Transitions in Work and Learning

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HOW ARE JOBS CHANGING IN BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS THAT ARE MOVING TOWARD HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORK? The second session of the conference provided an opportunity to explore the changing nature of jobs and to evaluate skill demands in two particular workplaces. The session focused on changes occurring in the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HOW ARE JOBS CHANGING IN BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS THAT ARE MOVING TOWARD HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORK? The second session of the conference provided an opportunity to explore the changing nature of jobs and to evaluate skill demands in two particular workplaces. The session focused on changes occurring in the occupations of automobile repair and circuit board assembly, based on ethnographic evidence in the research of Bonalyn Nelsen, student exchange scholar at Stanford University, and Glynda Hull, associate professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley. Although limited in the generalizability of its findings, the kind of ethnographic case studies that Nelsen and Hull reported can provide a rich, insider's view of changes in specific organizations. Both Nelsen and Hull emphasized the importance of social and communications skills as determinants of successful workplace adaptation by workers. For example, learning and utilizing the language of one's field, the jargon, has implications for day-to-day success on the job. Both presenters suggested that workers typically use some combination of job-specific means of communication with an accompanying set of appropriate occupation-specific skills that depends, in part, on previous schooling. Nelsen has spent several years looking at the job of automobile repair technician and the significance of mastering specific social skills to success as a mechanic. Her evidence suggests that: (1) learning on the job is a necessary part of becoming a top-level auto repair technician and (2) such learning builds on social skills as well as more traditional academic skills and learning ability. Nelsen's research concentrates on social capital?the skills and knowledge required to evaluate and respond to situational demands in socia...