Exercising Self Through Working Life: Learning, Work and Identity

Abstract

This chapter discusses what motivates and directs individuals' lifelong learning. It proposes that individuals' sense of self shapes and is shaped by their participation and learning throughout working life through a quest to become themselves. In encouraging individuals to 'help themselves' in their learning throughout their working life, this learning is likely to be driven by personal intentions and their agency rather than the goals of others. Therefore, the agency and intentionality that directs that quest may not always coincide with the kinds of goals that government and employers want. Instead, helping oneself is likely to be directed by and towards their sense of self, which includes the negotiation of identity as they engage in work. It follows that in understanding the processes of learning and the remaking of work practice, a greater acknowledgement of individuals' sense of self needs acknowledging and to be accounted for in policies and practices associated with lifelong learning. Policy and policy-related initiatives might need to account for factors that motivate and engage individuals in the process of learning throughout working life and not assume that goals beyond the individual will be sufficient for mobilising that learning. Part I: Learning, self and work Exercising self through working life This chapter seeks to understand how individuals engage in and learn through work and throughout working life, for what purposes and how they are motivated to learn effortfully. Without such an understanding there can be little certainty about whether the expectations placed on individuals by government and employers about individuals' helping themselves will be fulfilled, in the ways they intend. So it is important to know more about how individuals participate in and learn throughout their working life, how they exercise their agency in participating in and learning through work, and for what purpose and how these are linked to their values and beliefs. In short, what is it that directs individuals' learning throughout working life? In what ways will the goals of government, industry groups and enterprises likely to be achieved through the actions of workers as actors and learners. It is advanced here that an individual's sense of self and its exercise through her or his agency and intentional acting does much to direct and shape this learning and also the ongoing remaking of the practices enacted at work. It proposes a greater acknowledgement and consideration of the interdependence between individual and social agency of employees, not just the actions of employers and government. This is warranted within current conceptions of learning throughout working life and, in particular, the role of individuals' quest to 'be themselves'. This quest includes the reshaping of that sense of self as individuals participate in and remake their work practice (Billett, Smith & Barker 2005; Billett & Somerville 2004). This may well lead to contradictions and complexities among the intentions of governments, employers and individuals. The contributions of both social agency, in the forms of suggestion provided through societal cultural practices and norms, the complex of social factors comprising 1