1) The document outlines the perspectives, problems, research design, findings, and theoretical grounding of a study on work, learning, and institutionalization in emerging post-industrial occupations. 2) It examines the experiences of work and learning of individuals in new media fields, how new knowledge was distributed, and whether this new work and learning was institutionalized. 3) The study draws on theories of developmental learning and distributed cognition to understand the constructivist development of work and learning in this emerging occupation from the perspectives of both individuals and the media system as a whole.

1. Outline
• Adult Education Perspective
• Practice Problem
• Research Problem
• Research Design
• Shifting Theoretical Ground
• Findings

2. Adult Education Perspective
Theories of Learning
All theories of learning must grapple with the
relationship between social structure and
agency, the macro and micro processes of
everyday life, and reproduction and social
change (Sawchuk, 2005)
Most relevant theories of learning explicitly
reference a broader social theory

3. Shifting Opportunity Structures
1970’s 1990’s
High Skills
Medium
Skills
Low Skills
•Erosion in the middle of the labor market
•Some jobs upgraded, some de-skilled
•Less experienced based advancement

4. Shifting Opportunity Structures
2000’s
Domain Blended
Knowledge Knowledge
Capacity College +/-
Multi-Skilled
Basic Skills
•Bifurcated labor market
•What does mobility look like/how does it occur?
•Nature of work: upgraded, de-skilled, how organized? What is going away/emerging(?)

5. Research Problem
• Philosophers once perceived industrialization as a progressive process of
historic human development.
• The role of education in industrial society was to help individuals develop
the will and capacity to fully participate in/develop in the industrialization
process.
• In the transition to post-industrial society, and in consideration of the
disruptions this shift has caused, critical adult educators now debate
whether and how to educate individuals for productive roles in society.
• The problem is that these debates are based on a research
tradition, conceptual frames, and outdated assumptions of the industrial
era.
• The problem is that we do not understand the nature of work and learning
in post-industrial society.

6. Work, Learning & Institutionalization in
Emerging Post-Industrial Occupation
Purpose
Problem
Broaden debate:
Shifting opportunity structure
How people work & learn
Don’t know emerging nature of work
Contribute to research on
nature of work
Research Questions
1. What was work and learning experienced?
2. How was new work and learning and new knowledge distributed?
3. Whether and how was new work and learning institutionalized?
Context Design
Practice: Work-Learning, Labor Market Exploratory Case Study
Theory: Developmental Theories/ New Media, DC
Distributive Cognition/ Borrow from
Professional Development Life History/Narrative Analysis

7. Shifting Theoretical Ground
Context Progressive Neo-Liberal Commons Culture
Broader Social Pragmatism /Humanism Learning Society Knowledge Society
Theories Dewey, Rogers Illich, Beck, Castells Illich, Lyotard, Benkler
Development: Institutionalization De-Institutionalization Cultural development
How Society Professionalization
Advances Humanizing institutions
Role of Distribute scientific method De-couple knowledge and credentials Capacity building (convivial
Education Establish social control Commodify education society)
What is Change in experience A process: performance Distributive cognition
Learning An outcome: i.e. competence, Sociological imagination
ethical behavior
Who/What Individuals and society Individuals with access to learning The distributive cognition system:
Learns resources organizations also learn individuals, organizations,
and develop networks, artifacts learn and
develop together
How Learn Habits and placidity Self-directed learning in experience Expansive learning in mediated
Conjoined activities activity and practice
Pedagogy Experiential learning Community of practice, Critical self Intent participation
Scientific method reflection , Action science Articulated practices
Social change Social justice, pluralism Consciousness Contradictions

8. What I Wanted to Know
Agency Structure
Changing Nature of Work and Learning
Theory of Learning: Constructivist Development
Context: Emerging Occupation

9. Constructivist Development
The nature of an entity can be understood in the process of its development....
“for it is in movement that a body shows what it is” (Cole, 1978, p 65)
Different Perspectives
Social Interaction
John Dewey
Cognition begins with experience
Experience is individual thought and action social action
Experience is reciprocal
Mind is social in its formation – emphasize learning processes (interaction)
Cultural Development
Lev Vygotsky
Cognition is historic and cultural Internalized social relationships
Mind is social in its formation and function
Emphasize cultural process
Embedded Subject Learns Consciousness

10. Context
Emerging Occupation: New Media
Pratt: Situated industry – convergence of industries, needs, and workforce skills in
new media clusters
Rosenblatt: Changing division of labor effecting nature of journalism: Them Media,
Us Media, We Media
Jenkins: Convergence culture and epistemology
Benkler: Commons mode of production
Professional Development
Wilensky (1964): Professionalization follows a particular sequence of events
(charting the pathway)
Abbott (1991): Professionalization occurs as social actors organize to respond to
social forces and opportunities (narrative analysis)
Krauss (1971): Occupations as mediators of social change (role of occupation and in
society – reproduce or change social order?)

11. Narrative Analysis of Individual
Development
Macro actions and interactions in work and learning
Development themes and tensions in the stories of their work
and learning over time
Identity and sense of self
Coherence
Agency
Patterns of work and learning

12. Key Narratives
• Acts of imagination and praxis – researcher and researched
• Performance of sense of self: Lens onto individual development
• Socially situated action: Lens onto occupational development
• Praxis: Creating conditions of own development
• Coherence in sense of self: the meaning and how they make
meaning of work and learning
• My Genesis – A story of historic and personal dispositions
• My Sense of Self – A story of individual development
• My Field – A story of occupational development
• My Narrative – A story of the broader cultural context
Based on Misler, E.G., (1999)

13. Xavier: Building Up A Creditability Level
Narrative Structure: Story Abstracts and Codas
Play New Media in the
Making
Serious
Tools Articulating New Media
Content
/Context
Making the Media
Maker
Identity/
Creditability
Revealing the Media
Roles/
Models

14. PAULINE
Narrative Themes
Openness
Community My
The DC Humor
DC
Ambiguity
List
Openness
Community
My Kind of Openness
Community
Humor
Ambiguity Journalism Humor
Ambiguity
My C- Becoming
DC Spanon my kind of
List ymity journalist
Living Narrative
Authenticity Coherence

15. Sejong: Stream of Consciousness
Narrative Context
Political Economy
Of Media Industry Cultural Narrative:
The Ether
Pressure and Time
Inhale
Jack of All Trades Exhale
My Projects
ThingsNarrative
The I Learned on My Own
Always SEO
writing Mindset
Three Things at Once
Uniqueness
of Method Stream of Consciousness
Social capital/Empowerment in PR Contextualizing Communications
Stream of
The Answer is Still Google Consciousness

16. Carol, The Journalist: A Narrative of the Seed
The New Journalist/ Restaurateur
Carol
Seeking A Mother Ship
The The Life Raft
Producer Resistance
Desire
The TV
Writer and Getting Models:
Witness Comfortable •National Press Club
Lunches
The Wire •Old Time Georgetown
Writer Old School Salon
Journalism Models:
Desire •The Journalist
•The Booker
Desire •The Pre
Resistance • The Talent
The Seed •The Blogger
Models:
•The vineyard (Wire)
Models:
•Walter – the God
•Two women reporters
•Charley- the Talent
•High school teacher
Journalism

17. Object: Sense of Self
• Intention: Stabilize and Perform Fixed Identity
• Themes & Tensions:
– Hiding/Performing
– Desire/Embrace
• Coherence: In light of the past
• Identity as site of struggle for meaning
• Agency experienced as resistance/embrace
• Learning experienced as self-directed learning from experience
• Learning appeared as self-directed learning from experience
– Critical reflection on conventional values, standards, norms, procedures
– Watch/Rehearse: tools, role models, templates, genre
– Mix voice, keen observation, perform way out, tinker, rehearse, seek feedback
– Assessment: performance

18. Object: Media Practice
• Intention: Position Self in the Present Day Order (both emergent)
• Developmental Themes & Tensions:
– Open/Close: Rules/Contingency; Naming/Contingency
– Run Ahead/Claim Ground
• Coherence: In light of present and anticipated future
• Identity as ground
• Agency experienced as ability to name/claim; tool/resource to self and others
• Learning experienced as problem solving and articulated practice
• Learning appeared as Reflective Practice/Community of Practice
– Interactive learning with more competent peers
– Contrast self with models (not ‘the model’, many models)
– Real time trail and error with mediating artifacts: concepts, tools, roles
– Oscillate among perspectives and horizontal positions
– Chip away at perspectives: let things atrophy, leave things behind, unpack baggage
– Assessment: Bootstrapping – create conditions for future personal work and learning

19. Object: Media System
• Intention: Make sense of self a material reality
• Developmental Themes & Tensions:
– Multi-voice: narratives as well as communities
– Deconstruction/Integration
– Living with polarities and contradictions
• Coherence: Alignment with awareness of historic moment
• Agency experienced as ability to change the game
• Learning experienced as individual and cultural development
• Learning appeared as expansive learning and distributed cognition
– Vision: link and reframing
– Modeling: make and re-make
– Moving up and down ladder/system/ oscillate among horizontal positions
– Pragmatism – use knowledge and self like a tool
– Blend domain knowledge
– Assessment: Bootstrapping(dot)2: create conditions for emergent consciousness

20. New Media
Media convergence is a cognitive phenomena
– Decouple knowledge, skills, from subjectivities
– Blend Domain Knowledge: individual, group, system
– Placidly: retain, carry forward, and reform habits
– Distributive cognition: bootstrapping
– Articulated Praxis
Media convergence is a cultural phenomena
– You can make a difference
– Order and rules sets you free
– Capacity + ownership of tools sets you free
– Participation required for collective intelligence
– Expanded object: gift work, developmental play
– Learning as a way of relating
– Intentionally create conditions for own cognition

21. Thank you for your
interest and attention.