn’t want to be put under the microscope by external markers! Mike’s tale represents an opportunity to see the ways in which the most competent students can be silenced if they think that they might contravene certain conventions by making their views known. Once he had been reassured that the interview was strictly anonymous, Mike launched into the story above with barely suppressed indignation, tacitly asking the interviewer to endorse his point of view as he recounted his story. Like the three other trainees, Keiko, Mai and Wilma, Mike’s narrative highlighted the way in which his experience included features that he could not have anticipated and that departed from his sense of how things should have been. Keiko was surprised by the inadequate arrangements that were made for her when her supervising teacher was absent due to illness, while Mai was shocked by the coolness of the supervising teacher’s reception. Wilma talked about the various kinds of stress that the staff of the hospital in general, and her supervisor in particular, had shown
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in response to the presence of a large group of trainee nurses. In each story, the student’s initial feeling of being a nuisance was not ameliorated by the supervisor’s personal and professional support, by her committed presence. In each of the stories told by Keiko, Mai, Wilma and Mike, conversations that took place during the practicum underlined the distance between the supervisor (or her substitute, in Keiko’s case) and the student. These conversations were re-created in key parts of the students’ stories. While these stories were being told, the student seemed to assume that the listening interviewer would take up a position of positive affective alignment with the interviewee. Each student seemed to think that the discrepancy between ‘what was’ and ‘what should have been’ in a particular workplace was large enough for the listener to share the student’s sense that the situation had not been adequate without further explanation. In his re-telling of the story he had already told at least once to another audience, Mike established a strong sense that there was a very great difference between what he thought should be the case and what his supervisor was advising him to do. Like the other students, he did not waste any time in the interview persuading the interviewer to see his point of view about the situation—he felt he had a prima facie case. As he told the story, his language became more emphatic (‘ridiculous’ and ‘shocked’), so that by the end, when he reached the rhetorical question beginning with the words, ‘How dare you ...’, he recreated the words that he did not address directly to the supervising teacher. Mike’s story showed that he did not want to align himself with his supervisor for a number of different reasons. Firstly, he did not want to be the recipient of the advice given. Secondly, he rejected her because in giving him this advice, she implied that she had made such practices a routine part of her assessment procedures. Finally, as a father of school-aged children like those he described in the interview, he was made very uncomfortable by the thought that experienced teachers could jeopardise the opportunities of the senior students who depended to some extent on the teacher’s assessments for entrance into various tertiary courses and fields of employment. In the interview, Mike recreated the sense of shock he had at the time by reliving the conversation that took place. Mike’s moral sense of the
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world had been reinforced by years of work in jobs that he saw as having a very strong ethical base. He was outraged by his perception that the supervising teacher had poor ethical standards regarding assessment. Hence, a number of very interesting connections between the narrated experiences of Mike and the other trainees, namely Keiko, Mai and Wilma, can be established. Firstly, all four students were surprised to find that the attitudes, behaviour and ways of speaking or acting of their supervisors were different from those they assumed were appropriate. In each case, the discovery of discrepancy between what the student had assumed to be the case, and what they actually experienced, was a painful one. The strength of the students’ response to their situations cannot be explained simply by either the students’ prior expectations or even by the unsatisfactory relationships with their supervisors. What is striking about the situations of all four students is that they felt they had no redress and could do nothing with their dissatisfaction, embarrassment or shock. Mike’s experience showed that many students did not build up a relationship that enabled them to trust their mentors, confide in them or, much less, in Mike’s case, disagree at any stage during the practicum.
‘Strategic silence’ The transcripts showed then, that the anxiety the students felt about their situations prevented them from bringing their isolation, ongoing dissatisfaction and restricted opportunities to make progress to the attention of anyone in the workplace. Keiko and Mai retreated because they were anxious about their perceived competence, while Wilma understood too well the many stressful demands her supervisor faced while the student nurses were present in the hospital. Perhaps because she liked the supervisor and because she had worked in hospital-like settings previously, she sympathised readily with her supervisor’s predicaments and then held back from making her worries about her overly restricted access to opportunities in the workplace known to staff. Mike, in contrast to Keiko, Mai and Wilma, had no reason to complain about the time that was accorded him or his opportunities to progress. However, he knew that the issue about which he had disagreed with the supervisor was a potentially very confronting one.
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Hence, Mike, too, like the other students, kept quiet. He did not indicate the strength of his opposition to the supervisor’s advice about assessment issues in even the most oblique of ways, but waited instead until he had returned to the safety of the university classroom before discussing the incident with a lecturer he trusted. It can now be seen that the students held back from sharing either the difficulties they were having in their workplace or the views they held about important workplace issues. Some of this reticence can be explained by the fact that each of the students was an outsider, a newcomer who had not been able to build up a reliable web of relationships within the workplace. However, the relationship with the supervising person, the one closest to the student and therefore the stand-in for other relationships, can be seen as the key factor in determining how much the students were willing to reveal. The paradox that the person assigned to help the students was also the person allocated the task of commenting on their progress from an institutionally sanctioned vantage point was another factor that gave rise to the students’ suppressions of their difficulties and disagreements. This meant in practice that the students (in this case, Keiko and Mai) who were in the most need of help were also the most reluctant to reveal either the extent of their need or its sources. While they were learning to be professional teachers and nurses who would inevitably be called on to show the initiative, resilience and presence of mind that enabled Benner’s (1984) most expert nurses to meet the demands of their very taxing professional roles, these students were placed in situations in which they had to carry out their duties (for example, lesson preparation) in ways that encouraged isolated independence. Furthermore, the absence or perceived coldness of the supervisor made it very difficult for the students to participate in a collegial relationship, even though they were entering professions in which good communication and team work are important. While Keiko and Wilma talked about these issues briefly, Mike talked about them in a very direct manner. He made a causal connection between his reluctance to speak and the supervisor’s position as his assessor. Mike:
[ T]hat’s the [story] that keeps popping up because of how extreme her comment was. And I
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couldn’t believe that when you’re in the situation of doing teaching rounds, you’re in that teacher’s environment and you’re conscious of the fact that you’re being assessed by that teacher. So therefore you don’t challenge it—you just say, ‘That’s very good—I appreciate that comment’. And you place as much weight on it as you think necessary from your learning point of view. And in my case I thought: That’s very good—I appreciate the comment, but I can assure you that I certainly won’t be shying away from giving good students rewards simply because I’m shy of being put under the microscope. The students struggled to be seen positively by their supervisors. In this case, the struggle involved juggling many aspects of the placement experience in such a way that potentially conflictual situations were avoided. The students made this effort in order to ensure that the placements would progress more smoothly and that the final grade, a normative evaluation given to students at the end of teaching practicums and clinical placements in Australia, would not be jeopardised.
Empowerment through commitment and trust Even though their workplaces were very different, Suresh’s experiences were similar to those of several other students, including Keiko, Mai, Wilma and Mike, in that his perceptions of the experience were greatly influenced by his interactions with his supervisor. Suresh’s course-related work experience was carried out in a university laboratory that was set up to carry out ‘projects in co-operation with ... industries’, in this case an industry that needed research into the various qualities of polymers. In the interview, Suresh described the relationship he developed with his supervisor, a man whose reputation as a supervisor before the project developed, gave Suresh ‘a nightmare’. Suresh: ‘The supervisor was great’ Suresh: ... the supervisor wasn’t the best one as recommended by other people. But I worked
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with him and I’m going out for lunch today with him—and he was, like, the best guide—the only thing [is] he makes you work hard and you have to stand all the pressure that he puts you under. So I had a nightmare before—like I’m going to work with this guy—like this is what I want to do, but because people don’t say this supervisor’s good, I don’t want to do it, but I thought, I’ll go with it—I’ll probably learn something and even if—I’ll live with it and that’s what I did and I went in and the supervisor was great—I think some people cannot bear the pressure or he drives them crazy—I don’t know, but he was great. He was at the presentation today and— very nice—he’s seventy years old, I think— JR: Seventy— Suresh: Sixty to seventy ... So I helped him out even on the last day (my project was going to end one week before the uni started). He said, Keep on working, so I worked for him even on the Saturdays and Sundays because he’s pretty old and can’t type reports and all that stuff. They said, Please do his reports ... and everyone used to nag ... He don’t do his reports. ... and I worked with him and it was just great and he brought in his wife to the—you know, make coffees after ... and all that stuff. It’s just that some people perceive things in a different manner. But he was great! That’s the story I wanted to tell. At one point in the interview, Suresh reported that the hours he worked on the project included a consistent twelve-hour day in the peak time of the project, which was designed to cover the summer break, Saturdays and Sundays. He commented that ‘even in uni, I worked from eight o’clock to nine o’clock at night or something’. Suresh used the word ‘co-operative’ to describe the relationship and there is evidence throughout the interview to suggest that this was an
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appropriate descriptor. Suresh typed his supervisor’s reports, while the supervisor was happy to set up flexible lunch hours for Suresh so that the machines that were used to test the plastic materials being investigated were not turned on and off at inconvenient times. This saved Suresh extra cleaning, wasted time and a sense of frustration. Suresh stated in his interview that he had both enjoyed and benefited from the quality of his supervision and he provided different kinds of evidence to show that this had been the case. Although a great deal younger than his mentor, Suresh seemed to revel in the hard work, the cordial atmosphere and the mutual regard that his supervisor and he had for each other. It is also possible that the presence of the supervisor’s wife contributed much to the relationship between the older man and the younger one as she came into the laboratory during the more relaxed weekends and made and shared cups of coffee with her husband and his young protégé. Thus, Suresh was part of the pleasant atmosphere that characterised the weekend work. Although the project had finished some time before the interview, the supervisor for the project came across into a different area of the university to listen to Suresh’s final group presentation for the year. This took place on the day the interview was conducted. The relationship between Suresh’s supervisor and himself was characterised by (a) extended contact; (b) mutually beneficial cooperation; and (c) warm interpersonal interactions. Yet the relationship was a demanding one, the supervisor asking that his student contribute long hours and much repetitive work to their joint effort. Suresh claimed that he had found an excellent supervisor and, judging by his unusual attendance at Suresh’s final presentation on an unrelated topic, it would seem that the regard was mutual. It could be argued that Suresh’s perception that his relationship with his supervisor had been mutually satisfying depended on several rather special factors such as the commitment that both supervisor and student had to the project at hand and the circumstances that allowed a family atmosphere to characterise the workplace each weekend when the supervisor’s wife came into the laboratory to help out and make cups of coffee. Furthermore, Suresh’s outstanding intellectual capabilities and personal endeavour would also have contributed to the success of the relationship. In answer to other questions, Suresh talked about the prizes and scholarships he had been awarded
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for his scholarly efforts at university, his setting up of an association for people in his field, and the reasons that motivated him to undertake fourth-year subjects in his second year at university.
‘Committed presence’ In many ways, the relationship between Suresh and his supervisor was an ideal one. Throughout the interview, Suresh could be heard describing the supervisor’s ‘committed presence’. Of course, that phrase was never used in the interview but only emerged when the students’ transcripts had been examined. Furthermore, the strategic silence that characterised the relationships between some studentteachers or nurses and their supervisors was not present in the relationship between Suresh and his supervisor, possibly because the polymer project’s outcomes were judged by the delivery of certain findings to an external client, but also due, perhaps, to the interdependent, task-related co-operation that had made Suresh able to ask if the machines could be kept running so that he did not have to clean them as often. Ophelia: ‘She could see that he was happy’ Ophelia, a student-teacher, also experienced the benefits of a productive interaction with her supervisor. In her interview, she described a brief, but very significant, incident in which she calmed and engaged the child of her supervising Art teacher while that teacher was in the classroom. At the beginning of the lesson, the child was crying. Ophelia touched the child, diverted his attention away from his mother, the main teacher in the classroom, and back on to the Art lesson. Ophelia described the incident in some detail when invited to recount ‘a little story ... a little incident or event’. Ophelia: Well, I just said to the teacher quietly that I would help her son, and he was sitting crying at the table, so I just came up and put my hand on his back and started rubbing, started rubbing his back, and I just asked him what he wanted to do because they were making puppets, so he was having difficulty making the hat, so I just showed him—how to make a hat. Once he actually saw
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the progress of the puppet coming along, I could see he was thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, she’s OK, she’s actually helping me, we’re achieving something’. Then he became more outgoing with me and started throwing in ideas. So we worked on it together for a little bit—until it developed to a point where I asked him, Do you want me to help you further? and he said, No, I can go on now, and by then there were no more tears— everything was fine ... JR: Why did you say ‘softly’ to the other teacher that you would deal with this? Ophelia: Because I didn’t want—because the teacher’s child had been following her around, getting teary and hiding behind doorways and that sort of thing—other children were demanding a lot of our attention, but I could see that perhaps he needed another adult intervention, because, I felt, he was just playing on his own frustration, perhaps more so with the teacher being his mother. But I said softly to her so that obviously he wouldn’t hear me [laughs] ... so that was all, just so that he wouldn’t hear what my intentions were going to be ... JR: So how did you signal to her …? Ophelia: No, no, I just kept moving on to other children. It was obvious—it was only a small class and she could see that he was happy with what he was doing—and she was busy with other children anyway ... JR: She’s not your normal supervisor ... Ophelia: No—But she’s my mentor in that class. JR: ... Is there anything else that you think is interesting about that? Ophelia: Umm—Not really—well, not really—I feel I’ve said it all um yeah—It just—I guess—It just seemed to work and I’ve registered that it’s worked. Store that! (Laughs.) Maybe use it for another day.
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‘Trusting space’ What is striking about this incident is that the supervising teacher did not intervene in the interaction between her own child and Ophelia, the student-teacher. She opened up a space, a trusting space, in which the learner—the student-teacher—was able to demonstrate how far she had progressed in her ability to resolve difficult moments in her primary classroom. This was a special experience because the child being counselled, comforted and diverted back to his studies was actually the teacher’s own child and yet she was able to negotiate—on the spot—her relationship with Ophelia so that she felt that she could give the student-teacher the decision-making power relevant to the situation at hand. What is most striking about this situation is that the whole episode was negotiated wordlessly. We can imagine that the supervising teacher may have been watching out of the corner of her eye, but she did not intervene directly—of that we can be fairly certain because Ophelia was recounting an event that had happened only a couple of hours before and so details would not have been forgotten as they can be when the time gap is greater. Although the incident of the crying child was one tiny event in the many that would have made up Ophelia’s practicum, it exemplified and clarified aspects of the ways in which a ‘trusting space’ could be opened up by a supervisor and accessed by a student in the everyday flux of the practicum experience. Arthur: ‘Then [she] just let us go.’ Arthur’s supervisor also trusted him. She opened up a ‘trusting space’ that allowed him to use a quiet period on the ward to practise important skills related to bandaging and the management of sterile dressings. (In the following extract, the word ‘field’ refers to the sterile ‘fields’ that are set up in such circumstances.) Arthur: During Week Two we had a very slow week. There was really nothing happening in the wards ... two of the other students were with me on that ward. ... we were going to do packing and dressing, but there were no packs so we just drew on each other’s arms and we just did it. But what [the supervising nurse] did was sit back
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and—well, first of all went through what we needed ... from the book ... so she went into the storage area and got everything that we’d need. And she drew the wound and explained to us exactly what it was going to be like. Then just let us go. We set up our own field and ... the dressing trolley and made sure everything was there. Then we went through and did what we were supposed to do when the wound ... I know how to set up my field and how to use it effectively, but I’d never done a pack dressing before, so she said Right—I’ll just show you one ... So that was good. And next she just showed us, Here’s how you do it ... But by the same token, there was no slacking off because once you’d left your field, she’d remind you that you had to go and wash your hands again and basically start from scratch. So we’d pack up and start again— new antiseptic field, set everything up—We’d learned how to do that. We’d learned how to apply it all and it was very good. That was just an example. Basically she only had to show us one little part, but she was very happy with the whole thing—just with our techniques and stuff. One further aspect of the supervisory relationship should be noted at this stage. Its main outlines can be seen in the following extract from Arthur’s interview: Arthur: The second day we were there we had eight admissions to the ward so there was quite a lot of admissions ... I do know my way around all the forms and whatnot, but ... the consent form, and I left it. [The resident nurse] said, You haven’t done this part, and I said, Well, that’s not a nursing duty. It’s got nothing to do with the nursing process at all … She said that when she first went there she
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had the problem as well, and wasn’t getting them signed, but after a while didn’t go against the flow—just went with it. But I still refused to do that because, should that person get through surgery and have the wrong thing written on his admission sheet or anything like that, I wasn’t willing to take that responsibility ... And then I actually took it to the Clinical Teacher [his supervisor] and she said, Oh, it’s not really my responsibility. That’s where it stayed ... But then after discussing it with the Clinical Teacher ... and she was happy and said, That’s fine. Arthur was able to disagree in an open manner with another member of staff. Arthur’s reporting of this interaction formed a unique example among the interviews. It was a testimony to their cooperative relationship, his pre-existing expertise and his good communication that this interaction was able to take place between a student nurse and his Clinical Teacher.
‘Trusting dialogue’ From Arthur’s point of view, such was the trust that had been engendered between Arthur’s supervising nurse and himself that she was able to support his account of the disagreement and accept his decision without anger, resentment or loss of ‘face’ for either person. Hence, in some of the richest student–supervisor relationships, certain students were able to participate in a ‘trusting dialogue’. Emily: ‘Maybe we should have a meeting’ Emily and Terence, two Business students who had chosen the Marketing stream of their program, had a rather angry set of exchanges with a senior staff member whose deadline they had not been able to meet in the time he thought appropriate for the task. The students’ supervisor responded, not by criticising their approach and telling them to defer to the experience and greater knowledge of the senior colleague, but, instead, by setting up a conference so that they could discuss the dispute with several different colleagues throughout the
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multinational company. The supervisor once again, like Ophelia’s supervisor, albeit in a very different setting, gave the students the professional trust that enabled them to talk through their tensions at the workplace. Both students recounted this same very anxiety-provoking incident in great detail during their interviews. Their stories were very similar. This is an edited version of Emily’s account of the situation that had taken place. Emily:
I had a situation, it was just a couple of weeks ago, where one of the engineers that I was working on a piece of literature for was quite rude to me, just the way he dealt with me. He was very, very demanding, and I’ve got lots of work from different people, but he’s expecting his work to always be the priority. He was basically stressing out, I suppose, like his office, like his workstation is downstairs so he was calling me up: How are you going with it, are you nearly finished, are you nearly finished it? Just his manner was very rude and I didn’t—I mean it wasn’t—just very bad people skills, really, and I had to leave early one afternoon because I had an appointment and I handed it over to Terence who is the other student and Terence had even more problems. ... the impression that we got, like, that both Terence and I got from him that was first of all you know, ‘I’m an engineer, I’m so much more important than you, like I can treat you like this, and furthermore you are a student, so I can treat you how I want’, and [Marie] actually contacted him, and said, ‘Oh, well, maybe we should have a meeting with him and go over like’—just a nonconfrontational meeting with him ... so when Marie went and contacted him he was quite rude to her as well ... so she took it to [Anne] who is our manager and Marie had to—it turned into— it just escalated really, like Anne had to contact
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this engineer’s manager and in the end we had a conference with her, the engineer, and his manager, to try to sort it out. He, basically, like he had nothing bad to say to, he had nothing in response to say to Terence or I because Terence and I didn’t do anything—like we were trying as hard as we could ... But in the actual conference call, it was just a lot of excuses being made about how, you know, the mix up with data sheet—we should have started working on earlier, and it had to be ready to able to be sent to Japan as soon as possible ... We were quite surprised that he didn’t apologise and I know that [another supervisor] was quite angry that he didn’t apologise ... At the end of her narrative, Emily said that her supervising staff member had seen the incident from the students’ point of view and had expected an apology from the engineer who had demanded the sheet about the latest product he wanted to discuss with overseas clients. Even though Emily seemed upset about the incident two weeks later when the interview was being conducted, her supervisor’s trust and her endorsement of the students’ position obviously meant a great deal to Emily. Although she might not have been able to articulate it at the time, it was obvious that the way in which the company’s personnel had handled the incident had given Emily many opportunities for learning. Firstly, the students were treated with courtesy, sympathy and respect. Secondly, their worries had been taken to a suitable forum for further discussion. Finally, their account of events had been accepted. Emily’s future career was going to be set up somewhere within the field of marketing. By having become involved in this dispute and its resolution, she had been given the opportunity to learn not only about the importance of courtesy and respect for colleagues, but also on a much more practical level, how to negotiate a dispute with a colleague in an appropriately professional way. Emily’s supervisor’s trust had opened up trusting spaces and trusting dialogues followed on from this. In this way, both Emily and
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Terence were provided with opportunities to learn more about the nature of professional work and appropriate channels for resolving professional conflicts. Furthermore, they had been given an opportunity to see that, in a contemporary flat-topped organisation such as Company A, it was not necessarily the most senior person whose version of events was the one that was acted upon. In a most striking way, it was shown to the students that even those with least influence could be given a ‘space’ in which to be heard. Gary: And he said, ‘Ahh, I’m just so tired’ For Gary, a student-teacher, his supervisor’s trust was revealed one morning before class. During his teaching practicum in a small primary school on the outskirts of Melbourne, Gary was able to offer the following account of his supervisor’s willingness to trust him: Gary: ... I want to reinforce that seeing [Chris] before, before school started and his head was almost on the desk. He had to go to a first-aid course last night back of beyond and then drive home. And he said, ‘Ahh, I’m just so tired, I need four more hours’ sleep’. And then we went across to the classroom and he was a different person— he’s, like, ‘OK !!’—and he was! All of a sudden he had this energy burst and whether he was excited to be in there, or whether it was ‘Right, I just can’t walk around the class going ‘Brrrr’—which you can’t do—it was almost schizophrenic. I suppose he could just go in there and change: ‘I’m happy to be the teacher, happy to be here and have a positive attitude to the kids’, and they got the same attitude back off him. Gary’s supervisor told him that he, too, had to manage various professional problems, but he demonstrated that there were ways in which to cope with such situations. By having allowed his professional mask to drop before the class, the supervisor enabled Gary to see that good teachers know how to energise both themselves and the children even when they feel under some pressure for reasons of their own. By
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trusting Gary enough to show what lay behind the skilled, seemingly effortless performance that he was able to give in the classroom, Chris was able to teach the trainee teacher about the rigours of performing a professional role.
‘Trusting revelations’ The supervisor not only trusted Gary enough to tell him that he was tired, but showed him the difference between his tired state and his classroom persona without feeling any anxiety that Gary would think that he was insincere. The supervisor knew that Gary was skilled enough to understand the situation deeply. The trust felt by the supervisor benefited Gary greatly as he was given an all-important insight— a ‘trusting revelation’—about the nature of teaching in a very economical manner.
‘Committed presence’ and ‘enabling trust’ Trusting relationships were described by Suresh, Ophelia, Arthur, Gary and Terence and Emily. The students recounted stories that had obvious differences due to their placements in very different workplaces, but each incident had two important similarities. The supervisors were committed and present and each supervisor showed that they had confidence in the student’s ability to manage a situation or to accept information or advice with a more nuanced appreciation of that incident or insight than might have been expected from a novice. Discussions of the social self as ‘emergent, contextual, discursive, multiple, relational, mutual’ (Wetherell & Maybin, 1996, p. 223) imply that the supervisor ‘produced’ the student in the same way that the student ‘produced’ the supervisor and that one role could only be understood by understanding the other. Hence, the students’ own roles, their responses, their alignments, disagreements or silences were the other parts of the accounts that lay at the margins of the more fully explicated description of the supervisor’s actions, demands and speaking. Like the dark side of the moon, once fully recognised, the students’ expectations, positive responses, disappointments or silences could be brought from the margins to the centre of the interpretation of any one account. By exploring a series of very different incidents, it has been possible to see that the best environments for learning seem to occur
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when students can reap the benefits from opportunities that arise when their supervisors demonstrate both a ‘committed presence’ and an ‘enabling trust’. Such relationships bring both the student and the supervisor great rewards. The supervisors have the pleasure of working with, and showing the complexities of their roles to, students whose enthusiasm and hard work demonstrates their commitment to both the job and to their immediate supervisors. The students benefit from the equipment, flexible hours and other resources that the supervisor gives to them once the trusting relationship has begun to build in momentum. It is clear, therefore, that time and the committed presence of the supervisor are crucial factors in the building of these rich relationships. The significance of time, in particular, cannot be overestimated. Hence, it has been emphasised that the most important outcomes of the best supervisory relationships are neither equipment nor resources, but the essential trusting conversations that enable students to ask for advice, discuss difficulties and set up the trusting spaces necessary for the risk-taking and experimentation that so often accompany deep and lasting learning. Some two decades ago, medical students at McMaster University in Canada were advised at the beginning of a course that set up and positively rewarded opportunities for self-directed and group learning in which students were asked to record any new vocabulary that they had learned (Ferrier, Marrin & Seidman, 1981). Although it was probable that the students would have recorded lists of unfamiliar medical terms, the reminder also shows that the tutor had realised that language was an essential part of becoming a member of any group, always a discourse community. It is possible that the students in this study would have also benefited from an overt reminder to the effect that their workplace placements would create opportunities for themselves to increase their proficiency in both the specific language of their chosen profession and the language in which they were creating and presenting their ‘ordinary’ workplace selves.
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Chapter 4
Networking, Transforming, Distributed
Alternative interactions, alternative places Many students’ accounts suggested that their supervisors wanted them to demonstrate a reasonable level of competence almost as soon as the placement commenced so that the student would be able to share the workload by carrying out certain significant tasks with appropriate levels of knowledge, understanding and skill. When Paul, a student nurse whose story was discussed in Chapter 2, could not demonstrate sufficient commitment at times, or act quickly in an emergency situation, he was criticised, and felt ‘very uptight’ as a consequence. However, when Paul recounted the incident of the emergency situation, he also made it possible to see that his admission, ‘I was shitting myself—I just didn’t know what to do’, would have meant that his colleagues knew that he had not as yet developed the ability to remain calm in a highly stressful situation. However, this is a vital capability in many different professional settings. On a more practical level, his inability to cope meant that he was not able to contact the doctor quickly and so there was one person fewer to help manage the life-and-death situation. The students interviewed wanted to access various kinds of social support so that they could present themselves at work as
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well-prepared, engaged and competent people. What emerged quite strikingly from the interviews was the accuracy with which students could determine and describe their own level of expertise. Also noteworthy were the many creative ways in which students went about meeting their needs for further resources and support without risking being seen as ‘lesser’, ‘weaker’ or ‘other’ in the supervisor’s eyes. Given the many roles played by supervisor and student in relation to each other and the heavy demands of the supervisor’s workplace responsibilities, it was not surprising that the students sought supplementary support from people other than the supervisor, manager or mentor. During the interviews, it became clear that while students wanted to acquire professional expertise and perform competently, retain information, interpret the social environment, and understand the workplaces so thoroughly that ‘relationships and judgements’ could be made (Stenhouse, 1975, p. 80), they often had to—or wanted to—access people in addition to the supervisor for support of many kinds during this challenging period of transition. Human resources other than the supervisor were looked to for several reasons. Firstly, many workplaces were very busy and some supervisors were unavoidably overloaded (in Wilma’s supervisor’s case) or frequently absent (in Keiko’s supervisor’s case). Secondly, students themselves lacked the extra time needed to access work personnel after work because they were undertaking their placements while juggling many other aspects of their lives. Students such as Mark, Ophelia, Wilma, Keiko, Pete and David all talked about their other commitments in some detail, stressing the demands of parttime work or raising children. Finally, as has already been pointed out, students wanted to make use of relationships in which they were seen in a positive light so that the learning was enjoyable or reciprocal rather than directive or didactic. Hence, during their work placements, a significant group of students wanted to access the kind of support that would enable them to demonstrate a greater level of competence in their workplace than would have otherwise been possible. Where did such support come from? The following material answers this question. The key ideas to be explored in this chapter are those of the transformation and the active creation of support and resources by those who required more of both. The discussion opens with an account of
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the roles played by friendly peers inside the workplace. Then, as the chapter unfolds, the spotlight turns to friends, partners and family members. The focus of the chapter is on human resources rather than information technology as it was the support of the people around them that the students talked about most often and in greatest detail.
Salient, friendly peers Almost all of the students in the study referred to the support that they had been given by peers in the workplace at some point during their interview. One kind of support was given in the form of friendship. The students were able to socialise with the friends that they had made at work. For example, Tania’s peers joined her for lunch while Shan’s played table-tennis with him. However, peers were able to offer more than enjoyable social activities. A deeper understanding of the role of peers was reached when Sobash told his first narrative. This incident showed that peers were critically important sources of support during work placements as well as demonstrating that the ‘lighthouse’ stories chosen to open up key ideas in the study could have as their focus the slightest of incidents. The story of the lolly box was recounted by Sobash, an international student who was studying in Australia in order to complete a Business degree with major studies in Accounting. At the time of the interview, he had been in the workplace for about four months. When interviewed at his workplace during lunch hour, Sobash chose to recount an incident that had happened that same morning. The lolly boxes referred to in Sobash’s story can be seen in many Australian workplaces. The purpose of the boxes is to raise money for charity. The square boxes are made of cardboard and are often placed on counters. Each box contains several small bags of sweets (or ‘lollies’) lined up in rows. A slot for coins enables people wanting to buy the sweets to pay for them by dropping the money directly into the slot as they take a bag of sweets. At regular intervals, a representative from the charity calls to collect the money and re-fill the box with fresh bags of sweets. Sobash: ‘And he was saying, Yeah - trust me!’ Sobash: The lolly man normally comes every end of the month and collects all the lolly bags and
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balances all the sheets which have been collected during the last month, and collects all the money. This morning, when he was collecting, he was short of six dollars or something, and no one remembered who had taken all the lollies. Finally, my workmate, Andy, has taken some lollies, and hasn’t put his money into the box, so that was the money he was short of. JR: Why did you choose that story to tell me? Sobash: Well, it was kind of interesting, and it is the kind of thing that happens out of our work environment—and all of our workmates congregated and started discussing what has happened … JR: So, I think—What is your view of Andy? —the person who it happened to—is he a jokey person—he enjoyed it? Sobash: Oh, yeah—he enjoyed it—and he was saying, Yeah—trust me!, because normally we would just take the lollies from the box, and if we don’t have any change—just got to put in coins—so, at the end of the week, you have to put in coins— JR: And is it one of those boxes of lollies that the charities put in? Sobash T hat’s right— JR: And you put the coins in the little slot, but sometimes you haven’t got the correct money and you think: Later, I’ll do it later, and then you forget. And those bags of lollies in the little plastic packets. So, if it had been you that had forgotten to put in your money, would have you have handled it in the same way as Andy handled it? How would you have felt if it had been you that forgot to put in the money? Sobash: I think I would have been embarrassed—’cos— might have started to comparing my work—and start thinking that I’d cheated them or something like that [unclear]
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JR: So how did he feel about it? Sobash: He was pretty all right about it—I don’t know how he felt within him, he was all right. He showed that he was all right. JR: Is Andy about your age? Sobash: Yes, he’s one year younger than me. He was a [work placement] student in the last period, and at the moment he’s working part-time. The story of the lolly box is one of the least dramatic of all the stories related by the students. This single small drama, recounted as the opening story of the study’s fourth interview, allowed the listener to understand more fully the challenges faced by some students during their placements. In this story, Sobash was the one who watched and listened. Although the company employees gathered to discuss the missing coins, Sobash did not say that he had joined in their conversation. He waited to see what would happen. He also reflected on Andy’s actions. The part of the story that was most surprising was the section in which Sobash listed his potential responses to a similar situation as those of embarrassment, insecurity and even fear. He imagined his colleagues comparing his work to that of others and accusing him of cheating. Later, he commented that, in his own country, Sri Lanka, it would be thought unusual ‘to keep a lolly box at work’. Throughout his narrative, Sobash depicted himself as the outsider, contrasting his observations with his colleagues’ talking, his sense of strangeness and insecurity with Andy’s relaxed reassurance that he could be trusted and had simply forgotten to return with the coins after taking a bag of sweets. Sobash’s reactions to the incident of the lolly box can be linked to the many difficulties he had faced during the first months of his work placement. Sobash said that he had made many ‘mistakes’ at the beginning. He had to get used not only to the gap between preparing for work at university and ‘the real kind of thing’ in a specific workplace, but also to the constant checking of his work by the employer, and to the unfamiliar accounting software used by the company. He had also discovered that he was expected to have a more detailed knowledge of the Australian taxation system than he
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had anticipated in university classes. Sobash commented that the pressure to perform competently in the workplace was much greater than it was in class because ‘if you do a mistake ... you’re going to lose your clients’. As Sobash’s work included updating clients’ accounts, it was often checked by his employer. In his account of his placement, Sobash used the word ‘mistake’ eight times. The words ‘wrong’ and ‘correct’ were also used several times in another part of the interview in which he gave details of his first few weeks at work. At the beginning of his study, Sobash had struggled with the change in climate, with loneliness caused by the separation from his family and friends, and with the knowledge that his family had invested their savings in his Australian education because, in contrast to his brother, he had not been able to gain a place in a university in Sri Lanka. Sobash also talked at length about his language difficulties saying that it had taken him ‘round two and a half months’ to get used to the Australian accents of his employer and colleagues. Various people in the workplace, including the employer, also found Sobash’s English difficult to understand. This situation improved only after a visitor, paid by the university to visit work placement students, explained Sobash’s language-based difficulties to the employer. Hence, when seen from Sobash’s lonely and anxious perspective, Andy’s friendliness meant a great deal. Sobash stated that Andy had gone on holidays, implying that during that period he had had little assistance. However, ‘once he [Andy] came back, he was a good support to me. If I had any problems, he was very nice and would help me’. Andy had also answered questions about the employer’s accounting software. Andy had originally entered the accountancy firm as a student undertaking the workplace component of the same program of study as Sobash. They were united by their common university experience, as well as by their involvement in the same workplace. Andy was able to provide Sobash with greater security. Sobash stated, The other thing, [Andy] stands between my boss and me. The gap between my boss and me is big—he’s around sixty years and I’m twenty, so that age gap made a big difference. Having Andy made a big difference.
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The story of the lolly box opened Sobash’s long interview. It also alerted the researcher to the multi-faceted role played by peers. It became clear that peers were not only the people with whom the students socialised at work, but the people they turned to for non-threatening, task-related advice, critical information and expertise in the workplace.
Friendly, accessible, competent peers The interviews revealed that the peers who were turned to for support in the workplace had four main characteristics. Like Andy, all peers who were seen as supportive in the interviews were described as friendly. However, not only were the peers mentioned friendly, they were also salient, accessible and competent. These peers—friendly, salient, accessible and competent—were mentioned in many interviews. Josh had conversations about difficult tasks with his peers while Emily and Terence helped each other to cope with the conflict that arose over a deadline that they had not been able to meet. However, the workplace was only one of the locations in which support was provided by peers. Friends outside the workplace were also a vital source of sympathy, advice and reciprocal assistance. Several students reported on the crucial significance of the support that had been provided by the people with whom they had their closest relationships. This support was of two kinds, emotional and professional, but the two kinds were often closely intertwined. Extracts from several of the transcripts now follow. Each of these provides a snapshot of the assistance given to the students by the people who were close to them. As will become evident through reading the extracts, the support provided covered a wide range of needs, situations and workplaces. Each of the sources of support was located outside the workplace. Sustaining friendships outside the workplace The friendships that students had away from work contributed greatly to their ability to present a confident and competent persona during the placement. In the following extract, Didi describes the creative way in which he was able to transform existing resources (his friends) into a dummy ‘class’ so that he could practise his tutoring skills. The following extract was included in the discussion because tutoring is
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the most common workplace experience for future academics and also because it was the following account that had made it clear that the transformation of existing resources and the skilful creation of new ones are critical processes for many students. Didi: ‘I said, Can you guys just act like my students?’ In his interview, Didi described his experiences in gaining the sympathy and the support of his girlfriend and three of his house mates. Didi: Again, it was the first time I had a tute. Again, I didn’t have any experience before. Especially when it comes to teaching and how to place so many people around. And I just get confused. Nervous. But because—when I think about it, I position myself as a Tutor. I shouldn’t be that nervous ... So I sort of practised at home. Talked to my girlfriend. Talked to my friends and stuff like that. Do a practice tutorial at home and learn step by step. I was … the student president of the student union before—when I was in my country. So I thought that might help a bit more. We used to have a lot of meetings. And I also used to do a lot of public speaking as well … JR: When you imagined the classes, what aspect made you feel anxious? Didi: Because I’m new. So I’m not sure what kind of questions they will ask me. And I’m not sure when I answer questions that becomes a fairly big impact on both me and the students. I’m afraid I will answer the wrong questions. And that, of course, will influence their result. Something like that. Another thing is probably because I think, because I’m an international student, English is not my first language. When it comes to talk, I’m a bit nervous. I think: Is my English good enough? Is it clear enough or not? JR: And what’s the answer to that question? Didi: When it comes to explain for the first week, I
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think it wasn’t that good. But later on, I tried to sort of … not only talk to the whole class, I also tried to approach my students. In that way—one to one—my conversation is actually better. Just to get along with them. I speak English just like nature. No more tension. The nervousness is just gone—when I come to know them. In the first class, of course, I don’t know who they are. I don’t know their names. I have to just point to them. But when I come to know them I can talk to them like a friend instead of a tutor. So basically after the second week, I could solve the language problems and the problem is gone … JR: Did you do it before that first one? Or did you decide, after the first one, that you needed a bit of practice? Didi: I think it came more after the first week. I didn’t expect that I would be so nervous. I did prepare for myself before coming to class. But when it came to the class I just forgot what I wanted to say! So I thought, That’s bad. So I talked to my girlfriend— because I’m very close to my girlfriend—and said, I need help! So they just gathered around and I said, Can you guys just act like my students—I’m going to explain what I’m going to say and, if you want, you can ask me question … JR: Do you do that every week still? Didi: I can’t remember how many times I did that. But approximately twice … not more than that. After beginning to tutor at his university, Didi realised that his spoken English language skills were not sufficiently proficient for him to teach in a tertiary subject with confidence or authority. Didi shared his anxieties with his girlfriend and then with the friends with whom he shared a house. After that, he rehearsed for the tutorial by running a shortened version of the ‘tute’ with and in front of three of the five people with whom he lived. This strategy enabled Didi to practise the language he would use in the coming tutorial session.
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Hence, Didi followed a series of self-orchestrated steps that began with his girlfriend and included his house mates before taking on the real-world situation of the tutorial. Even in the tutorial he devised a strategy for staying within the boundaries imposed by his own status as a novice tutor and his perceptions of his English language skills. Until he became more confident, his teaching emphasised one-to-one interactions rather than interactions with the whole class. Ophelia: ‘I only need to pick up the ’phone and ask somebody to help’ Ophelia’s interview, striking in that she seemed to be able to call on so many different sources of support, also demonstrated that friends were willing to take up certain important tasks in order to help the student through the placement period. In contrast to Agnes, an international student who had only needed her friend’s support for an afternoon, Ophelia needed the support of two different groups of friends throughout the whole teaching round. In the following extract, Ophelia talked about her spiritual teacher and then about the people who helped her care for her daughter while the busy teaching practicum was in full swing. Ophelia: Okay. Well, I meditate every morning before— any day, whether I’m going to school or not. I follow a spiritual teacher and basically I use him as my sustenance to keep me going. On a practical level, at home, I’m a single mother so I have a thirteen-year-old daughter ... So on a home environment, I don’t have that support— directly from home. I have lots of friends who are teachers—they’re very supportive— JR: Tell me a little bit about how you feel supported by them. Ophelia: OK. Well—um—well my daughter goes to a Steiner school and I know a lot of the teachers at the school very well because I’ve had a lot of interaction and doing things for the school, so, I can be, for example, if I was running late to get
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home from uni one day, I know that I could ring any one of those very good people to take [Lizzy] home for me or, you know, take her back to—you know, that sort of thing. Um—mostly, any of them would—they’re just very obliging and supportive people. For example, the office lady there—we usually have car pools because I live in Hollybush and the school is in Yallom and normally there’s three families involved with our car pool, and we take it in turns of going over, well, this year, when I started back at uni, Susan who works in the office, said I didn’t have to do any of the car pools at all this year, that she would just take on Lizzy, so that is just a huge, huge blessing for me. JR: And she offered that? Ophelia: Yeah—so she—that is just a tremendous relief, because basically, if I didn’t have that, it would add—it would mean that it would take me two hours to get to uni. in the morning, by the time I did my normal hour’s travelling to take Lizzy to school and then go another hour to get to uni. So—yeah, that’s a real blessing. You know, basically they’re very supportive of what I do. And helpful. If there’s anything that I need help with, whether it’s ‘come and fix my fence’, or ‘my car’s broken down’, I only need to pick up the phone and ask somebody to help. On a—I guess—on an academic level, at the beginning of the year when I found it very difficult to write essays and things like that, you know, I had them proofreading my essays for me after— JR: That’s some group of people— Ophelia: Well, I would run my ideas by them, and they would say, Yep, you’re on the right track ... but I’m not in that sort of high anxiety frenzy what I felt like initially at the beginning of the year.
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Many other students, both international and local, male and female, mature age and younger, named their friends as one of the most important sources of ‘sustenance’ (Ophelia) during their placements. The students’ friends, both long-standing and recent, played a great range of roles. The experiences of many of the students who did not have any family members living in Australia were greatly enhanced by the friends who supported them behind the scenes. Friends contributed to the students’ ability to undertake and complete the placement by offering many different kinds of social support. Various forms of support were mentioned. One of the most important was that of friendship. Friends offered the students opportunities for fun and relaxation after work. Suresh, for example, described the way in which the close proximity of the friends who lived in three adjoining apartments, added a great deal to his life in Australia in general and to his work placements in particular, because he worked such long hours—twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Gary also looked to friends for a break, describing the dinners that took place at friends’ houses. These dinners were not only a great source of enjoyment and relief, but also offered Gary the chance to participate in further discussions about teaching as most of the friendships Gary described had been made during his Education course. Gary: ‘And they’re like, How are things going?’ Gary: [E]veryone says—We’re here to support you—we’re here to help—especially my friends because I see them all the time on the course and they’re like, How are things going?, and they ask me and they want to get involved and they want to know … JR: You know when you talk about that telephoning—how many? Gary: Twenty—I got a phone call last night at 5.30: What are ya doing for dinner, Ga? Oh, I’m just having it here. Come around!, and it was Kara, Kathy and Emma and Len and another friend and there were six of us sitting around the dinner table all with partners and whatever, and—must drive them insane—we just sit there talking about teaching and what’s going on—and
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it’s really good—just bouncing things off each other—that’s—yep—and a lot of my other friends who don’t live that close, I call all the time and go out with them on weekends and— yeah—and you get people ringing up: Oh, it’s horrible today and I’m really struggling and that stuff. Everyone’s in the same boat, so—in terms of the students—so we all know, kind of, what we’ve got to do to help each other through. Friends were also willing to carry out various tasks during the students’ placements. This meant that the students did not have to leave work early or at an inconvenient time. Agnes opened up her interview by telling a story about a friend. She focused on the way in which the friend had gone into the university and re-enrolled Agnes in her Business studies program for the coming year. Gary: ‘I’ll ring people and go, How did you go today?’ Gary had easy access to a professionally like-minded family. The interactions Gary described during his interview seemed warm and pleasurable, providing encouragement and ongoing reassurance. What is especially noticeable about Gary’s networks of support is the way in which familial relationships, professional concerns and leisure times were mixed together and could be accessed simultaneously. The conversation at Gary’s dinner table concerned teaching and the friend whose house he was looking after had a wall of teaching references for him to borrow. Gary’s own very proactive role in accessing the support provided by his friends is demonstrated in the following extracts in which he described his telephone calls after work and the house that he was looking after for a friend. The way in which Gary represented his many telephone calls may offer some insight into his ability to surround himself with sustaining friendships. In his depiction of the telephone calls, Gary showed that he had taken the initiative by ringing up one of his friends. However, far from dominating the interactions, he asked the individuals he rang to give an account of their own teaching day first, initiating a mutual exchange of the day’s stories about teaching. Hence, the support was reciprocal.
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Gary: Other friends at uni, who—like—you ring up— I’ll speak to someone every night—it doesn’t matter who it is—I ring people and go: How did you go today? What happened? So, we all bounce ideas off each other, so they’ve all been great. ... I’m actually house-sitting a friend’s house at the moment she has a huge library which is the size of two of those walls and she goes like— ‘Yep—please feel free’—so (laughs) —that’s been handy, really handy! Like Gary, Suresh, Agnes and many other students, Ophelia also relied on the friends she had made at university. Ophelia: ‘It’s just like-minded people who are experiencing the same sorts of difficulties’ In her case, the students were bonded by their common experience of being mature-age students at university. Ophelia: Well, I guess the most supportive people would be the other mature-age students that are also doing the course with me. ... there’s probably four or five. I mean, there are a lot of students, but there’s probably an intimate group of four or five of us that are supportive of each other, in that we know what it’s like to have a family, we know what it’s like to work, we know what it’s like to do full-time uni., and sometimes, we just use each other as a shoulder to cry on and say, It’s too hard this week or I’m too tired, how can I get motivated to do whatever? From that perspective, it’s been great, and I think it’s just like-minded people that are experiencing the same sort of difficulties perhaps, and they’re just supportive in that way.
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David: ‘How was your Maths lesson? How was your English lesson?’ David, another young male in his very early twenties, was, like Didi, supported by a girlfriend. David portrayed the relationship as a reciprocal one, stressing that he also offered her support when she struggled with lesson planning. It should be noted that David’s assessment of their chats as ‘very, very important’ was at least partly explained by the absence of two other forms of potential support. Unlike many of the students, David was not able to work with the other student from University A who was on the same teaching placement with him. His family, while supportive in many other ways, could not be looked to for professional advice, because the work that brought in most of the family’s income was very different from that of teaching. JR:
Did any other students go out to Secondary College A with you? David: There was one other student. JR: From? David: From University A. He was doing Psychology and I didn’t actually know him so—and he was always doing prep. so—he wasn’t very—I had a lot of help from my girlfriend—she’s doing teaching as well. I don’t get any help from my family and—like my brother, he’s doing first year Psych.—quite a full load. JR: Why doesn’t your Dad approve of teaching? David: Ah, because he’s a truck driver—he’s a labourer— so, physical work—type of thing … JR: ... Your girlfriend—is she doing teaching— primary or secondary [teacher training]? David: Both. JR: ... So tell me more now about her kind of support—she helps with the actual lessons? —if you want to chat something over with her, or—? David: Yeah—if we—sometimes what happens is like— ’cos we go on placement at the same time, and ... JR: So you telephone? David: It’s very, very important we just chat. Like I’m, in a way, I’m good at planning and she’s in a
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struggle with planning, also she’s got to do an English lesson, like with whoever has her. I actually help her with English lessons, plan it, prepare it, and then she can deliver it, hopefully, or else I do, and then I get her to check—just look at it—more emotional support for me—I just hang out or coffee, or something like that— just more like emotional: How did it go?— something like that—How was your Maths lesson? How was your English lesson?—whereas I help her with all her planning. Even though he was a local student who had been born in Australia, David’s experience was similar to that of the majority of the international students interviewed in that the advice of family members could not be accessed. In the initial analyses of the interview transcripts, the ‘distance’ of parental figures, either geographically or professionally, did not seem particularly important, because university-aged students can be seen to have lives that are relatively independent of their families. However, the experiences of the students who described the many ways in which they drew on the support and advice of family members in similar professional fields made the researcher deeply aware of how valuable such experiences could be. After the students with many familial resources had been interviewed, the students without ready access to such riches seemed both more resourceful, and yet more vulnerable, when compared with the students who could call up such support. The latter group could do so without any embarrassment, feelings of inadequacy, or the need to reciprocate with similar support because the difficulties they faced were already understood as ‘coming with the territory’ of the chosen profession.
Salient, accessible, expert intimates Seven of the students, Mark, Ophelia, Gary, Arthur, Sobash, Ines and Ravi, described the ways in which the connections their family had with the same field of work provided various kinds of support during the placement. Although all students reported drawing on the support of family members, the nature of the support varied quite
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dramatically. Some students had access to day-to-day support during the placement while other students used memories of advice or professional ways of being to give them greater insight into the nature of the role they were taking on. Mark: ‘We can be just sitting and we can go: How did that go?’ Mark made demands on his closest relationship for support. Although Mark’s wife, a nurse, was not in exactly the same professional area, Mark made a strong connection between the professions of teaching, nursing and two other welfare-oriented professional roles that he had played. Like Didi and David, Mark had already had access to ongoing support that continued during the teaching practicum and would continue on beyond it. All three men seemed to be aware of the contribution that their very supportive female partners made to their professional lives. Mark described the times when he and his wife sat down to talk in some detail. There was great warmth in his voice as he spoke about these sustaining interactions. As he spoke, he seemed to realise the crucial nature of the interactions about which he was talking. He linked the kind of mutually supportive conversation that he had with his wife with his ability to leave problems behind and move forwards in an optimistic way in institutional settings. Mark:
I’m very lucky—my wife is a nurse. She’s actually doing her Masters in midwifery at the moment. So she’s studying as well. So I guess that Nurse[he gives his profession here] scenario— ... I’m in the industry and people say, It’s funny how many nurses and [people in his profession] marry! But I guess it’s because they both work in high-stress areas with family trauma and that sort of thing: lots of serious illness or serious injury. And I think that acknowledging the work that each of them do is a very strong support. I’ve always had that with my wife. Doesn’t matter what it is, we’ve always been able to sit and talk. And that’s very much an individual thing ... I’m very fortunate and very thankful that I have that kind of relationship.
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JR: When does that happen? At dinner? Or after work? Mark: Any time! We can be just sitting and we can go, How did that go? Or how did work go? You were going to this today—how did it go? And it’s not just one way—it’s both ways. I could say Oh! I’ve had a great day at school … how was your day? And we may go onto something that she feels it necessary to talk about. She’s doing a lot of work with Vietnamese mothers at the moment. She’s been trying to learn a bit about Vietnamese language or more about their culture, or particularly their customs ... A knowledgeable person. These are things that my wife is putting a lot of effort into. And she’ll say, I actually tried this. I put this into practice and it went really well. We’ll just talk about things. And it’s good to have that, because if you do have a bad day you’re not bottling it up inside. It’s not developing into something bigger than it is. You just get it out when it needs to be discussed and then move on. Gary: ‘My Mum’s been great ... Try this—this works, that works’ Gary, a student who was training to be a primary teacher, had a mother and a brother who were both actively involved in his chosen profession. In the interview, he introduced comments about his mother’s teaching style by saying, ‘My mother’s been teaching for thirty-four years’. Although he had worked in other fields, Gary stated that his mother had always seen him as a potentially gifted primary teacher: ‘Do primary teaching, do primary teaching, because you’re good with kids’. The interview made it obvious that Gary enjoyed various levels of family support. On a general level, his choice of profession was validated by the lived commitment of family members to that profession. On a more specific, practicum-oriented level, he was able to obtain ‘some fantastic lesson plans’ and advice on the difficult topic of classroom management from his mother. His brother had offered ‘a wealth of knowledge’ as well.
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Gary described the support offered by his professional family in the following extract, which begins with a comment about the mutually supportive, reciprocal relationship he had with another studentteacher, Joanna, who had been posted to the same school: Gary: [Joanna], who’s my—Even though we’ve been in separate classrooms, [she’s] another person in the school in exactly the same position as you— To come in and say, How did it go?, and have a bit of a chin wag to her ... and if you’re a bit upset about something and say, this happened and that happened, and vice versa—it’s good to hear someone else’s problems because you know you’re not ... My Mum’s been great—she teaches at Halley’s School—the five/six grade—she’s come up with some fantastic lesson plans for me: Try this—this works, that works. And even, how you like, um, control the kids when they start to get a bit rowdy. My brother as well—he teaches over at Rocklea School, which is vastly different from here. ... He’s got a three/four class in this huge school—and he’s been great as well. They’ve actually made an Early Years video in his classroom he’s going so well with it. So, he’s been a wealth of knowledge, as well. The phrase ‘a wealth of knowledge’ sums up Gary’s ability to access work-related expertise within the warmth of his family. The extracts above show that he was placed in a school with someone from the same university class and therefore had a ‘friendly’ peer to interact with at work, but he was also given a great deal of support by experienced family members. Ophelia: ‘She would say, Yep, you’re on the right track, but …’ The significance of family expertise was so great that Ophelia accessed the advice, good will and assistance provided by her sister even
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though they lived far apart and therefore saw each other ‘very rarely’. They used email, faxes and the telephone to great effect when Ophelia started her course in Education and then in more diffuse, confidenceboosting ways. Ophelia’s interview was very interesting because, while describing her relationship with her sister, she was also documenting the decreasing role played by supporting people outside the workplace as the trainees’ own skills increased and their confidence grew. At the beginning, Ophelia found, like Didi, David and Gary, that she could reveal the gaps in her expertise to an intimate person, in her case a family member, and obtain emotional support in return. This was seen to be a very precious resource even after the greatest need for it had passed. JR: So I’m really interested in how people ask for support. With, say, your sister, how did you actually negotiate that support? Ophelia: OK. Well, basically she lives in Black Rock and I live in Emerald, so we’re not close. It was just a matter of picking up the phone and saying, Hey, how does this sound? JR: So you did it on the phone—read it out? So then how did she do the proofreading—post her the essay?—fax it to her? Ophelia: No, I emailed it to her—and then— JR: At her school? Ophelia: No, no, no—and then, she had a look and she would say, Yep, you’re on the right track, but you’ve left off— JR: A few commas ... Ophelia: —and then ... she gave me feedback, I would rewrite different parts of it or whatever ... and that’s just one thing. JR: So do you think her being a teacher has—is that a support in some way or not—just her being a teacher? Ophelia: Yes—she’s been through the uni. thing herself, although it was a very long time ago, but she’s very supportive of me in that, basically for me,
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it’s a change of career, and I’m no spring chicken, and so she’s supportive on that, in that she will help me in any way that she can. JR: ... How often would you ring her—and how often would you see her? Ophelia: Oh, OK. Well, I very rarely see her. I may have seen her three times since March this year. Probably initially, I may have spoken two or three times on the telephone— JR: Is that a week? Ophelia: Yes—a week. That’s when I started and—you know—emailed her—there was an exchange of emails back and forth—maybe a couple of emails a week initially. But now, really the only time I ring her now is if it’s her daughter’s birthday or my daughter’s birthday: What are we going to do? Will we get together? So, it’s sort of dropped—because my confidence has grown, I don’t feel I need to use her as a crutch or a confidence boost. Other students drew on their family members in less direct ways than those described by Gary and Ophelia, but the presence of these family members as a source of professional models was felt very strongly. Arthur: ‘See one, do one, teach one’ Arthur stressed the family’s intense, long-term commitment to a single profession involving service to others, saying proudly, ‘I come from a family of nurses’. In order to explain both his confidence and his competence—the hospital he had undertaken his clinical in had just offered him a full-time job—Arthur made the following comment: Arthur: I come from a family of nurses—my parents and grandparents were nurses so I have a wealth of experience behind me, not to mention a lot of knowledge base from my family.
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He then responded to a question about the impact of the family’s support and gave an account of the way in which an aphorism of his father’s had been of direct use even on the day of the interview. Arthur was able to describe his father’s experience and insight and their direct influence on his professional life. JR: Say you were giving some advice to someone who was not quite as confident as you and who hasn’t had that fantastic background and family as you have—advice about how to make the most of a Clinical, what would you say? Arthur: Actually, about twenty minutes ago I was just talking to a girl who was saying she didn’t really enjoy it because she wasn’t feeling confident enough in her ability. I’ve been brought up with the notion of: See one, do one, teach one. I think that’s an invaluable philosophy to have. I asked her, What aren’t you confident in doing? And she said, Certain little areas. And I said, I’m more than willing to go upstairs to the labs and we can go through it together. She said she didn’t feel comfortable in taking blood. That’s fine. You realise that person’s going to be in a bit of pain while you’re [doing] it. That’s fine—people don’t like to do that sort of thing. But then again it’s a nursing duty so you have to do it. Those sort of things can be … by the same token there are other areas … like when you’re taking blood, the first thing you can do is redirect that person’s attention so you can make a thing about something else and not bring out the needle that’s going into their arm or the pain is going to be … almost non-existent. Depending on how much that person concentrates on something else. So See one, do one, teach one is always something I’ve done and I try and pass that on because I think it’s good. JR: And who told you that little thing?
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Arthur My father taught me that. Only ... they told me not to use it. It’s not a great money-spinning field. But I’ve always wanted to be a nurse ever since I was through primary I think … JR: So tell me just what you mean by See one, do one, teach one. Arthur Let’s just say you’re removing a catheter: you see someone do it; you watch what they do; you try and do one—you get that right; and then you’re able to teach it to someone else. I wouldn’t say that’s right with everything ... But generally with things like basic care or anything other than shoving things into veins or something—I think it’s really a good philosophy. While Arthur emphasised that his family’s commitment to nursing and his father’s guiding principles had assisted him, both Ravi and Ines felt that their father’s insider knowledge of the corporate world had helped them take up placements in very demanding environments. Ines’s father had provided her with various professional images that had enabled her to learn how to fit into the roles demanded of her office’s multinational corporate culture. In her interview, Ines commented on the part her father had played in helping her achieve the confidence she desired, making a vivid contrast between the ease she felt and the difficulties one of her friends had had in coming to terms with similar corporate demands. Ines: ‘The same industry’ Ines: I’ve grown up with my Dad being in the same industry and seeing him go to work and I actually helped him out a couple of times so I was a bit more prepared than someone who was used to wearing jeans to uni. and all of a sudden having to wear a suit. It wasn’t like that for me. The perception that the accessibility and quality of support played a very significant role during the work placement was shared by nearly all the students interviewed. However, even when students seemed to
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be able to obtain very similar levels or types of support, a rather different appreciation of the situation emerged once individual students’ situations were looked at more closely. Hence, while both Mark and Pete had supportive families, Mark’s wife understood his work from a professional point of view. This made Mark’s family situation much more similar to that of Gary. Although Gary was single and had a very different family life to Mark with his three children, Gary had access to his mother’s professional experience just as Mark had access to his wife’s. Hence, while Pete’s and Mark’s ability to access help from home seemed similar, it was not. Perhaps because of the presence of professionally aware family members, Mark’s teaching placement and his success during it were much more similar to those of the younger Gary than they were to Pete, also married, whose professional models were very different to the role he was taking up as a teacher. In the same way, the ability of the international students to obtain informed family support seemed to differ from each other to a very great extent. Hence, Sobash spoke of the aunt who had lived in Australia for many years and of his cousins who felt at home in Australia. Ravi mentioned his sisters, both of whom were studying in Australia, one enrolled in a very similar course. Keiko, on the other hand, seemed more isolated. Her main Japanese-speaking contacts had come about as a result of her part-time job in an expensive, business-oriented, Japanese restaurant. She lived in rented accommodation and had little access to academic, professional or personal support during her teaching round. The lack of supplementary support of any kind further exacerbated her dependence on the supervisor and meant that when her supervisor was away due to illness, Keiko was fully exposed to the demands of her new work situation without the intervening buffer zone of professional or familial support. It became obvious during the interviews that factors that might be thought to be separate from work and the workplace had a very direct impact on the success or otherwise of the student’s work placement. Hence, the success of the placements was enhanced by factors that were not always directly controlled by the workplace itself. This insight has special implications for people with little access to support other than that offered by the workplace supervisor. Several international students, many of whom had undertaken their workplace
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training away from their homes and families in a language other than their mother tongue, talked about situations that were very difficult, but told no matching tale of offered support or assistance that was identified and accessed either at, or away from, the workplace. The significant impact that people and resources other than the supervisor had on the student’s experience of the placement, means that these other ‘forms’ of support need to be recognised and taken into account, in particular by those who relate most directly to the student in the workplace, most obviously, the supervising personnel. The students’ stories made it possible to see that the presence of one type or source of support was simply not enough for many students. The students needed to be able to identify, access and draw upon several different kinds of support according to their individual situations, situations whose problematic or surprising features only became fully apparent when the student had begun to carry out the assigned tasks. It seems possible that what was true of the students in this group may well be true of many people in transitional circumstances. Thus, while the availability and quality of existing forms of support need to be maintained, there also needs to be an equal emphasis on the ways in which more varied kinds of assistance can be identified as such and then accessed. A variety of different support networks and the perception that there are various ways in which support can be obtained allows people to undertake difficult journeys towards greater knowledge, skills and understanding while maintaining an all-important sense of control or agency.
Bourdieu’s concept: having a ‘feel for the game’ One final point is worth noting. Throughout this discussion, it has been implied that the students and the supervisors have been interacting as the rational actors that Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, pp. 125–6) rejects as inaccurate images of social beings and their activities. Hence, it is important to theorise Gary’s seemingly admirable rapport with his supervisor, the principal of the school, his mother and brother (who it will be remembered, were both teachers), his friends and the university mentor. In Bourdieu’s terms, Gary had a ‘feel for the game’ (1990, p. 66), a term that Bourdieu draws from sport in order to describe the relationship between the habitus and a field.
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Bourdieu argues that it is experience—‘the practical mastery of ... specific regularities’—that undergirds the ‘almost miraculous’ (p. 66) ability to anticipate the future while looking at the present state of play in any game. Bourdieu argues that having a feel for the game produces the effect of consensual validation, thereby reinforcing the relevant group’s belief in the game—in this case, teaching—and its ‘fetishes’ (p. 66)—in this case, all the deeply inscribed practices and interactions that make up the complex web of meanings that are produced by everyday life in schools. Seen from Bourdieu’s (1990) perspective, Gary already has a ‘native membership’ (p. 66) of the field. Not only can he predict what the day will bring as if he were already on staff, but, to him, everything that happens in his supervisor’s classroom seems ‘sensible’, that is, ‘full of sense and objectively directed in a judicious direction’ (p. 66). The supervisor’s decisions, his view of the children, his attention to spelling and his commitment to his own study after school, are not even commented on. Gary is, by the time the interview takes place, already ‘caught up in the game’ (p. 67). However, as has already been stated, it seems that the basis of the two men’s rapport is one of mutual trust, so it is more than possible that if Gary had been given an uncommitted supervising teacher or had been offered his practicum in a poorly organised school, then his response would have been quite different. His ‘native membership’ would have enabled him to take up a much more critical view of his situation and the supervisor’s competence, although it is doubtful whether he would have articulated these reservations as his feel for the game would have alerted him to the tendency that people have to resist critique of this kind from people in junior positions. Hence, when Gary’s mother said to him that he was good with children and should consider teaching, she was completing rather than initiating a process that Bourdieu (1990) identifies with the word ‘vocation’ (p. 67). To use Bourdieu’s analogy, rather than learning the job as a foreign language, Gary has learned it as the mother tongue. Rather than being seen as an ‘arbitrary’ (p. 67) construction with its own rules and exercises, Gary describes learning to teach as one who has entered the game early. While he describes various narratives about the ‘game’ in the interview, he does not question fundamental aspects of the field. In Bourdieu’s words, Gary takes for granted
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all that is tacitly granted through his investment in the field and his interest in its very existence and perpetuation and in everything that is played for in it, and his unawareness of the unthought presuppositions that the game produces and endlessly reproduces, thereby reproducing the conditions of its own perpetuation. (p. 67) In a crucial sense, then, Gary’s practicum is not an induction, but a continuation of a long process. While other students talked a great deal about their clothes, he paused when asked how he presented himself at school. Hence, his ‘taking-for-granted of the world’ (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 67) of teaching has become ‘a state of the body’ (p. 67). Gary can already be seen as ‘belonging to the field’ (p. 68).
Salient, accessible peers, friends and partners; salient, expert, professional families As has been shown, the importance of a variety of supporting systems seems to be borne out by the experiences of Gary and Ophelia in particular. These students experienced rich and satisfying practicum experiences at both a personal and a professional level. While the length of their teaching rounds, their very benign school setting and their prior work experiences certainly contributed greatly to both students’ ability to demonstrate admirable confidence and expertise during their practicums, they were also championed by a host of significant others outside the workplace—family members, skilled mentors and understanding friends—who acted as professional models, practical helpers and sympathetic listeners during the work placement. The presence of such wonderfully supportive networks contributed greatly to the students’ well-being and their ability to learn during their workplace practicums, and made an inestimable contribution to their growth as competent and committed professionals.
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Chapter 5
The Centrality of Placements
Throughout this book, the word ‘placements’ has been used as a generic term to refer to the short-term clinicals or practicums that were organised by the relevant university and to the more extended semester- or year-long programs negotiated between university departments, employers and students on the basis of an interview and/or the students’ ability to take part in a significant workplace project. Although the use of such a generic term may be thought too broad by those who wish to examine just one type of workplace component, the word ‘placement’ makes it possible to distinguish between the programs explored in this book and the very different workplace programs that are now becoming more common. These are the programs that are wholly negotiated between employees, employers and universities so that the learning and the assessment procedures are negotiated as well as the ‘the level and the title of the award’ (Hughes, 2003, p. 18). The themes that emerged from the fifty interviews differed sharply, the first focusing on a key period of time, the second on a key relationship inside the workplace and the third on a key process— that of gaining access to further resources and support as their need was ascertained by the student concerned. In each chapter, interpretive discussions focused on the three overarching themes of identity,
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resources and support, and learning. The discussions in this chapter re-visit and answer the major problems that were posed at the beginning of the interviews. The students’ accounts of their placements varied greatly. Their accounts of the resources and support they had received, negotiated and created for use during the initial period of their placements also varied greatly. What was surprising about the students’ accounts was that these varied as much within groups as they did between groups. Students’ experiences of the placement in general, and of the opportunities provided for learning and the resources and support given to make that learning more effective, depended on a complex interweaving of many different factors. Some factors had their origin in the situation at hand and some in the students’ own strategies and already-existing pool of resources and support. In research projects such as this one where the emphasis has been on the narrativised experiences of a group of people, summaries of the kind required in a final chapter run the risk of blurring the very distinctions that contribute to the value of such studies. Alvesson (2002) makes the point that ‘the variation and plurality of voices in any empirical material’ (p. 129) should be preserved. In the main part of the book, Alvesson’s advice has been followed by including extracts from the transcripts. In this chapter, the overview statements have been written carefully so that each finding can be traced directly back to the narratives of the students in the original transcripts.
The first question The first question sought to focus on the aim of ‘understanding’ the students’ experiences and was therefore framed in very broad terms. The question was based on one posed by Miles and Huberman (1994, p. 7) in their overview of qualitative research. •
What do the narratives reveal about the ways in which both the local and the international students come to understand, learn, account for, take action and manage their day-to-day situation during the workplace components of their programs?
The transcripts showed that the students regarded their placements as offering a variety of situations and opportunities in which
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they would have a chance to demonstrate both their already existing capabilities and their commitment to achieving the best possible result for themselves and their supervisor or employer during the placement. If students defined the placement as an experience of challenge and opportunity, they also reported feeling stress, anxiety and a sense of being different in their workplaces. Their anxiety had three sources. Firstly, students who expressed anxiety also expressed a lack of confidence in their own ability to present a self that was seen positively in such an environment or to carry out certain tasks in ways that others regarded as satisfactory or even better. Secondly, students expressed anxiety about the relationship between the work placement and assessment. This anxiety was generated by informal, interpersonal evaluations and formal, university-accredited assessments. Finally, several students, both local and international, expressed anxiety regarding their ability to speak or write in ways that the workplace either required explicitly or took for granted. Students often talked about their ‘difficulties’ rather than their ‘stress’, although the two are often related. Although each of the three students (Keiko, Sobash and Mai) who had reported significant difficulties during their placement were international, other international students—for example, Suresh, Quoc and Agnes—had reported managing placements that were equally challenging in ways that showed resilience and an astute management of existing resources as well as, in Suresh’s case, the ability to create new resources. A study by Robertson, Line, Jones and Thomas (2000) showed that when thirtyeight international students were asked about difficulties related to their learning environments, many students cited language-related difficulties as the ‘dominant perceived problem’ (p. 94). However, a local student also said that her English had been tested by her experiences during teaching rounds. In their interviews, three of the international students who addressed the question of language proficiency in detail said that their English was not adequate relative to the demands of their workplace. However, language issues, whether general or specific to a workplace or situation, were not always a source of anxiety, but could also be seen as posing the kind of short-term problems that arise in any new situation. Some international students commented on the
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linguistic difficulties they had when meeting a specific task such as writing a very formal business letter. The students reported that such needs were fulfilled with a little extra support or the type of modelling required for other new tasks. Other groups of students, both local and international, did not comment on the issue of English language proficiency during their interview. These findings are interesting and need to be looked at in further detail. As McNamara (2001) has pointed out, any strategies designed to explore or test people’s linguistic competence in a given setting are beset with difficulties related to issues of power, knowledge and control. This means that any attempt to establish ‘proficiency for purposes of communication’ (p. 9) can also be used to exclude certain individuals on the basis of identity and group membership. Local and international students expressed satisfaction either during, or at the end of, narratives in which they recounted experiences in which they had been seen positively or had accomplished something that they found difficult. A few students reported that they had been able to make a significant contribution to their workplace during their placement. It was not possible to generalise about these students though their competence was such that several had been offered employment by the conclusion of their placement. The workrelated challenges that these students described were more demanding, and the strategies they had used to overcome their difficulties more creative, than had been expected by the researcher. These students reported giving many extra hours to their job both at the workplace and in other settings. Their positive response to being given challenging work and the negative response of students to being given routine work supports research by Hart (1991) that found that new graduates appreciated the opportunity to take part in significant activities. Many of the students interviewed expressed dissatisfaction if the support they had expected to receive was not available or if they had been marginalised by either lack of participation in the wider life of the workplace or in the relative insignificance of the tasks they were given to carry out. Students who expressed anxiety about their ability to manage wanted the person or people who had been designated to support them in the carrying out of certain tasks to manage a given situation in such a way that the student’s lack of expertise
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would seem less obvious to, or have fewer consequences for, other participants or onlookers. The role played by onlookers was also mentioned in a study by Robertson, Line, Jones and Thomas (2000) when it was reported that some international students stated that they lacked confidence ‘to speak in front of’ (p. 95) local students in classes at their university. However, much of the work on the issues of ‘face’ and ‘politeness’ has emphasised that threats to face can be felt by people in a great range of situations (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Watts, 2003). Research that explores such issues without looking at a broad sample runs the risks explored by Said (1978) and discussed in Chapter 1.
The second question The second question focused on the ways in which the students made use of various kinds of resources and support during their placement. This question assumed greater importance after the first six interviews had been conducted. •
In what ways did the students define, perceive, access and make use of different types of ‘resources’ and ‘support’ during their placements?
The answers to this question were surprising, interesting and complex. Although the question had been posed in such a way that it implied that the student would obtain certain resources and kinds of support, many students recounted experiences in which gaining access to resources had been difficult. Even when resources and support were available, the situation was not necessarily straightforward when seen from the student’s point of view. Although welcomed, resources that were given, but had not been asked for, had a somewhat directive aspect. Thus, while James was very positive about his chance to participate in the company’s triathlon, the intensive training and clothing that he was given ensured his continued commitment to the program. These activities offered him a certain identity that, if he had other responsibilities, he may not have wanted. The giving and gaining of resources and support was somewhat more complex than had been anticipated when the interviews were first negotiated with the students.
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Many students were unprepared for either the type of resource or support they would need during their placements or the imperative nature of their need for extra resources. The students’ lack of preparation or anticipation could not be attributed to the university involved in the students’ professional preparation. Rather, the interviews suggested that the full impact of the workplace’s demands could only be felt, perceived and assessed by the students once they were within the workplace context. A study by Watson, Johnson and Billett (2003) also explores students in terms of ‘familiarity’ with (p. 4), and ‘preparedness’ for (p. 5), the university environments they are about to enter. Both this exploration and comments made by Hughes (2003) regarding recent developments in work-based learning in England show that the specificity of contexts is such that part of any students’ preparation is a focus on the ways in which existing knowledge, understandings and skills may have to be re-shaped in order to accommodate both the linguistic demands and the professional requirements of any new situation. Hence, in the first period of the placement, many students revealed that they had only perceived the full extent of their need for certain resources and support once they arrived at the workplace. David, for example, a local student-teacher, had been alerted to the dress requirements of schools by university staff involved in Education programs. Acting on the basis of general advice regarding dress, David had bought new shirts and pants to wear during his teaching practicum. However, once in the workplace, he found that he was unprepared for the professional persona demanded of him by the Geography teacher whose student-teacher he had become. In trying to meet her demands, David felt that he was not only being asked to give up his comfortable sports clothes, but was also being pushed to inhabit a demanding discipline area. This required intensive lesson preparation and a very different professional persona than had been indicated by the pre-teaching round talks. David had followed the advice given regarding resources, but had no idea that the advice given would only hint at ways in which a more formal set of clothes might mesh with a new view of the professional world and his place in it. Many students found that, because their university programs had been oriented towards preparing them for the workplace, they
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had not anticipated that a more specialised, detailed or specific version of the knowledge, understandings or skills would be required by the workplace. Hence, Mark had expected to dress neatly, but was also required to wear a tie; Sobash had covered Taxation in his courses, but needed to know about Australian Tax Laws in great detail. Sobash also needed a greater proficiency in spoken English than he had expected to have. Tania, Zita and Josh knew that their projects would involve the use of the latest information technology, but had not expected to find the unfamiliar software so challenging to learn. If their existing resources were re-defined and found wanting to a lesser or greater extent by the students interviewed, the ways in which these resources were supplemented also varied from one student to another. In some workplaces, the incoming students were given a great many resources and many different kinds of social support as soon as they arrived. These students participated in welcoming greetings and gatherings and were given ‘gifts’ that enabled them to understand and cope with the demands of their workplace. Some students were also assigned integrating tasks or were involved in significant projects that the company or workplace was committed to completing according to a deadline or need. The level of support offered decreased only when students became proficient and increased again when new or particularly difficult challenges were faced, as was the case for Terence and Emily. The seven students interviewed at Company A expressed satisfaction with the level of resourcing they had received although they expressed their satisfaction in a variety of ways. They talked at length about the welcomes they had been given, the quality of their supervision, their pleasant, physical surroundings, their access to technological resources, the time given to them by friendly colleagues, and their opportunities to initiate and maintain workplace friendships. Each student had an individual supervisor who oversaw their workplace project, but other people such as the Human Resources manager had also taken a keen interest in their welfare. Some of the students had contact with staff at their universities as well. Given the positive responses of all seven students to their placement at Company A, the researcher thought that the level of resources given might vary according to the type of workplace, but once again the
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situation was found to be different from the hunches the researcher had articulated in the early days of compiling material for this book. At another large company, Company B, the situation was different again in that the students’ narratives contrasted sharply with each other and no generalisation about the quality of the experience offered by the company could be made. Students at Company B had mixed responses to their supervision, their physical surroundings, their status and the opportunities they had to make friends at work. One local, female student, Tania, talked at length in her interview about her perception that it had taken her a long period of time to feel comfortable in her workplace. One of the international students, Sobash, also talked about his placement in terms of the length of time that it had taken him to feel at ease in his workplace, a smaller company than Company A or Company B. Although he stated in the interview that he felt comfortable in his surroundings, his opening narrative highlighted his ongoing feelings of separation from the everyday life of the workplace. The interviews reaffirmed the significance of the mentor, supervisor or manager as a key resource. Almost every student talked about this person with some students talking about little else during the interview. The students reported that the presence, commitment, attitude and mentoring strategies of the supervising person had a great impact on the students’ experiences of learning as well as on their perception of the whole experience. When viewed from the vantage point of the interviews with the students, the situation can be summed up by Zeichner’s (1990) summary statement that one of the main ‘obstacles to teacher learning’ (p. 107) was the ‘uneven quality’ (p. 108) of supervision. All students, whether local and international, mature age or younger, on short-term or more extended placements, were able to talk about their supervision with clarity. It was possible to elicit descriptive criteria pertaining to the adequacy of the supervision offered with great ease, although the work that was carried out on this issue was not presented in the final discussion. The students’ perceptions of the quality of their supervision centred around the two key issues of time and trust. Some students praised one or more of their supervisors for their ‘committed presence’ or ‘enabling trust’, these phrases representing major concepts elaborated on previously. Many of the students who reported that
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their supervisors had given them a great deal of time were also the students who had felt able to manage important aspects of their professional roles. However, other students kept their opinions and observations to themselves, the more able students also displaying the ‘strategic silence’ that had at first seemed to characterise students whose stories constructed them as having been uncomfortable or lacking in expertise during the period of the placement. At times, the student would have liked to have spoken about an issue of concern, but was afraid to do so due to the impact this might have on their relationship with the supervisor. The interviews revealed, as had MacDonald (1993) in her study of stress and coping, that the relationship with supervisory personnel caused a range of problems including lack of time for reflective supervision or follow-up discussions. Those who were situated in companies or businesses reported inadequate access to the supervisor less often than students placed in primary or secondary schools or hospitals. However, the stark nature of this conclusion was moderated by the students in some schools who reported that their relationship with their supervisor had been a positive one. A small number of students experienced unfriendliness or abruptness from their supervisors. Mai, for example, commented that her supervisor’s responses were unpredictable: ‘Sometimes she is very nice to me and sometimes just totally ignores me’. She also stated that the supervisor showed open disregard, failing to welcome her and reprimanding her in front of the pupils: ‘Stop! Stop what you’re doing right now!’. Three other students also reported that a member of staff had displayed unfriendly behaviour towards them. Robertson, Line, Jones and Thomas (2000) found that international students had perceived that some lecturers lacked experience and were ‘unfriendly’ (p. 94) as well. However, the students did not report that they had encountered the overt hostility, stereotyping or exclusion that had been experienced by overseas-trained doctors in an important Australian study conducted by Kidd and Braun in 1992. When the demands of the workplace could not be met with the human or material resources provided by a specific workplace, students told of various successful efforts to acquire their own resources and support. They did this in a number of ways. Firstly, they used the readily accessed technological resources that most were adept at
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identifying and using. Secondly, they made use of the friendly advice or the greater expertise of certain ‘salient accessible competent peers’ within the workplace. Finally, they were supported by networks of family members, friends and partners. These gave various levels and kinds of support, but some students could access the assistance of family members or partners who had expertise in the professional areas that the students were entering through their work placements. While the extent to which students relied on accessible human networks surprised the researcher, their ready accessing of other networks based on various kinds of information and communication technology was not surprising given the extent to which use of these resources has become part of people’s lives. Students used various kinds of technology to access information as the need arose. Usually, the need was very specific, task-related and instrumental. Information and communication technologies were defined and accessed in ways that contrasted with the ways in which interactions with friends and family were described. Many different kinds of resources and advice were given freely to the students by people who had familial relationships with the students, or knew them well. The three main kinds of support mentioned were: help with everyday tasks such as driving a child to school, help with specific workrelated tasks such as lesson-planning, and a more general, but crucially important, ‘professional’ empathy that was based on an insider’s appreciation of the demands of the position the student was taking up. The professional empathy described by many students was demonstrated during discussions that allowed the students to add to their understanding of the professional role and did not simply meet their immediate need for certain information. In these interactions, wider issues such as the demands of school life or the inequity of a teacher’s actions were discussed. Such discussions often took place amidst other pleasant social activities such as talking on the telephone (Ophelia), eating dinner (Gary), swapping stories about the day (Mike), and interacting with friends (Ines). The gender implications of these forms of support were also noted. Several male students including David, Didi, James, Mike and Gary said in their interviews that they had been supported by a girlfriend, mother or wife. Each of these interactions was described very positively—the
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students’ narratives suggesting that they enjoyed taking part in these work-related interactions with partners, friends and family members. Perceptions of ‘having’ and ‘lacking’ The students’ narratives suggested that they were aware of being visible to others in their immediate workplace environment. Their awareness of the perceptions of others was rooted in whether or not the students were seen as ‘having’ or ‘lacking’. The awareness of others and the students’ explicit references to ‘eyes’ and ‘looking’ showed that the evaluating, objectifying ‘gaze’ that both Goffman (1961) and Foucault (1991) have commented on from their very different theoretical perspectives is an important aspect of a newcomer’s responses to a new environment and can be used as a way of indicating the sense of difference and being different that was commented on by many students. Hence, in Chapter 2 where the focus was on the ‘setting’ (Billett, 1995, p. 21) of the students’ work and learning, students saw themselves, and felt that they were seen by others, to ‘have’ or ‘lack’ in a variety of ways. Support given to students in company settings often consisted of the students being given a great range of resources. Students were given advice, equipment, invitations to social gatherings and extra training. Other students, however, had to either rely on the advice, insider information and modelling offered by salient competent peers or else procure resources of their own. In Chapter 3, the concepts of both resources and support were given further definition and meaning. In the students’ narratives about their supervision and their supervisors, the spoken interactions, time and embodied presence of the supervising company mentor, teacher or clinical nurse were mentioned most often. It was found that the students’ access to these resources varied. Some students, such as Suresh and Gary, were able to access their supervisor constantly because they were researching or teaching with that supervisor in a co-operative manner. These students were able to participate in conversations of many different kinds, while others were either ignored or mentored in ways that seemed inappropriate to adult learners given the context and the demands being made on the student.
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In Chapter 4, the ways in which students had been able to transform existing resources or add to them with newly created resources were examined in some detail. It was found that students relied on both newly formed peer groups and familial networks that had existed prior to the work placement. This meant that the students who had families and friends from within the professional area that the student was entering were greatly advantaged because they could gain precise, appropriate and well-timed support from such networks.
The third question The third question explored the ways in which the insights that had emerged from the data could be interpreted theoretically. Various literatures were mined in relation to resources and support, learning and identity. •
Which theoretical perspectives seem to offer the most appropriate interpretive ‘frames’ for exploring the students’ accounts of their placements and the ways in which they acquired, negotiated or deployed resources and support during their placements?
Sharp and Green (1975), writing from within the sociology of education, suggested some decades ago that ‘thought about particular empirical problems might help to clarify one’s conceptualization of the philosophical problematics’ (p. 23). This was true of the interviews as a whole. Although this writer has not been able to bridge the problematic theoretical divide between the individual agent and ‘the total pattern of the material and ideological environment’ (pp. 7–8) that structure that individual’s opportunities, it has now been appreciated that Bourdieu’s efforts to reach an understanding of the ways in which people see art galleries or experience their lives in academia are not based simply on an interest in people’s experiences, but also involve a thoroughgoing analysis of some of the contextual factors that enable the interviews to be seen within a larger network of social, economic and political considerations. Not surprisingly given these comments, the discussion turns to the ways in which resources have been seen in Bourdieu’s work and the ways in which these insights and categorisations might be applied to the issues raised in this discussion.
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Re-framing the placement experience Instead of those involved in organising the workplace components of university programs either assuming or hoping that ‘experience equals educative experience’ (Zeichner, 1996, p. 107), work placements, clinicals and teaching practicums of all kinds can be regarded as fundamentally transitional periods, which, for many of the students who take part in them, never lose their temporary ‘feel’. To see the work placement in this way is also to emphasise a more actively social view of the students’ experiences. These experiences can be seen in the light of Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b) insights when he reminds people who are interested in groups of individuals that, it is knowledge of the field itself in which they evolve that allows us best to grasp the roots of their singularity, their point of view or position (in a field) from which their particular vision of the world (and of the field itself ) is constructed. (p. 107) Bourdieu (1992) has given an important section in one of his writings under the heading ‘Thinking Relationally’ (p. 224). If the placements are thought of as fundamentally transitional experiences, and the students are thought of in relation to these experiences of transition, then the resources they require and the learners they must become during those experiences take on new meanings in relation to the changing situations the students must inhabit and try to manage.
Re-framing resources and support The data showed that resources and support cannot be defined in simple (or simplistic) terms as the material objects and helpful people that are made available to students on their entry into the workplace. Rather, the resources and the support should be seen as part of a complex set of interpreted phenomena and negotiated networks in any workplace. Both contribute to the way in which the students are ‘produced’ by the situation. In accordance with Dugdale’s (1999) analysis of bureaucratic meetings, the resources, both material and human, construct for students certain identities. Although the
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students’ identities are also produced in the many conversations that take place in any situation, as theorists such as Davies and Harré (1990) and Usher (1997) claim, the objects that surround the students and their relationships with these, will also ‘catapult’ (Dugdale, 1999, p. 119) the students into a range of identities that are not simply their own creations. These arguments can be linked with Bourdieu’s ideas on the various forms of capital. Attention to the major forms of capital identified by Bourdieu—‘economic, social, cultural, symbolic’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 98)—can contribute to our understanding of the differences between the students’ experiences. Symbolic capital, in particular, plays a crucial role in influencing the extent to which some students can negotiate their positions in the ‘field’ or ‘game’ of the workplace. The central insight that this book seems to support is that all capital can only be considered in relation to a field so that its value ‘hinges on the existence of a game, of a field in which this competency can be employed’ (p. 98). The students’ narratives, then, are most adequately interpreted in the light of the following insight of Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b): a species of capital is what is efficacious in a given field, both as a weapon and as a stake of struggle, that which allows its possessors to wield a power, an influence, and thus to exist, in the field under consideration ... In empirical work, it is the one and the same thing to determine what the field is ... and to determine what species of capital are active in it, within what limits, and so on. (p. 98) Rather than perceiving resources as add-ons, it is more appropriate to think of resources in terms of essential gifts that exist in highly specific and deeply understood networks of reciprocity. As Yan (1996) has shown in his study of gift exchanges in a Chinese village, gift-giving includes involvement in cycles of reciprocity and the building of, and benefiting from, participation in hundreds of intimately calculated networks. His description of the meaning of the Chinese word ‘gift’ gives much of the highly social sense of the word that has been imported into the notions of resources and support as
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a result of the fifty interviews. In an important section of the second chapter of the book that was published as a result of his study, Yan describes the etymology of the word ‘gift’. The last sentence of the following extract offers the reader another central insight. The term for gift in Chinese is liwu, a word composed of two characters. The first character li means rituals, properties, and ceremonial expressions of ethical ideals such as filial loyalty and obedience ... The second character wu means material things. It is interesting that, etymologically, the Chinese term indicates that a gift is more than a material present—it carries cultural rules, priorities and also involves ritual. So, wu without li is just a thing, not a gift. Villagers in Xiiaja are fully aware of the complex connotations of this word. In the practice of daily life, they often abbreviate the word simply using li, emphasizing the cultural codes rather than the material aspects of the gift. (p. 44) In the same way that wu without li is just a thing, not a gift, resources and support can only be understood if they are seen within the networks of reciprocity that are set up and then continually negotiated within a workplace. As this process get underway, the student is constructed according to various evaluative frameworks pertaining to expertise, specific interpersonal skills and even ways of dressing. By such means, the student begins to ‘exist’ within the workplace, to consolidate a knowable identity.
Re-framing the learner Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992a) analysis also indicates the ways in which individual students can be linked with the situations in which they must take on a ‘social role’ (Goffman, 1959, p. 27) or inhabit certain discursively constructed ‘positions’ (Davies & Harré, 1990, p. 44). In a very clear explication of the ways in which he sees ‘individuals’, Bourdieu has explained that people as individuals exist in relation to the field in which they are constructed and in which they must act. Individuals, then,
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exist as agents—and not as biological individuals, actors, or subjects—who are socially constituted as active and acting in the field under consideration by the fact that they possess the necessary properties to be effective, to produce effects, in this field. (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 107) The data has shown that Bourdieu’s (1990) emphasis on the ‘regulated improvisations’ (p. 57) of the social world seems to depict with accuracy the situation of the students as they both try to control, and yet are constituted by, the new places they are learning within. In such situations, the image of the independent learner seems inadequate. Firstly, as Leach (2001) has pointed out, learners are often directed to be independent when they might wish to participate in richer interactions and have access to more adequate resourcing. Secondly, learners cannot be seen as ahistorical individuals. Rather, the historicity, the ‘this-ness’ of any situation, is not simply the detail, but rather the essence. A learner without a ‘generalized social context’ (Halliday, 1979, p. 122) and a ‘learning context’ (Candy, 1991, p. 412) is an image without social meaning. Thirdly, the people who appear to have most independence, autonomy or agency are those who are the ‘bearers of capitals’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 108). As the different kinds of capital are not always easy to perceive, the bearers are often seen to have won the position in the field they have entered when they have the position they occupy ‘by virtue of their endowment ... in capital’ (p. 108). These students have the practices, the language, even the bodily dispositions that make ‘their trajectory’ (p. 108) in a certain field seem their right. Hence, approaches to adult learning that have at their heart images of individuated, active selves need to replace such images with other, more social, or socially situated, images of identity and learning. These have to offer a detailed account of the complex ways in which resources of all kinds (including that most complex of resources, language) do not simply ‘influence’ the learner’s ability to achieve certain goals, but actually work to constitute his or her relationship with the game and its stakes, to forge the identity of the learner within a field. The theories that seem most adequate to this task are those that emphasise the interpreted nature of all experience (Ricoeur, 1991a, 1991b), the discursive positioning of subjectivities
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(Davies & Harré, 1990), and the relationship between ‘actor’, field and various kinds of capital (Bourdieu, 2001). We are now in a position to add to the images of learners and learning already discussed. In the following section, the images of learners as sojourners, potential colleagues and ‘voices’ have been added to the images already explored. The learners as sojourners The first image emphasises that learners on any placement have a special relationship to the duration of the experience and that both their position and their relationship to available resources and support can only be understood in relation to the transitory nature of the experience. During the placement, the student learners are sojourners. This word accurately describes both the brevity of their contact with the workplaces and the rather uncertain nature of the learning achieved during these important, but ultimately transitional, periods of professional preparation. The image of the sojourner captures something of the ambiguity of the relationships entered into and helps us to understand the ‘uneven quality of practicum supervision’ (Zeichner, 1996, p. 108). This image of the learner as a sojourner also develops our understanding of the ways in which some students are regarded quite differently in their field, that ‘space of play’ (Wacquant, 1992, p. 19) that social actors enter in order to take up various positions. The image is particularly appropriate in that it draws attention to the ways in which the learning undertaken during placements can be characterised as ‘hit-and-miss’. In an enlightening lecture, Kasper (2003) summarised the findings of several studies of students who had learned a second language while taking part in short-term ‘Study Abroad’ programs in a range of countries. The studies cited suggested that the sojourning students’ learning of the target languages was, in Kasper’s words, ‘mixed’ (p. 3). Some students were able to learn quickly and successfully. However, other students learned to interact inappropriately, demonstrating an over-reliance on colloquial language. A third group of students learned very little at all. If the student is seen as a sojourner and the work placement as a potentially very demanding period of transition, then Gruba and Sondergaard’s (2002) comment made at a conference on transition
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issues, that their interest and activities in the area of transition had been stimulated by their desire to ‘raise awareness of the challenges individuals face when confronted with new, unfamiliar environments’ (p. 45), seems at once obvious and fundamentally important. In order to understand the processes and outcomes of transitional periods, the stressful effects of transitions in general and university-based transitions have been described (Jones & Frydenberg, 2000) and major transition issues identified (Rhoden & Feldtmann, 2002). These can include social isolation and the lack of awareness, appropriate expectations or adequate preparation. On the basis of the many studies that have been carried out in Australia over the last decade, it is now possible to link some of the difficulties faced by new university students to issues such as a relatively low level of ‘preparedness’ as well as factors ‘inside’ the university (Watson, Johnson & Billett, 2003, p. 1). Many writers have described programs that have used the research information gained to drive forward new programs for students entering university for the first time. Some of the strategies mentioned at a conference on these issues were explicit discussion of difficulties that may arise (Rhoden & Feldtmann, 2002), organised mentoring (Posthill, Callaghan & Thies, 2002) and peer-based study groups (Jones, 2002). Such strategies are also needed to make the transition to an unfamiliar workplace less painful and more quickly productive, so that novice professionals can solve problems and learn effectively from their relatively brief interval at work. The learners as novices or junior colleagues The image of the sojourner is not the only image that is important to an understanding of the placement. Nor is it a matter of simply preparing students more adequately because the preparation often takes place in contexts other than those in which the new learning must take place. The second image relates the learners’ experiences to their varying levels of expertise. It is argued that Benner’s (1984) insights into the various levels of expertise demonstrated by the nursing staff she was researching can also be used to describe the students interviewed. In her inspiring study of the responses of graduates and expert nurses to the same situations, Benner distinguished five different levels of expertise ranging from novices and advanced
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beginners to experts. While some of the students depicted themselves as uncertain, inexpert, silent novices, others described themselves as having had sufficient expertise to carry out tasks competently and to manage difficult, or even very challenging, situations. The latter group of students was able to be seen as advanced beginners. When Benner’s (1984) categories are further explicated in terms of Bourdieu’s (1992) ideas, it can be appreciated that students like Gary, Ophelia, Mike and Suresh were able to demonstrate high levels of expertise because, in Bourdieu’s terms, they had, or could obtain, ‘forms of specific capital’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 108). These forms of capital allowed the students to take up their positions in the field of the workplace with greater ease than other students. Another striking feature of the narratives of the advanced beginners or ‘junior colleagues’ was that these students had given advice and practical support to other students during their placements. Prominent among such narrators was Arthur. The interview transcripts showed that the students who have been called ‘junior colleagues’ in this book were appreciated, supported and praised in many different ways during their work placements. They were also given the all-important resources of time and trust. Other students were never able to marshal the resources necessary to present themselves as junior colleagues, but were forced to remain as sojourning novices. One of the main ways in which the novice and the junior colleague differed was in their ability to negotiate a situation in such a way that they benefited quite directly from the changes that were made. Junior colleagues such as Gary and Suresh were able to build a dynamic and valuable trust with the supervisor that was based on levels of reciprocity and role-sharing that the novices, for example, Sobash and Tania, simply could not attain. The novice was a transitory addition to the situation. From this it can be seen that when there is no great demonstration of already existing capital in the form of expertise, the necessary ingredients of time and trust are negotiated with difficulty. Time and trust are not bestowed freely if these cannot be transformed into a mutually beneficial relationship. In this context, Goffman’s (1959) ideas are also important because, in emphasising how the self can be ‘presented’, he also shows that resources that may be thought of as ‘extras’ are central to
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the ability of any ‘self’ to make an acceptable ‘presentation’ and negotiate a successful transition to a new situation whether it be crofters to hotel keepers, students to trainee teachers, or trainee engineers to fully fledged professionals. In all cases, the border between the two states is of great significance. In many cases, these ‘borders’ will be composed of various kinds of workplace discourses, so, once again, language is a crucially important resource. Thus, rather than being perceived as newcomers or, more worryingly, as outsiders whose lack of expertise places them at odds with the workplace community, the student who can quickly become a ‘junior colleague’ will be the one who can make the most active use of the resources offered, and who, paradoxically, will attract further resources as time goes on. Other students will always be seen as sojourners, people who come and go and are never admitted to the ways of speaking, acting and negotiating that characterise the workplace community. The learners as ‘voices’ The students often lacked a voice—defined here in Hymes’s (1996) terms, as ‘the freedom to have one’s voice heard’ (p. 64)—especially at the beginning of their placements. While their lack of power or efficacy in the initial phase of the placement is understandable, in the case of certain students, the perception that they were without any real control over their situation and had very little agency throughout the placement, characterised the whole experience. Keiko remarked in summary that her teaching round could have been improved, while Tania was looking forward to moving on. Neither student had been able to voice her dissatisfaction with the placement. As Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule (1986) found in their exploration of women’s views of knowledge and reality, some students stated that trusting conversations or other kinds of speaking were difficult or even impossible to achieve in certain situations. However, interestingly, some students were able to speak. Several students, for example, James, Emily and Terence, talked about times when they were given public settings in which they were both enabled, and able, to express complex views in interviews or meetings. In these situations, the students were given ‘an opportunity to speak’ and a chance to ‘become subjects in the construction of their
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identities’ (Giroux, 1993, p. 136). However, the interviews and meetings were not created by the learner as agent, but were opportunities both forged by the workplace and taken up by the students concerned. Workplace personnel and students co-operated to make such interactions work to their mutual benefit. Many different writings have used the metaphor of ‘voice’ to talk about the empowered self. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule (1986) and Hymes (1996) offer examples of the ways in which the concept has been used or is useful in research, while Keane (2001) and Alvesson (2002) discuss the meaning of ‘voice’ from linguistic, cultural and postmodern perspectives. Each of the writers cited is interested in the ways in which the concept of voice can be equated with the position of a person or group. Hence, in each piece of writing, the emancipatory connotations of having a voice are delineated in a variety of ways. Lave and Wenger (1991) have suggested in a subtitle that ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ is a possible role for learners. However, if a student is perceived as a novice rather than as a junior colleague, and is given few opportunities to speak, it is possible for the placement experience to become one of marginalisation rather than the opportunity for the kind of limited, but supportive, participation that can be suggested by the use of the term ‘scaffolding’ in which spoken interaction is a vital part of the learning experience. This insight is highlighted in an article by Hart (1999) in which she imagines learning as ‘[g]iving voice’ (p. 1). Importantly, the interviews with the students revealed that those who had more resources also had greater access to a voice unless further opportunities for participative speaking were organised by workplace mentors. The negotiations concerning resources and support are so significant in any transitional period that it is now argued that the word ‘sponsorship’, used in an important early study by Sharp and Green (1975, p. 132) to capture the highly differentiated way in which some students in the classrooms they studied were given special approval by the teacher, is in fact the closest description of the way in which certain students among those interviewed seem to have been treated. However, while the word ‘sponsorship’ captures the active promotion of certain students, it does not convey the way in which the students were able to make the most of every opportunity because they
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approached each new situation with some of the key proficiencies, whether small or large, already at their fingertips or within their ambit. Therefore, it is now time to adjust Sharp and Green’s (1975) notion of sponsorship in an important way because their study focuses on the dyad of the teacher and the pupil. Bourdieu’s (2001) work, in particular his central concept of habitus—‘this kind of practical sense for what is to be done in a given situation ... a “feel” for the game’ (p. 25)—shows that what appears to be a sponsorship should be seen as a more complex set of givings, takings, negotiations and relations, to use a word that Bourdieu (1992, p. 228) often emphasises, rather than a relationship between two highly individuated subjects. The ‘sponsorship’ of certain students happens within a network of human relationships and material resources, none of which can be accessed in the same way by all newcomers.
The fourth question The fourth question directed attention to the benefits that could be derived from the insights gained for stakeholders, in particular, for the students who had contributed their experiences and their voices to the interviews. Many contemporary writers, for example, hooks (1996), have questioned the grounds on which one person can speak for another group, especially a group whose experiences and interests are characterised by ‘difference and Otherness’ (p. 113). While this position has obvious merit, it can be argued that the interviews gathered up the perceptions of a group whose accounts were treated with respect and that the ideas offered are of significant interest. •
Do the interviews suggest ways in which those involved in higher education can redefine or improve work placements in order to make these more effective contexts for students’ learning?
Resources and support The terms ‘resources’ and ‘support’ need to be understood from the potentially very different perspectives of various stakeholders involved in any ‘supporting’ or ‘resourcing’ contexts. Research must always be concerned with documenting the perceptions and experiences of individual stakeholding groups and that these should not be blended
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or compiled in order to reach a composite understanding of any given situation because, as Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b) has emphasised, they often represent different positions within networks of negotiations concerning resources.
Recommendations This book has presented the placement experience from the point of view of the student. Hence, the recommendations that have been offered are intended to open up further ‘spaces’ for students during their work placements. However, because only fifty students were interviewed before this book was written and because the implementation of recommendations always involves many different stakeholders, the following recommendations are offered tentatively in spite of their rather direct style. It should be noted that none of the recommendations requires large-scale funding or drastic changes to existing programs, rather a change of focus, of purpose, a change in the fundamental framing of the task at hand—that of preparing people to make the most of their short-term experiences in professional workplaces. The following recommendations complement those offered by Martin (1997), but have been written with the students and their workplace supervisors, mentors and managers as the main focus, whereas Martin’s recommendations had university staff as the primary audience. Some recommendations pose dilemmas that need further investigation. The work of Bourdieu encourages us to recognise that seemingly independent social actors are never completely free to pursue their own goals. Certain opportunities must lie in wait for the learner so that positive ‘positions’ exist prior to the learner’s arrival in the workplace. The recommendations have also been designed to complement the insights presented in a study by Dagher, D’Netto and Sohal (1998) regarding the extent to which the Australian manufacturing industry has recognised the need for, and implemented, ‘diversity practices’ (p. 177) in workplaces. In their report, the writers commented that, ‘The literature considers workforce diversity as an enormous challenge that requires cross-cultural understanding in a constructive and creative manner, through establishing a cooperative, harmonious, and productive working environment’ (p. 189). This is a huge
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issue, one that needs to be addressed by many different individuals and organisations, including universities. Recommendation 1 The students require welcoming, integrating greetings and gatherings. The welcoming strategies set up for each new group of students should be planned ahead, so that workplace personnel can commit appropriate time to them. Any planned activities also need to involve various levels of formality. Certain welcoming tasks can involve the students themselves. Any activities that take place before the placement should be seen as part of the welcoming phase and should also be well planned. These activities are important because they familiarise the student with the workplace as well as offering the students opportunities to meet the salient accessible competent peers that can contribute so much to the students’ workplace learning. Friendly greetings, friendliness and the ‘friendly manner’ that George referred to were mentioned positively with great frequency by the students interviewed. Friendliness can both welcome and empower. Recommendation 2 The students need to be given a variety of opportunities to speak and to be heard. However, for those in the workplaces concerned, such interactions involve entering dialogues with students who will not always speak with either the ease or the authority of insiders or experts. If the students can be given opportunities to speak in many different ways and in many different contexts, they will be more able to identify and acquire the resources support they require or would like to have. The students’ requirements in terms of resources and levels of support will vary. Some flexibility should characterise the placement arrangements if possible and students should have opportunities to make their needs known. A student who, like Wilma, has heavy responsibilities outside the workplace may need to negotiate a shorter working week and a slightly longer placement. A student, like Sobash, who needs support in order to discuss aspects of the placement with the employer-supervisor, may request further visits from a university-based visitor.
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Recommendation 3 The many different strategies designed to enhance workplace mentoring that exist in the various literatures on placements and organisational learning should be identified and expanded to meet the very specific needs of situations and learners. As the students’ narratives demonstrated, the interactions between mentor and mentee are complex and bring together many different issues related to identity, learning, resources, voice and power. The issues of ‘voicelessness’ and the perceived lack of power articulated by students were further exacerbated by the role of the supervisor as assessor or examiner. This is a difficult problem to resolve as in many workplaces there is only a certain number of supervisory staff and these have to supervise the students while carrying out certain critical tasks in hospitals, schools and other workplaces. However, some students had very few opportunities to talk to experienced people other than their supervisors. Other mentors may be accessed more easily if a number of people are introduced to the student during the welcoming phase. As Candy (1991) has pointed out, ‘the quality of the personal relationships established’ (p. 200) will be crucial to the success of the learning undertaken. Recommendation 4 Students need to be given opportunities to explore both the limitations and the great richness of workplace learning in their university classes. It is obvious that the placement experience has many challenging aspects. Such a perception supports those of Martin (1997). In her investigation of the effectiveness of work-based university education, Martin made the highly significant point that the learning to be achieved during placements had to be seen as ‘problematic’ (p. 77) by academic staff. At first, this insight was not seen to be especially significant. However, given the students’ accounts of their experiences, it is now seen that if not only the academic staff, but also the students concerned, see the placements from this perspective, the students may be better prepared for the surprises and limitations of workplace learning, and paradoxically, better equipped to participate in its richness. Students also need to know about learners as sojourners and novices so that they can become active networkers as quickly as possible.
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Recommendation 5 Students need to be given opportunities to re-position themselves in relation to their existing resources while at the university and during the crucial pre-placement visits to the workplace. It has been stressed throughout this work that students will almost certainly need further, more context-specific resources once in the workplace. They will need to position themselves as, • • •
the manager, accessor and user of existing resources the manager, accessor and user of new resources the transformer of both existing and new resources.
Such images, which have been based on a variety of roles envisaged by Freebody (1992) in relation to emerging readers, allow the student to escape images of the learner as the receiver of resources framed as ‘information’. Using the ideas presented above, the student in the workplace can be seen as a resource evaluator, a resource accessor and a resource transformer. Recommendation 6 Students will need to be given opportunities to define existing and potential resources more broadly than may have been the case in the past. What is most interesting is that experiences that were perceived as unimportant beforehand will become more important in the new situation. In his interview, Martin who in the previous Christmas holidays had accompanied his brother on a door-to-door job selling household security systems, narrated an account of such a transformation. Martin could not have predicted at the time that he would later see this experience as a vitally important one because the communication skills he had learned during the summer ‘really helped’ during his work placement with Company B. Recommendation 7 Students need to be given opportunities to develop a greater awareness of the resource networks within which they are located. The student needs to explore and reflect on the placement in a way that takes up the social situation as much as it does the experience of the individual learner. In this context, an article by Morrison (1996) suggests
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that ‘the reflective practitioner’ (Schön, 1983) needs to reflect on the ‘setting’ as well as the ‘self’ (Morrison, 1996, p. 325). These suggestions cannot be taken up at length here. What needs to be addressed is the present focus on the learner as agent. More emphasis needs to be given to the learner as a researcher of a new ‘field’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 108)—the unfamiliar workplace. Both placement-oriented educators and students need to develop the skills necessary to understand the complex situation of the sojourning learner more adequately. Recommendation 8 Students, university staff and workplace personnel need to build up a variety of strategies to ensure that students have access to salient competent peers. It is clear that peers are a key resource. As peers are often competent rather than expert, their help can be understood more easily and asked for more often by the students during their placements. All institutions should be concerned with building up the students’ professional networks and should see this as part of their role. The building of peer-based networks is especially important for students who are not as resource-rich as others. Recommendation 9 Appropriate, situation-specific networking strategies need to be identified, encouraged and reflected upon. The interviews suggest that some of the most confident students had access to many different kinds of networks—ones based on information technology and extended family relationships, as well as peers. Hence, another important role that can be played by the universities who oversee the professional education and training lies in their ability to build strong networks of students before they enter the workplace. These networks need to be based on both information technology and human resources. Human networks cannot be fostered artificially, but have to grow out of the activities that students undertake in seminars and beyond. This seems to be one of the many strengths of problem-based learning. As the learning is group-based, students are offered the opportunity to participate in co-operative activities and can therefore build networks before they enter unfamiliar workplaces. It may also be possible to place students who have fewer resources in workplaces with peers that they already know. 180
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Recommendation 10 Further attention should be given to the complex issues related to the demands placed on certain students by the highly specialised language of workplaces. The short transcript of a shift handover in an Australian hospital included in Mawer (1999, p. 100) demonstrates that the language used by experienced professionals can be an esoteric blend of colloquialisms, professionally based acronyms and context-bound views of the job at hand. In the students’ transcripts, two local students, as well as several of the international students, commented on their lack of confidence concerning their own spoken proficiency in certain workplace situations. While most universities offer support in the area of English as a Second Language and learning and communication skills, such assistance cannot be accessed readily in the workplace. As many workplaces plan to offer English language courses, but do not implement such plans even for continuing employees (Dagher, D’Netto & Sohal, 1998), it is only rarely that sojourning students can access programs that will support their need for highly specific professionally oriented language. While the quality of the supervision provided is critical here, this cannot always be determined before the placement begins. As peer interaction will offer informal opportunities for language learning, this is one avenue that can be explored. However, as Volet and Ang’s (1998) study of culturally mixed groups at university found that students preferred to work with other students from ‘similar’ cultural backgrounds (p. 18), it cannot be assumed that peers in the workplace will always be as helpful as Andy was to Sobash.
Final reflections Hess (2001) has pointed out that researchers who have a perspective influenced by feminism or cultural studies often separate the effort to understand the informants’ perspectives from a second research phase in which those perspectives are re-interpreted using ‘social scientific analysis’ (p. 237). Such a method was adopted in relation to the interviews conducted so that the concepts that emerged from the transcripts were scrutinised using key ideas formulated by Bourdieu and other writers. Throughout the discussion, it has been argued that Bourdieu’s rich and diverse thought can be used to illuminate the situation of students during the workplace components of their university programs. This strategy also made it possible to situate the The Centrality of Placements
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exploration in the ongoing discussion concerning the relationship between the ways in which selves are constituted by contradictory and changing discourses (Davies & Harré, 1990) and also by the ‘economic and social conditions’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992b, p. 130, fn. 84) which social actors produce. At its inception, the investigation seemed to be similar to the ones that Sharp and Green (1975) had criticised so vehemently. In their discussion of the tendency of researchers to explore educational contexts using methods that had been influenced by ‘the phenomenological sociology of Alfred Shutz’ (p. 12), Sharp and Green argued that it was simply not adequate to use concepts based on phenomenological sociology. Hence, in the present discussion, while the perspective of each social actor was considered to be central to the quest for understanding, it was never forgotten that certain factors might ‘structure the opportunities for action’ (Sharp & Green, 1975, p. 6) in ways that were significant even if not readily perceived, or able to be articulated, by the participants themselves. However, if the data collection rested solely on the perceptions of the social actors, how were those other important factors to be grasped or ‘understood’ by others? The focus on resources and support provided a way of seeing both the worlds of the students from their points of view and a broader perspective at the same time. When the topic of resources was made a focus of the book, it seemed that it was possible to understand the students’ experiences ‘as the product of both symbolic context and material circumstances’ (Sharp & Green, 1975, p. 6). Such a strategy made it possible to move forward from the insights generated by theorists such as Berger and Luckmann (1967) who had focused on the symbolic constructions of social actors to the more complex insights generated by Habermas (1984) and Bourdieu who have, in their different ways, struggled to give an account of the social world that takes in more than ‘the creative power of individuals in acting in and transforming the world’ (Sharp & Green, 1975, p. 23). A final issue may merit some further investigation. It was made clear in some interviews that several students who wished to obtain a work placement in Australia could not do so. Workplaces have limitations as places for learning. However, they also have a multitude of strengths. It is important that all students have an opportunity to participate in the workplace component of their program in Australia.
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Once on the placement, all students should have an opportunity to learn in a positive culture, undertake appropriate tasks, and have access to specialist language support as well as a wide variety of human and technological networks. In some programs of study, several students, both local and international, talked about the interviewing process that determined whether or not they would obtain a place in a specific workplace. Their interviews show that, once again, certain students were able to negotiate from a position of strength while other students were not able to cross certain borders. The following account was narrated by James, one of three students who were interested in participating in a project for Company C, a large electronics company, as part of the workplace component of their university program. We went to an interview for that project [related to sophisticated communications technology], with Company C and they showed us what they’re doing, because we didn’t know everything about the project and that’s why we had the interview—to know more about it and see if they liked us and would take us on. In the end, James and his friends decided to decline Company C’s offer and all later carried out the workplace components of their programs with Company A. However, James reported on the interview very positively, commenting, ‘They were very, very kind—they gave us a choice of whether or not we wanted to do it ... because they also wanted people to be happy doing the project’ . In direct contrast to James’s experiences, Didi, an international student, commented that some students could not even reach the interview stage of the process. He commented, ‘If we got an interview and then lose out after the interview, then fine. But [some of the students] don’t even get an interview’. Didi elaborated on the situation in the following way: And when we came to the supervisor and asked, What’s happening here? ... Are the marks not good enough? And they explained it was because the company wanted to employ someone who could stay in Australia when they
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graduated. That’s what they think. That eventually we will go back to our own country. They sort of just don’t select us. Which I think is not fair for us. We come to Australia to study. But some of us want to stay here of course! Otherwise what would we come for? We pay a lot of money. At the end we can’t stay here—we have to go back to our own country. So what is the point of coming? No point at all. (Didi, p. 9) With these final voices, this exploration of fifty interviews with students on their work placements draws to a close. Although chosen to highlight possible directions for future research, these extracts summarise the main argument of the book, which is that learning is as much about identity as expertise and that belonging and becoming within workplaces, their professional networks, languages and discourses can be either happy or hazardous processes according to the changes being asked of the learner. It has also been argued—and demonstrated—that the resources and support that learners can acquire, negotiate and transform during any period of transition and learning will vitally affect the outcomes of the experience, but will not always be able to be predicted beforehand. Therefore, an important part of any learner’s preparation is the insight that he or she will never be completely prepared by one context for the challenges posed in another. Hence, it is the responsibility of those in higher education to ensure that those deemed ready to make certain border crossings have acquired the ability to achieve a perspective on the potential and the limitations of work placements and the learner positions that these may require. Learners also need to have rehearsed the various voices that the students interviewed re-created while narrating their own efforts to create new resources in specific workplaces. This work has outlined the relationships between one group of learners and the support and resources that they acquired, negotiated and transformed during their work placements. It is hoped that learners in their various identities will pursue the resources and the support they require with greater vigour and a greater sense that these are their right rather than their privilege while simultaneously realising that all social actors have to position themselves within an interpreted material and human world that always pre-dates their own becoming.
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Index
agents, learners as ambiguities in role of, 95–9 Bourdieu’s perspective on, 59–64, 96–9, 166, 168–70 facets of autonomy and active learning, 31–4 independence, 30–1 problem solving, 34–5 self-direction, 27–30, 32, 60 relevance of training materials to, 32–4 resources and support for, 35–6, 151 stresses faced by, 29–30 understanding broader context of, 165–6, 168–70, 180 ‘voice’ as indicator of, 17, 173–4 anxiety, feelings of, 156 apprentices, learners as, 3, 36–42 coaching in practical skills for, 36, 38–9 contrasted with experienced professionals, 36–9 historical perspective on, 39–40 nursing practice in context of, 36, 40 reflective practice for, 36–41
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resources and support for, 40–2 teaching practice in context of, 40, 41–2 workplaces as setting for, 39–40 assessment anxiety about, 156 by assessors, 113, 178 audience for learners as performers, 43–4 at workplace social functions, 74 expectations of, 44 humiliation by, 49 learners themselves as, 98 relationship of learner with, 46 role as resource, 48 sustaining performance for, 47–8 becoming, concept of see identity in workplace; learner as potential belonging, acquiring sense of, 65–99 as a key issue in current study, 6–7 identified by students, 66, 69 Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of, 96–9 ‘difference’ as precursor to, 67–8, 98 gender issues in, 93, 94–5
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means of, 67–99 directed by workplace, 92, 95–9 gifts as, 67, 78–80, 86, 93, 95, 97, 99 greetings as, 67–72, 86, 93, 95, 97 induction procedures, 67–80, 92–3, 95, 97 initial tasks, 86–92, 94, 97–8 significance of dress as, 70–2, 80–6, 94, 96, 97, 99 workplace gatherings as, 67, 73–8, 86, 93, 97 pre-existing advantage in, 151–3 student agency in, 85–6, 92, 95–9 variable success in, 85–6, 92, 93, 94–5, 98, 184 see also identity in workplace border crossers, learners as, 54–9 challenges and opportunities for, 55 hazards faced by, 55–7 initial experiences of, 66 interview process as barrier for, 183–4 language as important resource for, 173 problematic prospects for, 57–8 resources and support for, 58–9 sense of loss experienced by, 56–7 work placements in context of, 58 Bourdieu, Pierre centrality of ideas of, 7, 18, 165–70, 181–2 concepts applicable to work placements, 59–64 ‘a feel for the game’, 151–3, 175 ‘capital’, 63–4, 167, 172 ‘field’, 63–4, 166–70 ‘habitus’, 61–2, 63, 96–9, 151–2, 175 ‘practice’, 60–2 preconstructed categories, overcoming, 10, 15, 16 interpretation of text, 10–11, 15, 17, 18, 23 clinicals see nursing training
208
committed presence, 18 demonstrated by supervisor, 111, 117, 161 value of, 125–6 community, learners as new members of, 51–4, 60 acceptance of, 173 cultural aspects of, 51–3 language, 50, 53, 54, 126 importance of practical learning for, 39–40 initiation of, 67–99 importance of names in, 79 resources and support for, 53–4 vulnerability of, 87 see also culture culture corporate, 149 definition of, 95 dress as marker of, 71–2, 85–6 entry into new, 49–50, 95, 97–9 workplace seen as, 51–4, 63 role of language in, 53 see also community, learners as new members of difference, identification of between Australia and home country, 4 between university and workplace, 16, 67–8, 98, 156 between workplace and previous settings, 16, 67–8, 98, 156, 164 ethical issues, 111–12 gendered workplace norms, 93 in preliminary interviews, 22 levels of expertise, 35, 41, 171–2 personal and professional persona, 124–5 dress, significance of, 70–2, 80–6, 94, 96, 97, 98, 159–60 electronic resources see technological resources empowerment strategies of supervisors, 114–26
Index
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commitment to task, 114–17, 125–6 trust, 116, 119–26 professionalism, 124–5 recognition of ability, 119–26 respect for opinions, 120–4 enabling trust, 18, 125–6, 161 epiphanies, 8 family support effect of lack of, 150–1 international students’ access to, 150–1 types of support obtained from, 142–50 see also resources available to students; support networks gender issues make up of workplace, 93 problems in categorisation of, 17 raised in other research, 12, 13, 17 support networks, 163 ‘habitus,’ concept of, 61–3, 96–9, 151, 175 identity in workplace, 65–99 as a key theme of current project, 64, 154–7, 165, 184 changing, as teacher, 28 creation of, 43 broader context of, 168–70 co-operative role in, 173–4 lack of equipment for, 48–9 naming as aspect of, 78–9 provision of assistance in, 86, 166–8 role of mentor in, 178 degree of control over, 96 dress as aspect of, 70–2, 80–4, 97 forced acquisition of, 49, 92 formulation of concept of, 21–3 not articulated in student interviews, 68 readiness to accept, 66 rejection of, 6
social identity as aid to, 50 struggle with, 9, 81–4, 92, 97, 98 transition to, 53–9, 166 difficulties in, 54, 56–8 see also belonging, acquiring sense of; role in workplace, learning induction procedures creating sense of belonging, 69 gatherings as component of, 73–8 gifts as component of, 78–80 greetings as component of, 68–72 inadequacies in, 95 initial tasks as component of, 86–90 lack of consultation with students in, 92 perceived importance of, 68 initial phase of placement, 65–99, 100 challenges faced by students, 65–7, 98–9 learning to become competent, 66–7, 86–92 learning to belong, 65–86 dress issues in, 70–2, 80–6, 97 gender issues in, 93, 94–5 induction procedures, 67–80, 92–3, 95, 97–8 gatherings, 73–8 gifts, 78–80 greetings, 67–72 language issues in, 72, 93 negative experiences in, 70–2, 81–4, 90–2, 93 positive experiences in, 68–9, 73–81, 87–90, 93 resources provided in, 78–80 significance of, 94–9 Bourdieu’s concepts applied to, 96–9 students’ perceptions of difference in, 67–8, 98 tasks assigned in, 86–91 international students as component of students interviewed, 4, 21
Index
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209
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barriers to obtaining placements by, 182–4 degree of family support for, 142, 150 difficulties experienced by, 102–6, 107–9 evaluation of supervisors by, 104–9, 161–2 friends as support for, 134–6, 138 language proficiency of, 104, 134–6, 156–7, 181 other studies of, 21 reassessment of assumptions regarding, 21 response to challenges by, 156–7 self-confidence of, 158, 161 interpretation of text theoretical approaches to, 7–18 interviewees, background of, 4 job interviews job requirements not specified at, 1 key questions underlying, 6–7 junior colleagues, learners as, 171–3 key concepts identity, 154 learning, 154–5 resources and support, 154–5, 158–65 accessing in workplace, 160–3, 164–5 accessing outside workplace, 163–4, 165 differing perceptions of, 175–6 initial perception of need for, 158–60 language issues for international students, 4, 72, 150–1, 156–7 difficulties with, 72, 132, 134–6, 156–7, 181 as capital, 169 as discourse, theories of, 13 as means of access to group or field, 50, 52–4, 126, 152, 173
210
as means of learning, 27 modelled by mentor, 39 professional, 39, 126, 156–7, 181, 183 need for assistance in acquiring, 181, 183 ‘lighthouse’ narratives, 7–9 significance of, 8–9 literature survey key images of learning, 23–64 organisational structure of, 23–5 phases in, 22 theoretical bases of narrative interpretation, 7–18 novices, learners as, 171–3 author’s interest in, 6 Benner’s perceptions of, 7, 35, 171–2 challenges for, 46, 65–6 contrasted to junior colleagues, 172–3, 174 degree of trust in, 125–6 differentiation of experienced professionals from, 36–9, 41–2 effect of induction procedures on, 92 lack of studies of, 20 means of supporting, 38–42 need for articulation of role of, 105–6 preparation for students as, 178 prior experience of, 3 recognition of limitations by, 135–6 nursing training basis for assignment of tasks in, 90–1 reflective practice in, 34, 36, 41 supervision of, 101–2, 106–9, 119–21 descriptors used for, 101–2 inadequacies in, 106–9 use of trust in, 119–21 peer support friends, 133–42
Index
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types of support obtained from, 133, 135, 137, 138–42 sources of, 129–42 workplace colleagues, 129–33 characteristics of, 133 types of support obtained from, 129, 132–3 people as resources see resources available to students; support networks performers, learners as, 42–51 difficulties faced by, 44, 46–7 problems with concept of, 50–1 resources and support for, 48–51 use of language by, 50 see also role at work, learning pilot interviews, 21–2 usefulness of, 22 potential, learners as, 25–7 process of ‘becoming’ for, 25–6 resources and support for, 26–7 ‘scaffolding’ to support, 26 recommendations for change, 175–81 adaptation to individual needs, 177 identification of resources, 179–80 language support, 181 networking skills, 180 preparation for placements, 178–9 provision of mentors, 178 welcoming strategies, 177 reflective practice, 36–41 approach to adult learning, 24 aspect of agenic learning, 27 coaching novices in, 38–9, 40 considering context of, 179–80 strategies for developing, 38–41 two types of, 37–8 use in nursing training, 34, 41 advantages of, 36 use in teacher training, 20, 33, 41–2 resources available to students as agents, 35–6 as apprentices, 40–2
as border crossers, 58–9 as junior colleagues, 172–3 as new community members, 53–4 as performers, 48–51 as potential, 26–7 as sojourners, 170 as ‘voices’, 174–5 central significance of, 2–3, 25, 64, 150–3, 154–5, 182 differing perspectives of, 175–6 effect of lack of, 5–6, 22, 108–9, 159–60, 164 gifts as, 78–80, 158, 160, 167–8 in the workplace, 3, 5 opportunity to negotiate, 177 outside work, 3, 5 people as, 3, 5, 35–6, 40, 48, 128–9, 180 family members, 142–50, 153, 163–4 friends, 133–42, 153, 163–4 workmates, 129–33, 153, 163 pre-existing, 2, 133, 156, 160, 165, 179 provided by supervisors, 126, 161–2, 164 technological, 2–3, 129, 162–3, 180 theoretical perspectives on, 165–70 use in self-directed learning, 27–8, 29, 30–1, 35–6, 60–1 usefulness in practice, 32–4 variation in, 155, 158–65 viewing learners in relation to, 25 see also supervisors; support networks role at work, learning alternative theorisation of, 39 author’s experience of, 1–2 broader context of, 168–70 challenging nature of, 98–9, 124–5 conceptualisation in dramatic terms, 42–9 limitations of, 42, 43, 44, 50–1 contemporary approach to, 3
Index
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difficulties in, 1–2, 44, 46–7, 56, 81–4 conflicting roles, 81–4 lack of guidance, 104–9 framing questions regarding, 6 Goffman’s ideas on, 42–9 images used in discussion of, 24–59, 170–5 learner as performer, 42–51 interaction with supervisor in, 125–6, 161–2, 172–3 lack of definition in, 73–4 relevance of dress to, 85–6 requirements for, 47–8 resources and support in, 48–50, 97 significance of language, 50 student as active agent in, 95–6 workplace as audience for, 43–4, 46–9, 74, 86–7, 157–8 see also belonging, acquiring sense of; identity in workplace Said, Edward, influence on current project of views of, 18, 21, 158 scaffolding interactive learning through, 26–7, 59, 174 see also resources and support; supervision of trainees sojourners, learners as, 170–1 characteristics of, 170 outsider status of, 173 raising student awareness of, 178 transition issues for, 171 sponsorship, validity of concept of, 174–5 strategic silence, 18, 112–14, 117 stress, ability to handle, 127 supervision of trainees, 100–26 descriptive terms used by students, 101–2 nursing practice, 101, 106–9, 112, 119–21 positive experience of, 114–25 significant factors in, 125–6
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strategies valued by students in, 112–26, 161 commitment to task, 107–9, 116–17, 125–6 ethical approach to work, 111–12 explicit leadership and support, 105–8 language modelling, 104 trust and empowerment, 114–26 teaching practice, 101–6, 108–11, 113–14, 117–19, 124–5 theoretical context of, 117, 119, 121–4, 125–6 unsatisfactory experience of, 102–14 supervisors as assessors, 113, 178 crucial role of, 5, 39, 161–2 disagreement with, 109–14 effect of absence of, 103–9, 150 expectations of students by, 127 factors impacting on effectiveness of, 103, 109, 116–17, 128 greetings as task of, 68 student expectations of, 112, 114–15 terminology used for, 101–2 variable access to, 162 see also supervision of trainees support networks, 127–53 reasons for accessing, 127–8 significance of, 151–3 types of family members, 142–51 friends, 133–42 work colleagues, 129–33 see also resources available to students teaching practice critical evaluation of, 20 peer coaching, 20 reflective practice, 20 issues faced by students, 70–2, 81–6
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appropriate dress, 70–2, 81–6 interaction with other staff, 70–1, 72 professional manner, 81–4 supervision of, 101–6, 107–14, 117–19, 124–5 descriptors used by students for, 101–2 positive experience of, 117–19, 124–5 strategies employed in, 119, 124–5 unsatisfactory experience of, 102–6, 107–14 technological resources, 2–3, 129, 162–3, 180 theoretical issues in this project, 7–18 data organisation and analysis, 9–10 epiphanies, 8 interpretation of narratives, 10–14, 22–3 comparison, 13, 15–16 critical discourse analysis, 12–14 feminist perspectives, 12, 13 grounded theory, 16–17 protective governing, 16–17, 18 step-by-step approach, 12, 14 voice, 17 whole text, 11–12, 14–15, 16 key images of learning, 23–64 Bourdieu’s perspective on, 59–64 learner as agent, 27–36 learner as apprentice, 36–42 learner as border crosser, 54–9 learner as new community member, 51–4
learner as performer, 42–51 learner as potential, 25–7 usefulness of, 24–5 lighthouse narratives, 8–9 selection of concepts, 22–3 transition experience of loss in, 56–7 previous studies of, 21 problematic aspects of, 57–8 risk of marginalisation in, 54–6 to independence, encouraging, 29 to new role, pressures of, 48–9 transition to work complex demands of, 2 resources to cope with, 2, 5 support networks to assist with, 2–3 eased by familiarity, 49, 54 image of border crossing applied to, 58–9, 172–3 image of sojourner applied to, 170–1 need for support networks in, 128, 151 recognising placements as, 166 understanding challenges of, 45–6, 65 use of resources to support, 173, 174, 184 trusting dialogue, 18, 121–4 trusting revelations, 18, 124–5 trusting space, 18, 119–20, 123 voices, learners as, 173–5 welcoming strategies see induction procedures
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