Abstract
This chapter discusses how many of the contributions to this edited volume infer, emphasise or directly state that interdependencies between societal and personal factors shape how individuals work and learn, but also of the relations between working and learning. Hence, when taken as a central explanatory concept, interdependencies seem ubiquitous to much of the discussion, theorisations and accounts of work and learning and the boundaries between them found within this volume. For this reason, it is necessary to elaborate what constitutes interdependencies and the ways in which they constitute a comprehensive explanatory account of processes of working and learning. This elaboration is achieved through defining and delineating the central role of interdependencies in both work and learning, and the relations between them, followed by a set of three premises upon which such an explanation is founded. Then, an elaboration is advanced of these interdependencies in terms of the suggestion and projection of the social world and also the personal process of construing and constructing what is experienced and in responding to it in personally agentic ways. Central to this interdependence is the active and engaged participation by individuals in both work and learning. This intentional and often agentic participation stands as a key mechanism that both creates and of that interdependence. Throughout, and in making this case, the contributions to this volume are drawn upon and discussed in terms of how interdependencies are central to their accounts of the relations between working and learning.
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Notes
- 1.
It is also possible to suggest that brute facts (i.e. those of nature) should be included as a third set of factors. These are both personal and societal. Human maturation contributes to the way in which individuals construe and construct knowledge (i.e. physical strength, sensory processes, etc.). Many occupational practices are societal responses to the brute world (e.g. the need for shelter, sustenance, care when sick, etc). However, for the purposes of this chapter, these are located within the sets of personal and societal factors outlined here.
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Billett, S. (2014). Interdependence on the Boundaries Between Working and Learning. In: Harteis, C., Rausch, A., Seifried, J. (eds) Discourses on Professional Learning. Professional and Practice-based Learning, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7012-6_18
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