ABSTRACT
In my work as an educator of workplace-based adult educators and in staff development, I have felt increasingly dissatisfied with the dimensions of the debate over learning in the workplace. In my analysis, the mainstream adult education literature in this area has assumed an uncritical position on the nature of work and of work organisation. This is reflected in the lack of attention given to a discussion of power in the workplace as a crucial feature of workplaces and hence the environment for learning, and in the silence in the literature on issues of gender and culture as defining features of the context. Where power inequalities or struggles between groups of people in the workplace – such as workers and managers – are touched on in this material, the conflict tends to be dismissed as a feature of the environment that can be managed through the skilful application of ‘technique’ by ‘change agents’ (see, for example, Watkins and Marsick, 1992).
