Interdependencies at work: Constituting reflection, performance, dialogue and reward

Abstract

This paper discusses progress in a two-year study of the work, working lives and learning of twelve workers. They comprise four groups of three workers in an emergency service, a gymnasium, a restaurant and IT help desk. The concept of relational interdependence between individual and social agency (Billett 2005), is used to understand their participation, learning and remaking of cultural practices. These are held to be products of the interdependence between social suggestion and individual agency and are enacted at the intersection between the social and cognitive experience comprising the engagement in work. In seeking to elaborate the bases of these interdependencies and their consequences for changes to individuals' cognitive experience and sense of self, and the remaking of cultural practices, four partially linked and overlapping bases for understanding the processes of interdependencies emerge. These are: (i) reflection and review (i.e. reflection); (ii) performance roles (kinds of selves developed in the workplace); (iii) prospects for dialogue (i.e. opportunities for interpersonal interactions); and (iv) how conceptions of rewards and recognition are constructed. In different but distinct ways these four bases provide a means to elaborate interdependencies at work, thereby providing a platform to analyse processes of individual learning and the remaking of work practices and concepts.