ABSTRACT
Growing awareness of the influence of power relations in shaping pedagogical agendas has provided considerable impetus for the issue of critical HRD learning. There has been a growing demand in the academic literature of the last few years for HRD educators to engage more critically with their subject than has been the tradition in business schools. The case has been argued for strengthening the critical perspective in contributor disciplines within management (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992) and for a revision of management education generally (French and Grey, 1996). It was probably just a matter of time before well-established critiques of prescriptive approaches to HRD should filter through to the way in which HRD learning is being advanced at a theoretical level. Little attention has been accorded to the issue of complexity, emotion and power in actually operationalising a critical HRD approach with practising managers. It is our belief that much of HRD pedagogy, even that which is intended to support a more critical approach, does not provide a structure or educational processes adequate to the task of working with, and developing an understanding of, emotions and power within HRD. Traditional mainstream HRD practice ignores emotions and power or contributes to their suppression. Alternative HRD pedagogies, while less hierarchical and placing more emphasis on personal and professional experience, reinforce the value of consensus, which either tends to deny power dynamics superficially or attempts to assimilate them. Drawing on the illustrations of students on a part-time Masters course (MA Strategic Human Resourcing), where a critical learning perspective was adopted, this chapter presents an examination of the concrete experiences of advancing such an approach and how emotions and complexity intersect with power relations. The chapter will draw on adult, management education and HRD literature, both mainstream and critical, in providing a review and critique of current practice, and address the following questions.
What importance is attached to emotions and power in the HRD education domain?
Are course methods intended to enable an examination of emotions and power, and is the emergent social milieu of the programme influenced by the nature of the power dynamics which students and tutors bring with them?
