ABSTRACT
In this chapter we want to make a theoretical exploration into the concept “learning trajectory.” It has become widely circulated in many fields, and, not surprisingly, different authors in different academic traditions use the term quite differently. Our intention here is not to do a conceptual cleansing. We will restrict ourselves to the literature on professional learning and development where it has become more and more common to talk about “learning trajectories.” This state of the art concept is understandable for several reasons. First, it reflects a more common discontent in many fields of research with static notions like “competence,” “expertise.” Second, to speak of trajectories rather than a developmental process makes the diversity and multidimensionality of learning processes more salient. And third this term points to the embeddedness of trajectories in systems that varies along temporal and spatial dimensions. Professionals are members of a range of different institutions at the same time, and these may work together to provide very distinct learning opportunities. For example, career patterns (Brown, 2002) may tune the interests of individuals to a lifelong learning commitment, whereas a new tool may interact with such a trajectory and either force the practitioner into updating her skills or in resisting a change of working conditions. For members of professional communities, issues related to their knowledge domain are of strategic importance since it defines what they are and what they are entitled to do. Besides, modern working life is said to be characterized by “epistemification” (Stutt & Motta, 1998) as production processes become increasingly knowledge-dependent, and our use of codified knowledge is usually mediated by new technologies. By implication, trajectories that somehow link to these knowledge concerns may be crucially important when our theme is professional learning. We refer to them as “epistemic trajectories.”
