Putting knowledge and experience to work: the role of agency

Agency in adult life operates through engagements in and through the social world; it is exercised through the environments and institutional practices of everyday life in changing social landscapes. In working lives, the spaces in which human agency is exercised are regulated by professional bodies, through the setting of professional standards; by public policy, through the regulation of the employment relationship, and through wider systems for the management of employment, including government interventions. The development that takes place through the exercise of human agency is not that of the self-propelled autonomous individual but, rather, relational, and profoundly social in nature. Furthermore, the scope for agentic action in professional life reflects the bounds on agency and the affordances for learning that are embedded in work environments and institutional practices. The agentic processes inherent in the post-qualification learning of nurses in regulated hospital environments differ profoundly from the learning processes that characterise the free-lancers’ development of their craft as they continuously rinvent themselves in the pursuit of contract-based work, while ways in which workers in low-graded, low paid work express agency in and through learning underline the significance of recognition of capabilities by self and others across occupational contexts.

Titolo: Putting knowledge and experience to work: the role of agency
Tipo di pubblicazione: articolo
Anno di pubblicazione: 2024
Autore: Karen Evans
Rivista: IUSVEducation Supplemento al n. #23
Pagine: 54-68
Data di pubblicazione: luglio 2024
Editore: IUSVE – Istituto Universitario Salesiano
ISSN: 2283-642X

Come citare: Evans, K. (2024). Putting knowledge and experience to work: the role of agency. IUSVEducation, Supplemento al n. 23, 54-68. https://www.iusveducation.it/putting-knowledge-and-experience-to-work-the-role-of-agency/

Parole chiave: bounded agency, key workers, knowledgeable practice, workplace learning

Paper PDF: IUSVEducation_23_Supplemento_Evans_PUTTING_KNOWLEDGE_EXPERIENCE_WORK_ROLE_AGENCY.pdf

Abstract:

Agency can be conceptualised as a socially embedded, active, and potentially transformative process. Expressions of bounded agency are as representative of the distal effects of socioeconomic environments and cultural landscapes as they are reflective of individual capabilities and the proximal influences of workplace, family, and community. In learning and development, practitioners are generally disposed towards learning new capabilities that coincide with their own workplace and wider life and work goals. Yet agency is bounded in occupational fields that are highly differentiated as domains for agentic expression, not least because of fundamental differences in the knowledge frameworks that underpin the directing of work and the ways in which judgment is exercised in evaluating the scope and limits of agentic action. Furthermore, practitioners have their own personal histories that provide a platform for the ways in which they come to know, make sense of and act upon what they encounter in workplaces and in their wider professional lives. In this paper, dimensions of bounded agency are explored through examples in contrasting occupational fields. The first example is drawn from public sector professional practice; the second exemplifies free-lance or contingent work contexts; the third example focuses on key workers in typically low-graded occupations.

Mettere al lavoro conoscenza ed esperienza: il ruolo del concetto di agentività

Keywords: agentività limitata, lavoratori chiave, pratica consapevole, apprendimento sul posto di lavoro

Abstract:

L’agentività può essere concettualizzata come un processo socialmente incorporato, attivo e potenzialmente trasformativo. Le espressioni di agentività delimitata sono tanto rappresentative degli effetti distali degli ambienti socioeconomici e dei paesaggi culturali quanto esse riflettono le capacità individuali e le influenze prossimali del luogo di lavoro, della famiglia e della comunità. Nell’apprendimento e nello sviluppo, gli operatori sono generalmente disposti ad apprendere nuove capacità che riguardano il posto di lavoro con obiettivi più ampi di vita e di lavoro. Tuttavia, l’agentività è limitata in campi professionali che sono altamente differenziati a causa di diversità fondamentali nei quadri di conoscenza che sostengono la direzione del lavoro e nei modi in cui viene valutata l’agentività stessa. Inoltre, gli operatori hanno le loro storie personali che forniscono una base con cui conoscono, danno senso e agiscono su ciò che incontrano nei luoghi di lavoro e nelle loro vite professionali. In questo articolo, le dimensioni dell’agentività limitata sono esplorate attraverso esempi in campi professionali contrastanti. Il primo esempio è tratto dalla pratica professionale del settore pubblico; il secondo esemplifica contesti di lavoro libero o contingente; il terzo esempio si concentra sui lavoratori chiave in occupazioni tipicamente di basso livello.