Knowledge and education for care workers: What do they need to know?

In paid care work, issues of knowledge and education, and of their measurement through qualifications and training, are a definitional minefield. One way of conceptualising knowledge is as a continuum (Greenwood 1957) from, at one end, concrete, specific and discrete items of information, and, at the other, generalised and theoretical systems, with all other knowledge between these two poles. The distinction between ‘education’ and ‘training’ is also not easy to make. For example, ‘education’ might refer to school, college or university-based courses and qualifications; ‘training’ to the workplace; and ‘learning by doing’, including competence-based qualifications emphasising a rather practical way of transferring knowledge. For the purposes of this chapter, however, we use ‘education’ as a generic term for the acquisition or construction of knowledge.