Adult Learning and Technology in Working-Class Life

ISBN-13: 9780521817561 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 272 str.

Peter Sawchuk

Opis

This book explores the hidden world of everyday learning in the lives of manufacturing workers from a social perspective. It challenges the myth that everyday learning, despite its apparent openness and freedom, can be understood as class-neutral. Based on life-history interviews, selected ethnographic observations in homes and factories, and large-scale survey materials as well as the microanalysis of human-computer interaction, the analysis follows learning across the spheres of "working-class life" and draws on the author's personal experiences as a factory worker and academic.

Recenzje

'… Peter Sawchuk offers an engaging theoretical synthesis and empirical study of working-class computer learning … he fashions a lively and provocative analysis that reassesses adult learning theory and underscores the hidden but vital realm of informal learning across the multiple spheres of workplace, home, and community … it is a worthy addition to Cambridge University Press' Learning in Doing series.' Labour/Le Travail

Spis treści

1. Understanding learning, technology and social class: concepts and claims; 2. A historical materialist examination of theories of adult learning; 3. 'That's technology': understanding working-class perspectives on computer technology; 4. Microanalysis of worker's computer learning: two case studies of computer learning; 5. Working class computer learning networks: exploring the elements of collectivity and class habitus; 6. Understanding working-class standpoints in computer learning; 7. Oral culture, computer learning and social class; 8. Material barriers in working-class computer learning; 9. Contradiction and commodification in working-class computer learning; 10. Conclusions and implications.