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Relational Skill and the Competence Debate

The Relational Skill and the Competence Debate page is for the study of relational perspectives on skill and learning, and the application of such perspectives on the competence debate.

The term relational skill has been adopted to refer to social process perspectives on the nature of skill, competence, capability, learning, performance etc. Whereas dominant orthodoxy on these issues treat them as attributes of entities (particularly individuals but also, by extension, organisations and societies), a relational perspective examines the social processes by and through which these are constructed.
 
Papers

Beyond Learnerism: Learning, Practices, Emergent Identity
Presented at the Fifth International Conference on HRD Research and Practice across Europe, University of Limerick, May 2004

The learning turn in education and training: liberatory paradigm or oppressive ideology?
Paper presented at 'Critique and Inclusivity: Opening the Agenda', 3rd International Critical Management Studies Conference, Manchester July 2003

Higher Education and the Learning Agenda: A Degenerative Programme?
paper presented at 'Students and Learning: What is changing?', Annual conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education, Glasgow, December2002

Can only managers (learn to) manage?: Management, practice and trajectories of emergent identity
Paper presented to 3rd International Connecting Learning and Critique Conference
Cambridge University, 17th -19th July 2002

Emergent identity, education and distributed assessment: an ethnomethodological exploration
paper presented at "Ethnomethodology: A Critical Celebration conference", University of Essex, March 2002

Decontaminating the concepts of 'learning' and 'competence': education and modalities of emergent identity
Paper presented in Education Stream of Second International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Manchester, 2001

Is Learning a Contaminated Concept?
Paper prepared for Learning and Practice Conference of the Learning and Critique Network, Manchester, 8 Nov 2000

Reframing Learning: Performance, Identity and Practice
Presented at Critical Contributions to Managing and Learning: 2nd Connecting Learning and Critique Conference, Lancaster University, July 2000

Reframing the skills agenda in higher education: graduate identity and the double warrant
Presented at conference on The Future Business of Higher Education, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, March 2000

The Making of Black Managers: Unspoken Issues of Identity Formation.
(with Gilbert Robinson).
Presented at The 1st International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Manchester School of Management, UMIST, 14th -16th July 1999

Learning as a confidence trick: exorcising the ghost in the machine
Paper presented to conference on Emergent Themes in Management: Connecting Learning and Crtique, Lancaster University and Leeds University, held at University of Leeds, 15-17th July 1998.

The Making of Real Managers: Ideology, Identity and Management Development
Presented at Conference on "The Strategic Direction of Human Resource Management: Understanding and Practising Human Resource Management", Nottingham Business School, December 1995

Is competence a 'confidence trick'?
Keynote presentation at 'What is Competence?', the inaugural conference of The Competence Network, Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester, 1st December 1994.

The Domestication of Management Knowledge? Recent UK State Intervention in Management Education
Presented at 1993 Colloquium of the European Group for Organisational Studies, on "The Production and Diffusion of Managerial and Organisational Knowledge"

Understanding Professional Competence: Beyond the Limits of Functional Analysis
presented at Course Tutors' Conference, Institute of Personnel Management at UMIST, 6-8 July 1992

Dysfunctional Analysis? A Critical Analysis Of The 'Standards In Training & Development' (with Sheila Marsh)
Presented at conference 'A Qualified Success? Critical Perspectives on Competence Based Education and Training', held at Polytechnic of North London, 27 September 1990