Professional learning in new ecologies of knowledge
Approaches and concepts to explore
the relationship of knowledge to learning
in professional practice
ProPEL Symposium, Stirling, 24.06.10
Monika Nerland
Shifts in conditions for professional work
Professionalism infused with managerialism
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Accountability regimes
Performance indicators, output measures
Individualization of responsibilities
But, also more emphasis on collaboration
Epistemification: A ’spill-over’ of epistemic culture
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Increased emphasis on science-generated knowledge
More abstract and symbolic inputs
A quest for transparency in knowledge creation and use
The spread of epistemic practice – ways of exploring,
testing, validating, documenting knowledge
“The transition to knowledge societies “involves more than
the presence of more experts, more technological
gadgets, more specialist rather than participant
interpretations. It involves the presence of knowledge
processes themselves (…), the presence of epistemic
practice”
(Knorr Cetina, 2001: 177)
In the professions
Increased focus on establishing links to science
– Evidence-based practice
– New academic disciplines established to serve the professions
Transnational discourses and complex circuits of knowledge
– Knowledge ‘on its travels’ in a myriad of forms
– Frame regulation and validation of professional knowledge and
competencies
More ‘epistemic’ modes of practice
– Exploring, validating, documenting, testing, re-inventing,…
– Use of more complex instruments and artifacts
Challenges for (researching) professional learning
Approaching abstract knowledge and to make use of such knowledge
in professional work is increasingly important
Circuits of knowledge and participation structures stretch beyond the
local community
Enrolment of practitioners in a profession-specific knowledge culture
becomes a critical condition for engagement
Active and critical engagement depends on ‘epistemic reflexivity’ understanding knowledge beyond the context of application
Accounting for the symbolic and material dimension of practice: the
circulation and engagement with knowledge objects
Epistemic cultures and practices
(Karin Knorr Cetina)
“Cultures that produce and warrant knowledge”
 Constitutive of knowledge and the knower
 Produce logics of engagement and responsibilities
 Generate knowledge objects for practitioners to engage with
 Operate across organizational boundaries
The relationship of knowledge processes to
learning - two interrelated accounts
a) Epistemic cultures as ‘machineries of knowledge construction’
“those amalgams of arrangements and mechanisms - bonded through
affinity, necessity, and historical coincidence which, in a given field, make
up how we know what we know” (Knorr Cetina, 1999)
b) Epistemic cultures as collective ‘epistementalities’
“By a knowledge culture I mean (…) an ‘epistementality’ of particular
beliefs about, for example, the correct distribution of knowledge, the
naturalness of access to it, the particular ways knowledge should be
handled and inserted into personal and organizational life. Such
epistementalities also take form as particular organizational arrangements
of roles and agencies”. (Knorr Cetina, 2006)
In the professions:
The organization and collective comprehension of...
 Knowledge production
(e.g. scientific achievements, personal experiences, approaches to verification)
 Knowledge accumulation
(e.g. cumulative and vertical logics vs horizontal logics, unification vs. diversification)
 Knowledge distribution
(e.g. forms of mediation, patterns of codification, local-global outreach)
 Knowledge application
(e.g. ways of enacting general principles in particular settings, standards vs.
differentiation)
Example
Production
www.pfi.uio.no/prolearn
Computer engineers
Teachers (elementary)
Technological advancements in
global markets
Personal experience in local
settings
Accumulation Vertical and horizontal structures
Organizational accumulation
Consistency, unification
Horizontal structures
Individual accumulation (?)
Diversification
Distribution
Technological artefacts
Codified knowledge/procedures
Standards, ‘best practices’
Global arenas and authority
Personal interaction
Personal/tacit knowledge
Lack of collective standards (?)
Local arenas and authority (?)
Application
Technical-experimental rationality
Specialized tasks
Work-based knowledge privileged
over subject knowledge
Personalized judgement (?)
All-embracing tasks
Subject matter knowledge
defined by teaching content
Knowledge objects and object-related learning
• Complex amalgams of material and symbolic resources
which constitute a problem area
• Characterised by their question-generating character and
their display of unfulfilled opportunities
• Invite different interpretations and patterns of use
• Potential for increased complexity
• Simultaneously ready to be used and in transformation
(Knorr Cetina 1997, 2001, 2006)
Since knowledge objects are always in the process of being materially
defined, they continually acquire new properties and change the
ones they have.
They should be understood “not only as the goal and target of
professional work but as relational objects which make relational
demands and offer relational opportunities to those who deal with
them”. (Knorr Cetina, 2006, p. 32)
Examples:
• Models for medical treatment,
• Computer programmes,
• Standards for auditing the potential value of firms,
• The concept of care,
• ...
Knowledge objects have the potential to
• Stimulate shifts between explorative - confirmative practice
• Link practitioners up with a wider knowledge culture
• Invite engagement within multiple time-scales
• Become objects of attachment –> socially binding
This perspective…
Highlights the interdependency between knowledge cultures,
knowledge objects, and individuals’ commitment to a field of
expertise
Sensitizes us to how objects link up different ’levels’ of
practice within a wider knowledge culture
Draws attention to the interplay between experimental and
confirming modes of practice – as dynamics of learning
Points to the social role of knowledge and its potentially
enchanting and motivating capacity
But:
Tensions and collective negotiations is perhaps not
sufficiently addressed
The epistemic dimension may be over-emphasized and the
value of (bodily anchored) routines underplayed
Individuals’ ways of reasoning and understanding are
blackboxed
In relation to other socio-material approaches
Compared with CHAT:
• Sees the development and circulation of knowledge as the prime
source of change (more than contradictions – cf. Guile 2009)
• ‘Knowledge object’ as both tool and object
• Emphasis on mechanisms for attachment and affiliation
Compared with ANT:
• Shares the notion of objects as ‘doers’
• But: reinstalls the subject in a relational, dissociative dynamic between
subject and object
• Accounts for knowledge - as self-multiplying
• Attempts to conceptualize knowledge cultures at different societal
‘levels’
References
Abbott, A. (1988) The System of Professions. University of Chicago Press
Callon, M. (2002) Writing and (re)writing devices as tools for managing complexity. In Law & Mol, Eds,
Complexities: Social studies of knowledge practices. Duke University Press
Guile, D. (2009). Conceptualizing the transition from education to work as vocational practice: lessons
from the UK’s creative and cultural sector. British Educational Research Journal, 35 (3) , pp. 259270.
Jensen, K., & Lahn, L. (2005). The binding role of knowledge. An analysis of nursing students'
knowledge ties. Journal of Education and Work, 18, 305-318.
Lahn, L. C. & Jensen, K. (2007). Models of professional learning. Exploring the epistemic tool
perspective. Knowledge, work & society, Vol 4 (3), 62-82.
Knorr Cetina, K. (2007). Culture in global knowledge societies: Knowledge cultures and epistemic
cultures. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 32(4), 361-375.Knorr Cetina, K. (2006) Knowledge in
a Knowledge Society: Five Transitions. Knowledge, Work and Society, 4(3), 23-41.
Knorr Cetina, K. (2001) Objectual Practice. In T. Schatzki, K. Knorr Cetina, E. von Savigny (Eds), The
Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (pp. 175-188). London: Routledge.
Knorr Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Nerland, M. (2008) Knowledge cultures and the shaping of work-based learning: the case of computer
engineering. Vocations and Learning: Studies in vocational and professional education, 1, 49-69.
Nerland, M. & Jensen, K. (2010) Objectual practice in professional work. In S. Billett (Ed), Learning
through practice. Springer