Peter H. Sawchuk | University of Toronto (original) (raw)
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Papers by Peter H. Sawchuk
Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 2023
Analysing work and life course learning under capitalism using a mind in political economy approa... more Analysing work and life course learning under capitalism using a mind in political economy approach 299 biographical meaning-making through the creation and refinement of biographical artefacts across the life course by a process of double stimulation.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2013
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2013
Springer international handbooks of education, 2022
Distinctive forms of technological change may be charting a new course for lifelong learning and ... more Distinctive forms of technological change may be charting a new course for lifelong learning and work around the globe. In this chapter, we draw upon studies of work offered by contemporary labor process theory and use the notion of the labor process as learning process to illuminate lifelong learning dynamics of individuals embedded in platform political economies. Proponents of these technologies and form of political economy highlight the potential to eliminate spatial-temporal barriers enabling participation in a global labor regime that transcends gender, race, and class divides. Critics warn against digital surveillance and precarious work arrangements calling for legal and fair frameworks to address privacy and precarity concerns. A critical examination of the relation between work-based learning, platform technologies, and platform political economy is missing from the current debate. Focusing on four key aspects of skills, knowledge, subjectivity, and control, we discuss our perspective and
This is a comparative exploration of labour education across five continents by international lea... more This is a comparative exploration of labour education across five continents by international leaders in the field. Beginning from unique national contexts, questions of distance education, pedagogy, labouruniversity linkages, and leadership training are mixed with engaged discussion of the role of national and international structures, and alternative models of civil society and the role of labour in it. Across the globe, we see that challenge remains to educate from top to bottom while nurturing the ideals of social justice.
The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning
The last two decades have seen an international explosion of interest in theories of mind, cultur... more The last two decades have seen an international explosion of interest in theories of mind, culture, and activity. This unique collection is the first to explicitly reach back to the tradition's original critical impulse within which the writings of Karl Marx played such a central role. Each author pushes this impulse further to address leading contemporary questions. It includes a diverse array of international scholars working from the fields of education, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, communications, industrial relations, and business studies. Broken into three main sections - education, work, and everyday life - each chapter builds from an analysis of practice and learning as social cultural participation and historical change in relation to the concept of activity, contradiction, and struggle. This book offers insight into an important complex of overlapping practices and institutions to shed light on broader debates over such matters as the 'knowledge...
Adult Education Quarterly, 2021
Practice Methodologies in Education Research, 2019
Methodology is understood as the logic and rationale for the use of specific research methods and... more Methodology is understood as the logic and rationale for the use of specific research methods and tools. This chapter aims to speak to a gap between discussions of dialectical materialist methodology and its use in empirical research on the dynamics of human practice. In the first half of this chapter, I summarise what I refer to as intentional, systematic-categorial and negative contributions to dialectical materialist methodology. In the second half of this chapter, I outline a theory of practice as mind-in-activity that fits this methodology and then I de-construct an empirical study of human practice in the workplace to make explicit how dialectical materialist methodology can shape use of methods and the unfolding of courses of analysis.
Challenging Transitions in Learning and Work, 2010
Professional Power and Skill Use in the 'Knowledge Economy', 2021
Vocations and Learning, 2020
An extensive body of workplace learning literature documents the changing nature of professional ... more An extensive body of workplace learning literature documents the changing nature of professional learning, knowledge and work, but the tensions between the distinctive purposes and interests of professions and organizations have not received the same level of attention. The sociology of professions literature in contrast has paid an enormous amount of attention to the contradiction of professions and organizations. This analysis is based on our recent survey (n = 2026) and in-depth interview research (n = 23) on the subject of the sources, development and use of professional knowledge amongst engineers and nurses in Canada. In this article, we primarily argue a useful contribution to research and debates on these dynamics can be framed by studies of the relations between the distinct purposes and interests of professions and organizations found in the sociology of professions. Specifically we provide evidence of a contradictory professional/organizational hybridization of the sources, development and uses of professional knowledge vis-à-vis changing patterns of education, continuing professional development, learning and knowledge/skill use. In the context of changing work processes and growing workload for engineers and nurses, we argue that professional knowledge is a target for the satisfaction of organizational purposes and interests as well as a resource for professionals defending their traditional purposes and interests. Results show that organizational change has resulted in higher workloads and fewer opportunities for formal on-the-job training and mentorship. The potential implications of hybridized professional knowledge for professions and de-professionalization are discussed.
Studies in Continuing Education, 2020
In this theoretical review article I discuss the relationship of dialectic materialism, Cultural ... more In this theoretical review article I discuss the relationship of dialectic materialism, Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and analyses of work, learning and political economic consciousness. The purpose is to help researchers reflect on how they might be more effective in their analytic work. Specifically, its goal is to help expand the comprehensiveness and recognition of the dynamism of phenomena of work and learning, and to support the claim of political economic consciousness as inherent to them. To do this I introduce and describe the purposes and meaning of dialectical materialist methodology. I then discuss practical procedures ('intentional dialectics': Ollman [(1993). Dialectical Investigations. New York: Routledge] and the ordering of these procedures ('systematic-categorial dialectics': Smith [(1993) Dialectical Social Theory and its Critics: From Hegel to Analytical Marxism and Postmodernism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press] in the treatment of empirical research on work and learning. Framing those discussions is a rationale for a robust appreciation of variation, heterogeneity and particularities in dialectical analysis of emergent work and learning dynamics which draws on what Adorno [(1973/ 2003). Negative Dialectics. London: Routledge] refers to as 'negative dialectics'. No matter how effectively grasped, however, I maintain that dialectical materialist methodology requires suitable, substantive theoryor rather an intermediate sciencesuch as CHAT in order to realise its full value in analyses of work, learning and political economic consciousness.
Studies in the Education of Adults, 2005
Abstract The research reported in this paper attempts to document the actual learning practices o... more Abstract The research reported in this paper attempts to document the actual learning practices of working-class people in the context of the much heralded ‘knowledge-based economy’. Our primary thesis is that working-class peoples' indigenous learning capacities have been denied, suppressed, degraded or diverted within most capitalist schooling, adult education institutions and employer-sponsored training programmes, at the same time as working class informal learning and tacit knowledge are heavily relied on to actually run paid workplaces. Our analysis is based on five case studies of Canadian union locals which document the learning practices of hired workers based in different industries and employment sites with strikingly different support systems for education and training and working-class learning generally. We criticise dominant theories of adult education for preoccupation with a historical and individualised, psychological processes and motives while ignoring the collective learning processes that working-class people rely upon most. For this reason we rely on a cultural-historical theory of adult learning. These case studies show that workers are generally active learners, that they do much of their learning informally and that much of this learning is of high quality.
Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 2023
Analysing work and life course learning under capitalism using a mind in political economy approa... more Analysing work and life course learning under capitalism using a mind in political economy approach 299 biographical meaning-making through the creation and refinement of biographical artefacts across the life course by a process of double stimulation.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2013
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jun 5, 2013
Springer international handbooks of education, 2022
Distinctive forms of technological change may be charting a new course for lifelong learning and ... more Distinctive forms of technological change may be charting a new course for lifelong learning and work around the globe. In this chapter, we draw upon studies of work offered by contemporary labor process theory and use the notion of the labor process as learning process to illuminate lifelong learning dynamics of individuals embedded in platform political economies. Proponents of these technologies and form of political economy highlight the potential to eliminate spatial-temporal barriers enabling participation in a global labor regime that transcends gender, race, and class divides. Critics warn against digital surveillance and precarious work arrangements calling for legal and fair frameworks to address privacy and precarity concerns. A critical examination of the relation between work-based learning, platform technologies, and platform political economy is missing from the current debate. Focusing on four key aspects of skills, knowledge, subjectivity, and control, we discuss our perspective and
This is a comparative exploration of labour education across five continents by international lea... more This is a comparative exploration of labour education across five continents by international leaders in the field. Beginning from unique national contexts, questions of distance education, pedagogy, labouruniversity linkages, and leadership training are mixed with engaged discussion of the role of national and international structures, and alternative models of civil society and the role of labour in it. Across the globe, we see that challenge remains to educate from top to bottom while nurturing the ideals of social justice.
The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning
The last two decades have seen an international explosion of interest in theories of mind, cultur... more The last two decades have seen an international explosion of interest in theories of mind, culture, and activity. This unique collection is the first to explicitly reach back to the tradition's original critical impulse within which the writings of Karl Marx played such a central role. Each author pushes this impulse further to address leading contemporary questions. It includes a diverse array of international scholars working from the fields of education, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, communications, industrial relations, and business studies. Broken into three main sections - education, work, and everyday life - each chapter builds from an analysis of practice and learning as social cultural participation and historical change in relation to the concept of activity, contradiction, and struggle. This book offers insight into an important complex of overlapping practices and institutions to shed light on broader debates over such matters as the 'knowledge...
Adult Education Quarterly, 2021
Practice Methodologies in Education Research, 2019
Methodology is understood as the logic and rationale for the use of specific research methods and... more Methodology is understood as the logic and rationale for the use of specific research methods and tools. This chapter aims to speak to a gap between discussions of dialectical materialist methodology and its use in empirical research on the dynamics of human practice. In the first half of this chapter, I summarise what I refer to as intentional, systematic-categorial and negative contributions to dialectical materialist methodology. In the second half of this chapter, I outline a theory of practice as mind-in-activity that fits this methodology and then I de-construct an empirical study of human practice in the workplace to make explicit how dialectical materialist methodology can shape use of methods and the unfolding of courses of analysis.
Challenging Transitions in Learning and Work, 2010
Professional Power and Skill Use in the 'Knowledge Economy', 2021
Vocations and Learning, 2020
An extensive body of workplace learning literature documents the changing nature of professional ... more An extensive body of workplace learning literature documents the changing nature of professional learning, knowledge and work, but the tensions between the distinctive purposes and interests of professions and organizations have not received the same level of attention. The sociology of professions literature in contrast has paid an enormous amount of attention to the contradiction of professions and organizations. This analysis is based on our recent survey (n = 2026) and in-depth interview research (n = 23) on the subject of the sources, development and use of professional knowledge amongst engineers and nurses in Canada. In this article, we primarily argue a useful contribution to research and debates on these dynamics can be framed by studies of the relations between the distinct purposes and interests of professions and organizations found in the sociology of professions. Specifically we provide evidence of a contradictory professional/organizational hybridization of the sources, development and uses of professional knowledge vis-à-vis changing patterns of education, continuing professional development, learning and knowledge/skill use. In the context of changing work processes and growing workload for engineers and nurses, we argue that professional knowledge is a target for the satisfaction of organizational purposes and interests as well as a resource for professionals defending their traditional purposes and interests. Results show that organizational change has resulted in higher workloads and fewer opportunities for formal on-the-job training and mentorship. The potential implications of hybridized professional knowledge for professions and de-professionalization are discussed.
Studies in Continuing Education, 2020
In this theoretical review article I discuss the relationship of dialectic materialism, Cultural ... more In this theoretical review article I discuss the relationship of dialectic materialism, Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and analyses of work, learning and political economic consciousness. The purpose is to help researchers reflect on how they might be more effective in their analytic work. Specifically, its goal is to help expand the comprehensiveness and recognition of the dynamism of phenomena of work and learning, and to support the claim of political economic consciousness as inherent to them. To do this I introduce and describe the purposes and meaning of dialectical materialist methodology. I then discuss practical procedures ('intentional dialectics': Ollman [(1993). Dialectical Investigations. New York: Routledge] and the ordering of these procedures ('systematic-categorial dialectics': Smith [(1993) Dialectical Social Theory and its Critics: From Hegel to Analytical Marxism and Postmodernism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press] in the treatment of empirical research on work and learning. Framing those discussions is a rationale for a robust appreciation of variation, heterogeneity and particularities in dialectical analysis of emergent work and learning dynamics which draws on what Adorno [(1973/ 2003). Negative Dialectics. London: Routledge] refers to as 'negative dialectics'. No matter how effectively grasped, however, I maintain that dialectical materialist methodology requires suitable, substantive theoryor rather an intermediate sciencesuch as CHAT in order to realise its full value in analyses of work, learning and political economic consciousness.
Studies in the Education of Adults, 2005
Abstract The research reported in this paper attempts to document the actual learning practices o... more Abstract The research reported in this paper attempts to document the actual learning practices of working-class people in the context of the much heralded ‘knowledge-based economy’. Our primary thesis is that working-class peoples' indigenous learning capacities have been denied, suppressed, degraded or diverted within most capitalist schooling, adult education institutions and employer-sponsored training programmes, at the same time as working class informal learning and tacit knowledge are heavily relied on to actually run paid workplaces. Our analysis is based on five case studies of Canadian union locals which document the learning practices of hired workers based in different industries and employment sites with strikingly different support systems for education and training and working-class learning generally. We criticise dominant theories of adult education for preoccupation with a historical and individualised, psychological processes and motives while ignoring the collective learning processes that working-class people rely upon most. For this reason we rely on a cultural-historical theory of adult learning. These case studies show that workers are generally active learners, that they do much of their learning informally and that much of this learning is of high quality.
![Research paper thumbnail of Contested Learning in Welfare Work [Full Book]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/99499642/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Contested Learning in Welfare Work: A Study of Mind, Political Economy and the Labour Process, 2013
Drawing on the field of cultural historical psychology and the sociologies of skill and labour pr... more Drawing on the field of cultural historical psychology and the sociologies of skill and labour process, Contested Learning in Welfare Work offers a detailed account of the learning lives of state welfare workers in Canada as they cope, accommodate, resist, and l ounder in times of heightened austerity. Documented through in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis, Peter H. Sawchuk's analysis shows how the labour process changes workers, and how workers change the labour process, under the pressures of intensii ed economic conditions, new technologies, changing relations of space and time, and a high-tech version of Taylorism. Sawchuk traces these experiences over a seven-year period (2002-2009) that includes major work reorganization and the recent global economic downturn. His analysis examines the dynamics among notions of de-skilling, re-skilling, and up-skilling, as workers negotiate occupational learning and changing identities.
... As Bruce Spencer warns, the rhetoric and enthusiasm for workplace learning, both from adult e... more ... As Bruce Spencer warns, the rhetoric and enthusiasm for workplace learning, both from adult edu-cators and some corporate leaders, can form ... With regards to whether the premise of the elusive "learning organization" can fulfill the "social" function of adult education, the best ...
Peter H. Sawchuk (2013) "Contested Learning in Welfare Work: A Study of Mind, Political Economy and the Labour Process". New York: Cambridge University Press., Jun 1, 2013
Drawing on the field of cultural historical psychology and the sociologies of skill and labour pr... more Drawing on the field of cultural historical psychology and the sociologies of skill and labour process, Contested Learning in Welfare Work offers a detailed account of the learning lives of state welfare workers in Canada as they cope, accommodate, resist, and flounder in times of heightened austerity. Documented through in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis, Peter H. Sawchuk’s analysis shows how the labour process changes workers, and how workers change the labour process, under the pressures of intensified economic conditions, new technologies, changing relations of space and time, and a high-tech version of Taylorism. Sawchuk traces these experiences over a seven-year period (2002–2009) that includes major work reorganization and the recent global economic downturn. His analysis examines the dynamics among notions of de-skilling, re-skilling, and up-skilling, as workers negotiate occupational learning and changing identities.
Peter H. Sawchuk is a professor of adult education, sociology, and
industrial relations at the University of Toronto. He studies, writes,
and teaches in the areas of adult learning theory, the sociology and
psychology of work, and Marxist political economy.
Explorations Across Education, Work, and Everyday Life, 2006
A Study of Mind, Political Economy, and the Labour Process, 2013
Introduction to Book: Livingstone, DW and Sawchuk, Peter H. (2004). Hidden knowledge: organized l... more Introduction to Book:
Livingstone, DW and Sawchuk, Peter H. (2004). Hidden knowledge: organized labour in the information age. Toronto: Garamond [University of Toronto Press].
[concluding chapter] Sawchuk, Peter H (2013) Contested Learning in Welfare Work: A Study of Mind,... more [concluding chapter]
Sawchuk, Peter H (2013) Contested Learning in Welfare Work: A Study of Mind, Political Economy and the Labour Process. New York: Cambridge University Press.