School of Education

Room A33, Pathfoot Building
School of Education
University of Stirling
Stirling
Scotland
FK9 4LA

Tel: + 44 (0) 1786 467611

In January 2010, Tara moved to Scotland to join the School of Education, taking up a Chair in Professional Education. Formerly she was Professor and Head of Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her research has focused on lifelong learning and education in the everyday activity of ‘workplaces’ and organizations, with particular interest in understanding how identities, power relations and knowledge emerge in the rapidly changing conditions of globalized workplace practices.

Her remit at Stirling is broad and interdisciplinary: to promote innovative studies of professional knowledge, practices and learning across domains such as health care, management, social services and education, and to explore effective new approaches to support professional learning across contexts of higher education, workplace, and community. She has written extensively about theories of learning and gender in relation to work practices and education, most recently focusing on what some call ‘socio-material’ theories, particularly actor-network theory and complexity sciences. Her book Learning Through Experience: Troubling Assumptions and Intersecting Questions (Krieger, 2003) was granted the 2004 Cyril Houle Award of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education for Outstanding Contribution to Adult Education Literature.

Her empirical research has been qualitative and collaborative, drawing upon ethnographic and life history approaches. Recent large projects funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council include (1) an examination of older professionals’ informal learning and its relation to aging and generational issues; (2) a study exploring knowledge networks and practices of ‘portfolio’ workers (independent and mobile professionals who work with multiple employers and organizations simultaneously); and (3) a participatory research project studying social responsibility learning among small business owners, including professional firms. Her current project with Canadian colleagues Kathryn Church, Elizabeth Lange, Taylor Webb is comparing knowledge-creation practices of nurses, social workers and teachers in changing organizations, using an activity theory framework.

Publications to 2011.

Keynote address and public talks

Fenwick, T, Edwards, R. & Sawchuk, P. (2011). Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Sociomaterial. London: Routledge.

Fenwick, T. & Edwards, R. (2010). Actor network theory in education. London: Routledge.

Fenwick, T. & Parsons, J. (2009). The art of evaluating adult learners (2nd ed.). Toronto: Thompson Publishing

Farrell, L. & Fenwick, T. (Eds.) (2007). Educating for the global workforce: Knowledge, knowledge work, and knowledge workers. London: Routledge.

Billett, S., Fenwick, T. & Somerville, M. (Eds.) (2007). Work, learning, and subjectivity. New York: Springer.

Fenwick, T. (2010). Beyond individual acquisition: Theorizing practice-based learning in HRD. In M. van Woerkom & R. Poell (Eds.), Understanding learning in the workplace: Concepts, measurement and application (pp.). London: Routledge.
 
Fenwick, T. (2010). Standardization, innovation and learning in the workplace: Missions in complexity reduction. In D. Osberg and G. Biesta (Eds.), Education, complexity and politics (pp.).  Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
 
Fenwick, T. (2010). Policies for the knowledge economy: Knowledge discourses at play. In M. Malloch, L. Cairns, K. Evans & B. O’Connor (Eds.), The International Handbook of Workplace Learning (pp.). London: Sage.
 
Wallace, J., & Fenwick, T. (2010). Transitions in working dis/ability: Able-ing environments and dis-abling policies. In. A. Tayor & P. Sawchuk (Eds.), Transitions in Workplace Learning (pp.). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Fenwick, T. (2010). Workplace ‘learning’ and adult education: Messy objects, blurry maps and making difference. European Journal for Research in the Education and Learning of Adults, 1 (1-2), 79-96.

Fenwick, T. (2010). Learning to practice social responsibility in small business: Challenges and conflicts. Journal of Global Responsibility, 1 (1), 149-169.

Fenwick, T. (2010). Reading educational reform with actor network theory: Fluid spaces, otherings, and ambivalences. Educational Philosophy and Theory, online first, DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2009.00609.x

Fenwick, T. (2010). Rethinking the thing: Sociomaterial approaches to understanding and researching learning in work. Journal of Workplace Learning, 22 (1), 104-116.

Fenwick, T. (2010). (un)Doing standards in education with actor-network theory. Journal of Education Policy, 25 (2), 117-133.

Fenwick, T. (2009). Making to measure? Reconsidering assessment in professional continuing education. Studies in Continuing Education, 31 (3), 229-244.

Fenwick, T. (2009). Responsibility, complexity science and education: Dilemmas and uncertain responses. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 28 (2), 101-118.

Fenwick, T. (2008). Understanding relations of individual-collective learning in work: A review of research. Management Learning 39 (3), 227-243.

Fenwick, T. (2008). Women’s learning in contract work: Practicing contradictions in boundaryless conditions. Vocations and Learning, 1 (1), 11-26.

Fenwick, T. & Bierema, L. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: Issues for human resources development. International Journal of Training and Development, 12 (1), 24-35. (contribution: 90%)

Fenwick, T. (2008). Women learning in garment work: Solidarity and sociality. Adult Education Quarterly, 58 (2), 110-128.