ERIC Number: ED460283
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2001-Feb
Pages: 21
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Learning To Walk between Worlds--Informal Learning in Psychiatric Survivor-Run Businesses: A Retrospective Re-Reading of Research Process and Results from 1993-1999. NALL Working Paper.
Church, Kathryn
This working paper is intended to enrich an initial description of alternative businesses and A-Way Express Couriers, in particular. (A-Way, a 12-year-old community organization, is a psychiatric survivor-run alternative business.) The paper begins with a brief commentary on the psychiatric survivor movement and research on it. The paper traces the emergence and entrenchment of learning as a key feature of psychiatric survivor-run or alternative businesses. The methodology used is to re-read previous research projects and results through the lens of informal learning. Early research on psychiatric survivor-run businesses is reviewed in view of a definition of social learning with these three dimensions: solidarity learning, reshaping the definition of self, and organizational learning. A more detailed examination of informal learning processes at A-Way builds on a previously generated profile and is organized according to the three dimensions of social learning. Comments are based on face-to-face interviews with five employees from each of these three groupings within A-Way: couriers on commission, part-time office staff on salaries, and full-time management on salaries. The final section constructs a narrative account of one woman's learning at A-Way--how over nine years she moved from courier to executive director of the business on a journey that evokes the richness and complexity of informal learning in this context. (YLB)
Descriptors: Adult Education, Business, Community Development, Community Organizations, Developed Nations, Economic Development, Employer Employee Relationship, Empowerment, Foreign Countries, Individualized Programs, Informal Education, Lifelong Learning, Mental Disorders, Psychiatric Services, Rehabilitation, Social Support Groups, Socialization, Vocational Adjustment
For full text: http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/depts/sese/csew/nall/res/20learningto walk.htm.
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Ottawa (Ontario).
Authoring Institution: Ontario Inst. for Studies in Education, Toronto. New Approaches to Lifelong Learning.
Identifiers - Location: Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A