IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/alresp/v7y2010i2p151-166.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning in the wild

Author

Listed:
  • James Conklin

Abstract

This paper argues that learning is a natural social process that leads to the construction of meaning, which involves the creation of experiences of coherence, purpose, identity and competence. Learning that yields a coherent social context, a worthy or compelling purpose, a strong, integrated identity and increasing levels of competence results in an experience of meaningful work. Learning as a social process is characterized by the property of capacity . Any given group will have a capacity to learn and it will be difficult for that group to take on a learning challenge that is beyond its present capacity. If a group, for example, is short-handed and is carrying out work that members see as urgent and important, then the group may focus its efforts on maintaining its equilibrium and creating stability and may diminish its capacity to adapt to change by taking on new ideas and approaches. Such a group might also have a diminished capacity to bring newcomers into the community -- which is the very thing that it needs to do if it is to overcome the problem of being short-handed. These propositions will be illustrated by a specific example: teams of frontline caregivers in a long-term care facility in Canada.

Suggested Citation

  • James Conklin, 2010. "Learning in the wild," Action Learning: Research and Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 151-166, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:alresp:v:7:y:2010:i:2:p:151-166
    DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2010.488327
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14767333.2010.488327
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14767333.2010.488327?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:alresp:v:7:y:2010:i:2:p:151-166. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CALR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.