Lifelong learning and self: Work, subjectivity and learning

Abstract

The relations among learning, work and subjectivity are discussed here to offer explanations about how individuals direct their learning throughout their working lives. These explanations are salient for informing policy and practice about learning for, through and throughout working life. The prospects for realising the kinds of goals that governments, employers and workers want to achieve through their ongoing learning are embedded in these relations, through identifying the kinds of conceptual premises needed to understand what motivates, directs and sustains that learning. Central here is the role that individuals' subjectivity plays in explaining the relations between individuals and their work and learning for work and the relationships among them. Four distinct conceptions of self are presented and discussed in terms of how that subjectivity is represented across and within perspectives informing considerations of work and learning. These different conceptions aim to open up and energise the emerging discussion about the role of self or subjectivity in relations among learning, subjectivity and work. Proposed here is the view that the self arises through social experience and stands as the personal basis that mediates relations about work and learning throughout working life.