Per-Olof Thång

Conditions for Learning During a Period of Change. Dilemmas and Disturbances on the Production Floor

According to powerful rhetoric, economic competition within the industry, related to globalization and new technology demands ‘something different’ — traditional solutions do not work any more. The traditional solutions are often related to Frederic Taylor and scientific management and a production system connected to mass production. A Tayloristic top-down command and control system where the work is planned in the office and carried out by the workers on the production floor should be replaced by flexible and competent workers in self-directed work teams (Karlsson & Eriksson, 2000; Sandkull & Johansson, 2000).

Workplace Learning in Higher Education: Two Examples from a Swedish Context

Abstract This chapter deals with aspects of the overall criticism in regard to higher education and its growing discrepancy between theory and practice, and the meaning of problem-based and authentic learning. The chapter is based on two specific cases that illustrate how higher education is organized in Sweden, and how education could be organized to correspond to the demands of authentic learning and a new form of knowledge production. Work-based learning started as an alternative to the ordinary three-year nursing program at a university college in the western part of Sweden. One main finding was that the students experienced the relation between the different types of teaching in the program as weak, and the different learning contexts in the program as being separate from each other. Higher Vocational Education (HVE) is a market-oriented vocational higher education program with close cooperation between an educational provider and working life. Work-based learning is a cornerstone of HVE, and authentic learning in a real-life setting constitutes a single course governed by its own syllabus. One main finding, was that students experienced a lack of progression in the work tasks and the subject content of the school-based education was not advanced enough. Workplace learning can serve as a structuring resource in education, but it can also be problematic because knowledge is inherent in routines and technologies.

Integration genom vuxen- och vidareutbildning : Landrapport Sverige

Sverige har sedan mitten av 1960-talet varit ett invandringsland. Invandringen kan variera stort mellan enskilda ar, och olika invandrargrupper staller skilda krav pa insatser for integration. Inva ...