Home Page > Digital libraries > Cape Town 2007

International Conference

Researching Work and Learning

Organized by the
The Universities of the Western Cape and Cape Town
In association with
the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA)
and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

Cape Town, South Africa, Stellenbosch Protea Hotel
2-5 December 2007

Presentation

The Researching Work and Learning Conference (RWL5) will be held in Cape Town, South Africa from 2 - 5 December 2007.  The conference will aim to provide the space for rethinking 'work', 'knowledge' and 'learning' within a context where the global economy increasingly challenges the traditional dichotomies between home-life and work-life, between employment and unemployment, paid work and unpaid work.

In southern Africa, as in many parts of the world, the social and economic impact of globalisation is uneven and contradictory.  A core of 'insiders' who form part of global economic networks, or have been drawn into new regional elites represents the 'centre'; the 'margins' comprise a growing proportion of people who have lost their formal jobs and are precariously attached through activities in the informal economic sector, or are excluded as part of the unemployed periphery.  In this part of the world, poverty and unemployment are the major social issues, compounded by the HIV/Aids pandemic.

Growing inequality both within and between countries requires us to pose some questions anew:

• what do we mean when we talk about 'work', 'knowledge' and 'learning'?
• who are we referring to when we talk about the changing identities and roles of educators and learners?
• what are the key organisational and institutional sites that mediate learning and the production of new knowledge?
• what theoretical perspectives might allow us to think more inclusively about work, knowledge and learning in the current global context?

The aim of the RWL5 conference will be to promote a truly global conversation about researching work and learning which enables us to rethink the 'centre' and rethink the 'margins' from a variety of countries and perspectives.  At the same time the conference will strive to inject local southern African research issues and debates into the discussions, not in order to be parochial, but to deepen and enrich our understandings about 'work' and 'learning' globally.

Sub-themes are:

Learning in formal and informal work contexts:

• the workplace as an environment of learning for all
• the role of trade unions in promoting wider participation in learning
• the implications of diverse forms of work for learning and knowledge
• training in the context of casualization and feminization of work
• education/training responses for those who are economically marginalised or excluded
• educating people for a world of migration
• the social implications of new technologies of knowledge management
• work, learning and identity-construction

Learning and social development:

• education for sustainable development
• training for a 'care economy' (reproduction of people and services at the level of the household/local community)
• work and learning in the context of war and refugee status
• community education, social movement learning or trade union education

Re-theorising knowledge:

• its academic, economic and social purposes
• traditional hierarchies of knowledge and new modes of knowledge production
• re-thinking the boundaries between mental and manual labour, vocational and general education, theory and practice, and between disciplines
• recognizing non-dominant forms of knowledge (experiential learning, informal learning, indigenous knowledge)

Working and learning in higher or further/vocational education institutions:

• the university or college as a workplace
• corporatisation of research and teaching in higher education
• marketisation of further/vocational education
• higher education and social responsiveness
• curriculum responsiveness in further education: the potential and limits of employability
• the meaning of graduateness: transitions from higher education to work
• access to digital technology and online learning opportunities

Work, learning and policy

• accounting for shifts in education and training policies
• the role of national qualification frameworks
• technological innovation, employmetn and the labour market
• the 'spaces' between policy formulation and policy implementation

Key dates

Guidelines for submissions

If you want your paper refereed, it should be submitted as a double spaced WORD document or PDF file in the format specified.  Please do not include any author details in this verson; put all author details on a separate file to the paper.

After the refereeing process, you will be asked to amend or to simply submit your FINAL, single spaced paper, as per the specification below by 14 September 2007.

Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 May 2007

Conference's official web site

Please check the conference's official web site for furhter details and updates.

---------------------------------------------------------------------^^^