Summary - Chapter 3: Learning For Work
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LEARNING FOR WORK |
FORDISM: |
POST-FORDISM: |
PRODUCTIVE DIVERSITY: TOWARDS NEW LEARNING |
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Dimension 1: Technology |
• Mass production • Heavy industry and value in fixed capital, not the skills of workers |
• Application of information technologies, small batch production, flexible specialisation, adaptable systems |
• More knowledge |
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Dimension 2: Management |
• Strict hierarchy, work discipline, management |
• Teamwork, worker responsibility, management by consent: workers take on corporate culture, shared values, vision and mission |
• Negotiation of differences, local and global • Management through participation and collaboration |
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Dimension 3: Workers’ education and skills |
• Division of labour, specialisation, machines and the system designed by the skilled few, operated by many unskilled workers • Didactic education: discipline, minimal basic skills for most students, sifting and sorting a small, educated elite from the rest |
• Multi-skilling: a broad range of skills that can be flexibly applied • Authentic education: relevant, student- centred inquiry, building motivation and responsibility |
• New and constantly changing knowledge requirements of initiative, flexibility, innovation, creativity • Premium on interpersonal capacities, such as collaboration • The portfolio worker: diverse life experiences and networks valued • Transformative education: central to the economic and social life of knowledge society |
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Dimension 4: Markets and society |
• Cheap products for mass markets, mass consumption of uniform, generic products • Mass culture, cultural conformity and uniformity |
• Differentiated markets • Moving the Fordist workplaces to the developing world |
• Mass customisation for niche markets, links into diverse local and global markets • Knowledge society: economic and social value in human capacities and knowledge |