Nice lunch spread.

St. Louis , Missouri next year — here we come! The presentation they made makes St. Louis seem nicer than I remember when I was there many years ago,

The proposal for having the next conference in England sounds like a great idea, but the airfare costs may be prohibitive for many, especially as next year will be the 50th Anniversary.

I left the luncheon mid-way, since I wanted to tweak our presentation one last time.

Just met Patricia Cranton, who I studied with in an online class and who has been one of the people I have been looking to meet during the conference. She is most gracious and nice.

I then just met Rosemary Cafferella. Nice to meet her as well after using so many of her materials over the years.

Elizabeth E. Bennett

intereested in how the designed look and feek t web pages may provide an experience for learning

little is know about how culture shapes technology

Intranet - definition - Intranet defined here as a private organiaational  enwetwork baase dprimarily on Web technology and is comprised of shared documents and software application that help members fulfill their organizational mission

Research questions–

1. How does the Intranet  provide an opportunity for learning about organizational culture?

To support the purpose, the culture of the case organization was examined

First wanted to understand the culture

Organizational culture is the shared beliefs, values, and assumptions that determine how members interpret events and act in an organizational environment

knowledge management - tacit and explicit knowledge, she sees a connection between knwoeldge management and organizational learning

she was given open access to the organization–Beacon Communityu Hospital in the Southeast USA with 3000 employees. she was given as much of the same openness as any emplitee, especially as IT staff. HIPAA and other confidential information was of course offlimits, That would have been beyond the focus of her work anyway. She searched for organizations, and while searching, a colleague of hers gave her contact to the CIO at the hospital.

MY QUEESTION — How did you get access to this organization? I work in healthcare, and know how difficult that can be.

Used a book - Quick ethnographies - for studies with small time frames

Edgar Schines book on typical subcultures - operatives, engineering group, clinical people

Strategic use of the INternet.

Range of ages and positions for variation

As she was in a cubivcle embedded within the organization, she staretd to do participant observation. She moved from a non-participant to a participant role,.

The hospital won custimer service awards, and used to be known as a high tech hospital for clinincal work, but that had changed with them being more internally technical savvy. The current administration  helped to make the transition to being more high-tech, and they then started to win customer service awards.

The Intranet was 6 years old, and the CIO inititiated this, and it was not forced on the organization. It started to get more widely used because departments started to get more interested for their own and their department uses. They named their Intranet a name — IAN — Information As Needed — they treat the INtranet as a colleague, with a personalized component

The culture at the Hospital -

1. People-centered
2. Highly congruent with values
3. strategically decentralized
4. date driven
5. organic in nature

Tremendous emphsia on values and th culture– the information is listed on the back of their nameetage

Findings-

1. Experiencing the wider organization, since people feel isoltaed, IAN helps them to feel more connected. Fostered a sense of being colleagues (even in with their internal classifieds and daprtment pages
2. Recognizing aand reqrding performance. There is the belief that recognition builds relationsips . Even performance reviews and evaluations are managed and tracked via the Intranet. 20% of notes were notes of thanks
3. Reinforcing organizational expectations — ingrains procedures and ensures response. OSHA counter is cultural symbol that holds meaning for employees. They also track who digitally signs articles that they have read things, so all that can be tracked. At first when she saw the OSHA counter on the homepage, but she found that evey interview mentioned the OSHA counter. She initially did not code this, but then through the interviews, that it was very important
4. Modeling corporate communication style. Graphics convey imporatntace of information

Conlsuions - CUltural knowledge is conveyed and renewed through the intranet

Discussion - shows culture and communication style

reflects and integrative culture that is aligned along shard values (sheridan et al. 1993)

communication through the INternet not statis

shapes culture

culture could changes over time in positive and negative ways

change could occur “under the rader”

95% of the employees have access to the Intranet. Every new emlpoyee has acces to the INtranet  They believed that access to the Intrant is  a xopr right, so all people had access, even in the nursing stations, there were PCs i the breakroom and the and nursing stations. Every new employee is oriented to the INternet

I am now thinking about some other issues, such as to what exent should I add something I missed from yesterday’s Brookfield / Peterson discussion. ELizabeth mentioend how the room was so full to see Broeekfuield, not necessarily their subject of their research. This now seems familiar, so I am not sure if I ewrote this yesterday. This issue needs to be explored– how much more complete should the data be if I missed something from the previous day but then recall it? In more traditional resaerch, I would adjust the reaults of the unterview notes if member checking shows me I missed something.

A question about how people can update the Internet, such as chatrooms (which they tried and did not work), nor do people tend to use blogs. Somebody in the audience was pushing the issue about how dissent and critique are handled, in relation to the intranet. They have a culture where people, without their managers, meet with the senior leadership to air issues. There are avenues outside the intranet to address and handle problems. They have anonymous suggestion box in the intrant as well as offline as well.

MY QUESTION - what technology platform so they use for the internat. They do not use Sharepoint. They use Oracle databases, have an internal email, and people connect in a variety of ways.

Kris Wells & Ray Johnson

Policy and Practice - Positive Space

Ray began by reading a poem

He works in a rural area. Policy #795

Race Relations Cross Cultural understanding and Human Rights - RCH liaison

People would call that they wanted to discuss these issues, but the area is so homophobic and rural and fundamentalist, that people would not do this

he wrote a Preamble that did not have the term tolerance, since that term has negative connotations

he has found that this new policy has released the pent up demand, people do not know how to put this into place.

the problem with education is it is hierarchical, paternalistic, and isolationistic, so he stated this is dangerous work for him. Education is very behind the times in Canada, so he is trying to play catch-up. Teacher and parents and students have these rights and have to be trained to use them.

he teaches in an inclusive manner

the

www.egale.ca - the entire policy is there in PDF format and is downloadable.

policy is one thing, and implementation is another. 

it is about moving out of the community, not only working within the community. This wat peeople, such as the divas, can be part of the community and give back to it by working in it and performing for it, since this is about getting out to the larger audience.

once the policy was approved, and the surface barriers were removed. Then comes the real work of addressing the deeper-seated issues that still tend to counter the issues the policy is established to address

the policy is wonderful, but the systemic backlash within those systems shows how it can be very challenging to implement the policy

“You should offer the legitimate voices of equity their own power” 

“He has a place to give voice to who he is.”

Steven A. Schapiro

Issues of what it means to be a man, masculinity, issues with his wife. Around race and gender and interconnected areas while he was doing his doctoral work. He now teaches in Fielding Graduate University with other middle-age men.

He is working on a model that cuts across various issues, such as Freire’s notion that people’s vocations is to become more fully human.

The slides were a bit difficult to read, as they has white text on a light background.

How can we connect personal limitations to larger issues.

Michael Kaufman, who wrote about finding a link between our power and our powerlessness. A reproduction of patriarchy is continued through this. If we can understand the pain through these issues,

An integrated model of an anti-sexist pedagogy for men

T group, Freire’s education for critical consciousness, and anti-oppressive education

Anti-oppressive is social justice education, which

Also used Kegan with defending, surrendering, and reintegrating - with holding environments needed to support those functions. 

This work is about phases and different learning environments from a course he developed and  teaches over a semester or through short-term intensives.

He causes disequilibrium first, rather than just tell people that they have to be fixed or have to change. After this experience and the freezing / unfreezing happens, he then works with support and action groups to help maintain the the changes and to prevent reverting once they get back to the initial settings.

National Association of Men against Oppression of Woman

There was a question about taking this model outside the classroom

All kinds of masculinities, and he looks at the intersection of gender and race and class. Homophobia and heterosexism. He spoke about homophobia as holding the glue of sexism together.

Breaking through and experiencing our own pain, then allows for the ability to then do something with this.

MY QUESTION -  can you clarify some of the assumptions you make about the men you work with?

• he never knows who he will get and what their issues may be when they begin. One assumption he makes is that all men are raised in a society that is sexist, and that is in the air we breathe and is everywhere. People do not want to be told they are bad and should be changed. It is important for people to get in touch with gender roles and how they keep them from the relationships they want and how those toles are linked to structures of sexism.

Another question was about how he does not undertsnad what he would learn in the course and to be more the life of the person he wants to be when he is done. How or what would be learned? Have to give people the tools for how to change.

SOmebody asked if he uses appreciative inquiry in this issue. Once people think about what it means to be a man and some positive experiences of this, then that is part of the creatring part to be a model or vision.

Thoughts include:

1. Blog project - need to clarify the methodology
2. GLBT and gender issues in HRD within the AHRD Proceddings and Journals (from the work of how feminism is within HRD literature).

Ursula T. Wright  Tonette S. Rocco

Ursula was the principle author of the paper, and she is not here since her vacation was canceled.

Dorothy Smith started the work with institutional ethnography. Tonette will speak about Ursula’s work with institutional ethnography. Derrick Well - Faces at the Bottom of the Well. She talked about Derrick Bell, a critical race theorist. She spoke this story that space people came and would relieve all American debt policy, etc., if all African Americans in the US were given to them. Typical research is a few sides of an issue. Institutional Ethnography instead look at this within a larger system. Race and how race relations are are different in different contexts. IE tries to address some of this.

I need to look for a research method / framework for this liveblogging research.

Tonette spoke about the way that researchers

social practice is embedded in particular social context.

Eberything around white people is around whiteness as being the norm. Likewise, outside the US the US seems to see itself as the norm.

IE looks at the micro and the macro. It is a critical ethnography. The institution in IE is not always an organization. Rather, it is about institutional systems that cross many sites, such as systemic racism. Ethnography is a method that helps us look at culture. It is a way to look at local settings and administration.

This method helps us to surface voices that often do not get problemetized.

individual experiences are organized by larger power relations.

Thus, when we look at an issue, there are many factors that feed into an issue.

The goal is to uncover and actively combat the power relations asking  “How does this happen as it does?” Ruling relations, and an analysis of power.

Using IE, there are many latyers and issues involeved with how th problem is identified and then used. This method is not about the topic or object, but raryyhter the entry point into undertsanding the ruling relations. She discussed the various ways of observing and then colecting data. She gave lots of examples from the book she mentioend, and then she spoke about hw to train to be a good observer. This also includes document analysis and formal policies in a workplace. then, look at the poliicies in place within the local community that feeds into the power relationships. The training is more about how to observe and be a good observer.

Data findings in IE. Create a map or diagram or flowchart of the way the power moves. Then uncover the texts and the stories and how they are in the power relations that come out in new ways. One of the findings is to have new policies put into place and then make a difference back in the organizational structures. It should not just stay within an academic context.

Uncovers limitations.

The same baggage we take within us in relationships is the same as when we are learning.

This is based on the work of Dorothy Smith, where the work is based on feminism. A question from the audience discussing how things are institutionalized because they repeat regularly until they are institutionalized as lived and embodied senses of power within our organizations and how we are actually.

Some good quesitons about this methodology.

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Elizabeth A. Peterson & Stephen D. Brookfield

Their paper came out of conversations between the two of them for several years, they thought this was a problem that this has not been done in some time. There is a real need in this country for a dialogue, such as with Michael Richards and his tirade and then with Don Imus and his comments and firing. ONce that flurry comes, then it will die out. They then wanted to have a one on one discussion. It is difficult for two people, one black and one white to have this dialioge (she is black and he is white). When whites think about racism, they are thinking about overtly racist act. Comments Imus made were socially unaccessptible. Thus, since whites find those things unacceptable, and those acts were rascist, thus whites do not see other evidence of racism

Thus, there is a disconnect and inability to come to an understanding of racism.

First positioned seld in critical race theory and then critical theory, and then they moved within their own narratives and their childhood experiences.

She recalled the first time she was called the N word, when she was in 9 in fourth grade. Then, in the school, the boys were told to apologize, but due to a subsequent color-blind policy that is put into place, overt racism was stopped, but there was still a lot of more quiet / subtle ones were still experienced.

Critical race theory - with Brookfield - he is English, so does not have a personal life. In CRT, there is often a personal story that is described. He recounted a story when he got into a fight when he was 17, When a black service man came and acted as a peacemaker and told them to break up the fight, Brookfield recounted how the black man as a peacemaker. This disrupted how he saw blacks as violent and whites as supremicists and peacemakers. HIs other counter-story against white supremacy was when he went to hear Malcolm X.

Brookfield is seen as a gatekeeper within the academy, and he has benefited from white supremacy. He does not prefer to use the term white privilege, which he sees as too benign. He then recounted a story when he was approached by the Harvard Educational Review to write a paper. They wanted him to write a central paper and then have his colleagues write responses, as they did not want a special issue. At first, there seemed to be a lot of energy with the editors who seemed exciting about the project and the value of that kind of project. The irony is that the white man (stephen) would write and then the others (all black) would then be invited to respond to his paper on racial issues in adult education.

ELizabeth commented how the room was packed because they wanted to see Stephen, and not particularly since they were interested in their research.

There then were some questions

Whites constantly moves the goalposts, so race is something that white people do not need to deal with, so even on some campuses the only black person on campus may be the officer of diversity.

One question was about how some white people really do not get critical white studies or critical queer studies comes from CRT and its guidance.

Elizabeth stated that whites are a race.

There was a question to Stephen about how white folks need to speak about race as white folks.

He spoke about how, when a black student speaks in class, he sometimes is hesitant to offer any criticism, to most allow for that voice to come out in its fullness, as if he offered some criticism it would be seen as how his voice is so full of authority that obviously nobody would disagree. Elizabeth thought that this was good that he brings this out into the light and discusses it, so it shows how he gets this, even though he has suffered through these issues as well.

There were some good questions and discussions about how the Harvard Education Review and their board no longer  

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, live blogging, liveblogging, live-blogging, aerc, Stephen Brookfield

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Robin and I somehow seemed to be the first to lunch, which was in another building up the hill. What a pretty campus this is, with the buildings build in and on the hills. We shoveled food into our mouths (yummy turkey and gravy sandwiches). We took some pictures on the campus, and then went back to polish our presentation tomorrow.

Laura L. Bierema and Julia Storburg-Walker

They introduced themselves, and ised PowerPoints

They are committed feminists, and are frustrated that in the HRD world is a little incomplete and thinks that HRED is being coopeted by a paradigm hegemonic dynamics

systems thinking, psycology, and ethics according to Swanson — they think is a little incomokete

HRD is also dominated by women, but it is the masculine and white males who lead the field and make more money and really lead the field. Julia spoke about how Laura helped Julia become more of a feminist thinker. As she is not tenured, she has to speak differently than Laura, who is.

Thet traced the masculine roots of HRD and how, in the 1920’s there was the change from

INterested that this women was not heard since she was not given a voice.

They did a text analysis to see how language was used in classic management texts. The framework is menist po-structuralist and post-modernist

Alvesson and Deetz (2000) is what they used to build upon. Bradshaw 1996 - methodology of deconstruction with categories, dichotomies, and false oppositions

They perpetuate the status quo with the pitting against of opposites and dicotomies between critical theorists and those who are more practical. The binaries are taught that there is performance and there is learning, not both

They mentioned Rothberger in 1949 and then in 1965 HBR classic of the manager. They identified some of the more important work, and then closely read the text and had conversations about how they undertsood the text, and then used the Holt and Swanson textbook

how the text creates these false bunaries, and how they power is or is not being dealth with, such as using a false dichomy and harmonious song that performance is the dominant piint, and then criticizes anybody who sees this in another way as being naive (Swanson etxt). Are critical of women, people of color, and non-management. This can be seen as the onecept of inleasing human performance. They use “quotations” in deconstruction as side lanuage in a text.

Bradshw used a post-structural analysis methodology

This paper is simiilar to the one they presented at the AHRD conference in 2007. The audience here is probabably more open to their message, though they also probably have less of an orietnaiton in the HRD field. in AHRD, this is a similar issue

Biremea uses the  Walton text instead of the Swanson text

The 3-legged stool of Swanson:

1. econoimics
2. psychology
3. systems theory

thet want to take the stool and give it a feminist perspective for their next AHRD paper

their anslysis, theu make no claims to the truth,  theyt are an interpretation and helps them to undertstand their work. This is their qualitative perspective. I thought this was an excellent point, in that they are not trying to state their perspective as being definite. Good qualitative research here.

They then discussed more about Rothlessburgger’s The Foreman. I recall this as being a review of and continuation of the paper they presented at last year’s conference, One of the points is that this is that management is objective and can “fix” the foreman.

HRD text gives 0 space to diversity, gender, sexuality, social responsibility, managerialism, racism

MY QUESTION - social responsibility (as not being in Swanson) is getting to be a big topic in the business schools as they can be shown as how companies are strategicly trying to show they are interested in being good corporate citizens. Is this just a marketing scheme or it this real proactive?

adult education is different from HRD — where the organization controls the learning process

Their book is that performance is the song, and as think such claims are flagrant expressions of masuline rationality

MY QUESTION — Why is that book so popular then?

They took an editorial Swanson gave in HRDQ - we should only be doing unisex resaerch . Bierema states that they have always done masculine research as the norm. This is the sense that feminist reseasrach will insert a bias, and from their post-structural research he is asusming their has never been a masuline bias in the research. Laura inserted this without Julia knowing it, since Swanson was Julia’s dissertation advisor

Recommendations — take gender into account when developing HRD research?

MY QUESTION - My perception is that men find it threatening whenever gender issues are raised, since that seems to feed into Swanson’s concern. What strategies can be used to get around that so the issues can be raised without people (men) being threatened and turning off to the issues before they are even raised?

Then there was time for questions. I wonder why the audience was so small for this conference, and he said they have to be aware of the binary elements they are bringing to this, since they are doing a post-structuralist work and may be hard to draw conclusions. hey are selecting these as wexamples, and while they may be fixed in the text as examples, they are posisbliy being used as examples.

They are having discussion about words and how they are used. Julia does not want to have words block

cultural () theory — there is a need to challenge the symbols, as they are all hegemonic. Also, HRD may have come along to silence those with issues, such as racial or sexist, by showing how perfomrance can be improved and oppresses workers.

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