ERIC Number: EJ872168
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Mar
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0039-3746
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Transnational Discourses of Knowledge and Learning in Professional Work: Examples from Computer Engineering
Nerland, Monika
Studies in Philosophy and Education, v29 n2 p183-195 Mar 2010
Taking a Foucauldian framework as its point of departure, this paper discusses how transnational discourses of knowledge and learning operate in the profession of computer engineering and form a certain logic through which modes of being an engineer are regulated. Both the knowledge domain of computer engineering and its related labour market is heavily internationalised and characterised by a general focus on universalism and standardisation. Moreover, rapid shifts in technologies and institutional arrangements contribute to an embracement of more wide-ranging discourses related to lifelong learning and the enterprising self. Thus, dominant discourses of knowledge and learning within this profession reflect processes of globalisation and take a transnational character. The paper discusses how the discourses in play constitute mechanisms of governmentality that present certain expectations to professionals and shape their energies, efforts and desires in certain directions. In order to be influential, however, the discourses depend on individuals who take up the subject positions offered and enact them in locally relevant and partially creative ways. Thus, careful analyses of the discourses in specific knowledge communities, as well as of their interrelated subject positions, may enhance our understanding of the more epistemic dimensions of globalisation and how these come to influence the imaginations of individuals as "citizens of the world."
Descriptors: Labor Market, Lifelong Learning, Discourse Analysis, Engineering, Computer Science, Influence of Technology, Work Environment, Epistemology, Educational Philosophy, Educational Environment, Social Environment, World Views, Social Theories, Values, Global Approach, Self Concept, Professional Personnel
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
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Language: English
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