Olav Eikeland
Educated as a philosopher, between 1985 and 2008 I worked consecutively as a researcher, senior researcher, research director, and CEO at the Work Research Institute (WRI) in Oslo, Norway. Since 2008 I have been at "OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University" (until 11.January 2018, "Oslo and Akershus University College") as a professor of education and work-life research and (from the beginning of 2012 to the end of 2016) also as Vice Dean (R&D) at the Faculty of Education. From March 1st 2018 to February 29th 2020, I was also a parttime guest professor at the department of learning and philosophy, Aalborg University, DK.
Over the years I have tried to be both a theorist and a practitioner. With a PhD in Ancient Greek Philosophy (1993), I've been trying to combine philosophical studies (philosophy of knowledge [gnoseology], philosophy of social research, ethics and political philosophy) and organizational R&D, trying to stretch (both practically and theoretically) across the still dominant institutionalized practical division of labour concerning knowledge generation and "application".
Professional fields of special interest:
1) Ancient philosophy (particularly Aristotle and his relationship to Plato and to dialogue/dialectics) (first philosophy, methodology, theory of knowledge, ethics, and politics), the historical/institutional fate of dialogue-dialectics and the transcendental-existential status of dialogue-dialectics as part of τα κοινά or the ethico-political, intellectual commons. The revival of Aristotle with Antiochus of Ascalon 1c BC. The relationship between Aristotle and Frankfurt-school, Neo-Marxist critical theory.
2) The transformation and transition of philosophy into religion during Hellenism and the first centuries AD (role of Philo Judaeus as transitional figure).
3) Philosophy of science, particularly conceptual issues in modern empirical social research and professional practice (role and concept of experience [Erfahrung vs. Erkebnis], what does it mean to be "empirical", concepts of theory [theôria vs. theôrêsis], ways of knowing, dialog-dialectics, rhetoric, etc.).
4) Non-didactical learning from experience, organizational learning, organizing for learning, and general preconditions for life-long learning [from the cradle to the grave] (personal, intellectual, psychological, organizational, social, institutional, economic, etc.) and the role, practice, and institutionalization of concepts like counter-public spheres, immanent critique, and apprenticeship learning in organizational and wider social and communal contexts.
5) The changing institutional relationships between work, learning, and formal education (informal/non-formal/formal learning, mode 2 or socially distributed knowledge production), and between private and public spheres as summarized in the following:
https://www.academia.edu/670339/Beyond_the_Oikos_Pólis_Divide_Historical_Transformations_of_the_Private_Public_Relationship_and_Current_Work_Life_Developments
6) The societal and political implications/ramifications of such changes (the socio-historical organization of knowledge generation and dissemination, institutionalizations and divisions of labor).
7) The social role of intellectuals, conventional roles (something is very wrong!) vs. organic intellectuals (Gramsci / Freire) within increasingly socially distributed knowledge production.
Since the early 1980s, I have been working with organizational learning and work-based learning, mainly in action research projects, in combination with critical studies of social research methodology and ancient philosophy.
The methodological and epistemological legitimacy of action research within a changing knowledge management regime (socially distributed knowledge production) concerns me. So do the practice and the ethical-political-methodological-therapeutic-existential-ontological status of dialogue and dialectics and their connection to inductive reasoning and inductive/experiential learning as preconditions for critical thinking. Strange combinations for some maybe, but ancient dialogical philosophy, the mystified dialectical "immanent critique", apprenticeship learning, inductive learning, action research, and organizational learning are intimately and internally related and connected (as immanent critique from within counter-public spheres). All needed to overcome the institutionalized division of labor between theory and practice, intellectual and manual labor.
Over the years I have tried to be both a theorist and a practitioner. With a PhD in Ancient Greek Philosophy (1993), I've been trying to combine philosophical studies (philosophy of knowledge [gnoseology], philosophy of social research, ethics and political philosophy) and organizational R&D, trying to stretch (both practically and theoretically) across the still dominant institutionalized practical division of labour concerning knowledge generation and "application".
Professional fields of special interest:
1) Ancient philosophy (particularly Aristotle and his relationship to Plato and to dialogue/dialectics) (first philosophy, methodology, theory of knowledge, ethics, and politics), the historical/institutional fate of dialogue-dialectics and the transcendental-existential status of dialogue-dialectics as part of τα κοινά or the ethico-political, intellectual commons. The revival of Aristotle with Antiochus of Ascalon 1c BC. The relationship between Aristotle and Frankfurt-school, Neo-Marxist critical theory.
2) The transformation and transition of philosophy into religion during Hellenism and the first centuries AD (role of Philo Judaeus as transitional figure).
3) Philosophy of science, particularly conceptual issues in modern empirical social research and professional practice (role and concept of experience [Erfahrung vs. Erkebnis], what does it mean to be "empirical", concepts of theory [theôria vs. theôrêsis], ways of knowing, dialog-dialectics, rhetoric, etc.).
4) Non-didactical learning from experience, organizational learning, organizing for learning, and general preconditions for life-long learning [from the cradle to the grave] (personal, intellectual, psychological, organizational, social, institutional, economic, etc.) and the role, practice, and institutionalization of concepts like counter-public spheres, immanent critique, and apprenticeship learning in organizational and wider social and communal contexts.
5) The changing institutional relationships between work, learning, and formal education (informal/non-formal/formal learning, mode 2 or socially distributed knowledge production), and between private and public spheres as summarized in the following:
https://www.academia.edu/670339/Beyond_the_Oikos_Pólis_Divide_Historical_Transformations_of_the_Private_Public_Relationship_and_Current_Work_Life_Developments
6) The societal and political implications/ramifications of such changes (the socio-historical organization of knowledge generation and dissemination, institutionalizations and divisions of labor).
7) The social role of intellectuals, conventional roles (something is very wrong!) vs. organic intellectuals (Gramsci / Freire) within increasingly socially distributed knowledge production.
Since the early 1980s, I have been working with organizational learning and work-based learning, mainly in action research projects, in combination with critical studies of social research methodology and ancient philosophy.
The methodological and epistemological legitimacy of action research within a changing knowledge management regime (socially distributed knowledge production) concerns me. So do the practice and the ethical-political-methodological-therapeutic-existential-ontological status of dialogue and dialectics and their connection to inductive reasoning and inductive/experiential learning as preconditions for critical thinking. Strange combinations for some maybe, but ancient dialogical philosophy, the mystified dialectical "immanent critique", apprenticeship learning, inductive learning, action research, and organizational learning are intimately and internally related and connected (as immanent critique from within counter-public spheres). All needed to overcome the institutionalized division of labor between theory and practice, intellectual and manual labor.
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Books by Olav Eikeland
”Lærende organisationer”, ”organisationslæring” og ”organisatorisk læring” har været i spil i arbejdslivet og blandt forskere i ere årtier. Har det ført til forbedringer? I sine tidlige faser har forskningen inden for læring traditionelt set været for- bundet med barnets udvikling – med pædagogik og uddannelse. Læring har derforpå mange måder været knyttet til opdragelse og undervisning og været set som etprodukt eller resultat heraf (Illeris, 2015). De mere grundlæggende læreprocesser har været studeret af psykologer, som dermed har haft en stor indydelse på pæda
-gogik og uddannelsesforskning (Jensen & Rasmussen, 2009). Psykologisk forskninghar udviklet sig inden for forskellige overordnede læringssyn: behavioristisk, kog-nitivt, humanistisk psykologisk, sociokulturelt og en række andre. Pointen er her,at forskere inden for både pædagogik og psykologi frem til slutningen af 1980’ernehovedsageligt har betragtet læring som individuel læring – at det er enkeltindivider,som lærer (Illeris, 2015).De seneste fyrre til halvtreds år er der imidlertid også kommet fokus på, at læringikke kun er knyttet til opdragelse, undervisning og formel uddannelse, men at men-nesket lærer gennem hele livet, herunder arbejdslivet (Argyris, 1976; Illeris, 2015;Engeström, 2009; Laursen & Thomassen, 2017).
«Spenningen mellom filosofi eller saklighet, demokrati og makt ligger på forskjellige måter til grunn for hele den videre politiske tenkning innenfor den europeiske tradisjon».
Har systematisk læring på arbeidsplassen noe med livsfase- og seniorpolitikk å gjøre? Rapportering fra Forsøks- og Utviklingsprosjektene i Nasjonalt Krafttak for seniorpolitikk i arbeidslivet (2001-2005), AFI-rapport 6 / 2006, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet, Oslo
T10_01-Action research, collaborative research and participatory research-engaged scholarship in projects and innovations
”Lærende organisationer”, ”organisationslæring” og ”organisatorisk læring” har været i spil i arbejdslivet og blandt forskere i ere årtier. Har det ført til forbedringer? I sine tidlige faser har forskningen inden for læring traditionelt set været for- bundet med barnets udvikling – med pædagogik og uddannelse. Læring har derforpå mange måder været knyttet til opdragelse og undervisning og været set som etprodukt eller resultat heraf (Illeris, 2015). De mere grundlæggende læreprocesser har været studeret af psykologer, som dermed har haft en stor indydelse på pæda
-gogik og uddannelsesforskning (Jensen & Rasmussen, 2009). Psykologisk forskninghar udviklet sig inden for forskellige overordnede læringssyn: behavioristisk, kog-nitivt, humanistisk psykologisk, sociokulturelt og en række andre. Pointen er her,at forskere inden for både pædagogik og psykologi frem til slutningen af 1980’ernehovedsageligt har betragtet læring som individuel læring – at det er enkeltindivider,som lærer (Illeris, 2015).De seneste fyrre til halvtreds år er der imidlertid også kommet fokus på, at læringikke kun er knyttet til opdragelse, undervisning og formel uddannelse, men at men-nesket lærer gennem hele livet, herunder arbejdslivet (Argyris, 1976; Illeris, 2015;Engeström, 2009; Laursen & Thomassen, 2017).
«Spenningen mellom filosofi eller saklighet, demokrati og makt ligger på forskjellige måter til grunn for hele den videre politiske tenkning innenfor den europeiske tradisjon».
Har systematisk læring på arbeidsplassen noe med livsfase- og seniorpolitikk å gjøre? Rapportering fra Forsøks- og Utviklingsprosjektene i Nasjonalt Krafttak for seniorpolitikk i arbeidslivet (2001-2005), AFI-rapport 6 / 2006, Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet, Oslo
T10_01-Action research, collaborative research and participatory research-engaged scholarship in projects and innovations
Kurt Lewin: “In order to understand it, you have to change it”. The slogan clearly resembles what Francis
Bacon claimed for experimental science, however, and also Karl Marx’ well known stance in his
Feuerbach-theses. In this text I discuss this “change imperative” and relate it to its “pre-history” before
action research. Most action researchers are not willing to subscribe to terms like “social engineering” but
still call what they do for “interventions”. The text argues that what most people spontaneously think of as
“change” may not be necessary for calling what is done for action research. Yet, the alternative is not to
withdraw to a disengaged, spectator position. The change imperative raises important questions about
what kind of change action research initiates, and what kind of knowledge results from different forms of
change. The text challenges the “slogan” as to what kind of change is appropriate and legitimate in
working with changes in individuals, culture, communities, and organisations, and suggests ways forward
through developing forms of practitioner research and native or indigenous research. To illustrate, insights
from Aristotle and Hegel are invoked. Action researchers are challenged to discuss and clarify answers to
questions about what kind of change is produced, and what kind of knowledge is generated.
attention to learning outside institutionalized teaching contexts; that is, to “non-didactic” learning, outside what most people – with a very old institutionalized misnomer – call “school” and “schooling”. Learning outside schooling has received increased attention from researchers, but also, first, and not the least, it has received increasing attention among
people themselves active in the areas outside teaching and research, especially in work life organizations, and here it has received practical attention springing from a felt necessity to
readjust, reorganize, develop, and learn, individually and collectively.
"objekter" å være enige eller uenige om, felles "ting" eller saker vi kan diskutere og belære hverandre om. Det måtte i så fall være om høyst obskure ting som metafysikk, religion o.l.
Saker som bare nostalgikere er opptatt av, eller som bare angår hver enkelt helt privat. Og som i hvert fall ikke har noe som helst systematisk interesse i forbindelse med "Yrkesutdanning, Fagopplæring og Arbeidsliv".
Til tross for at synspunkter som disse helt sikkert er utbredte, og til tross for at de på mange måter kan ha noe for seg, så kommer det følgende til å dreie seg mye om antikk filosofi.
An educational experience of immanent critique and apprenticeship learning hosted by knowledgedemocracy.org
Thursday 7th October 4pm - 6.30 pm BST. 17.00 – 19.30 ECT
Saturday 9th October 4pm - 6 30 pm BST. 17.00 – 1930 ECT
via the following Zoom link:
https://mdh-se.zoom.us/j/68332498567
We warmly offer this invitation to a series of two Seminar/Webinars at the CARN 2021 CARNival to people engaged in action research and/or participatory action research and who want to explore concepts and practices which will help us, we think, in the pursuit of knowledge democracy with a view to creating a continuing dialogue.
The purpose of the webinar is to provide different perspectives on the movement towards knowledge democracy and a space for creative exchange among those interested in learning more about the topic and engaging in the movement.
Action research on the rise Action research comes in many varieties. Regardless, it has for decades and under different designations, been gaining in popularity among different professions and professional studies, in management and organization studies, community development work, and in other areas concerned with practical relevance, application and development. The situation reflects societal changes concerning the social distribution of education and knowledge creation, from having been monopolized in specialized academic institutions to becoming much more socially distributed. However, people doing action research often seem to encounter conventional, mostly interpretive social research terminology which is still based on a principal division of labor between intellectual and manual work, knower and known, researcher and researched more appropriate to the previous, monopolized knowledge management regime. The terminology still used in social research reflects the former division of labor however, "othering" the subjects of study and thereby making the radical and more basic knowledge generation processes happening in certain forms of action research almost invisible and conflated with other, inappropriate methods. Therefore, this special issue calls for papers, which both 1) summarizes extant attempts and 2) aims at developing concepts and terminology more and better adjusted to knowledge production from within practices, and to ways of conceiving and describing collaborative knowledge production in action research as it plays out in a cross-fields of tensions between various discourses and institutionalized practices in a field filled with research and practice dilemmas. This special issue will also 3) welcome investigations of different «clashes of discourse» typically happening in action research which, from this, might develop new concepts and terminology. AR needs to find and develop a new and proactive language and practice to qualify research practice based on the basic principles and approaches in action research. As indicated, social or human knowledge development and creation needs to come to its own, find its own form (like natural science and technology might be said to have come to its own during modernity). Certain forms of action research are potent candidates for making this happen. Extant forms of inquiry all need to be critically examined, transformed, and adjusted to the radically practice-based knowledge generation in action research.
Sabancı University Business School invites professionals to apply for its recently launched Action Research (AR) PhD Program to commence in the academic year 2020/21.
How to solve the third task of mission optimally, is a question lacking simple answers, not the least because solving it has to happen in close collaboration with surrounding work life and communities. Different ways of solving this task also have different consequences even for the other two tasks – research and teaching – in all the educations and disciplines. Hence, solving the third task creates institutional and organizational but also epistemological and methodological challenges. What kinds of knowledge or ways of knowing, what ways of learning and teaching are relevant and in what ways for a necessary reconfiguration of the “knowledge triangle” of which higher education and research form parts?
Currently, there are several initiatives at the HiOA across faculties which deal with or touch upon this third task: for example Program for Lifelong Learning (PLL), School of Management (SoM), Program for excellence in professional qualification (FPK), the Competence Center for Worklife Inclusion (KAI). The recent integration into the institution of four important institutes for applied social research – NOVA, AFI, NIBR and SIFO – is also quite central to the current picture.
In order to discuss questions and challenges pertaining to the third task, both in general and for the HiOA in peculiar, the Program for Lifelong Learning (PLL) (www.hioa.no/pll ) organizes a conference on September 5th. The conference will be opened by Vice-rector Morteh Irgens. Presentations by professors Yrjö Engeström (Finland), Elena Antonacopoulou (England), Georges Romme (Netherlands), and Olav Eikeland (HiOA). See the attached program.
Conference language is English. Time for questions and discussions is provided. Admission open and free, but in order to have a free lunch, pre-registration is required here:
http://www.hioa.no/…/Fakultet-…/Program-for-livslang-laering
http://www.hioa.no/…/Challenges-with-symbiotic-learning-con…
Oslo and Akershus University College, June 1-3, 2015
Since the main theme of the Trento conference is the passion for learning and knowing, I will write personally, and start by quoting myself from 1974, when I was still a teenage student at an extraordinary, experimental high school (FGB) in Norway.
It’s all about the third task.
The conference mail-invitation to everyone at the HiOA (Oslo and Akershus University College / Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus), says the challenge is all about the third mission or task for the institutions of higher education in Norway, and in a way it is. Norwegian public universities and university colleges do have a threefold mandatory mission: teaching, research, and a third task or mission. The third task contains everything from popularization to innovation and entrepreneurship, and extensive collaboration with surrounding communities and work life in organized development and learning. The third mission creates large and specific challenges for universities and colleges, not only in Norway but around the world. At the same time, the third mission is of particular importance for institutions like the HiOA, mostly educating for professional practice, and with ambitions of developing as universities with a special orientation towards work life and the field of professional practice.
But how to solve the third task or mission optimally, is a question lacking simple answers due to its comprehensive and variegated character and because solving it has to happen in close collaboration with surrounding work life and communities. It also creates challenges because different ways of solving this task have different consequences even for the other two tasks – research and teaching – in all the educations and disciplines. The three tasks are not separate silos. They are interconnected. Hence, solving the third task creates institutional and organizational but also epistemological and methodological challenges. The questions are: What kinds of knowledge or ways of knowing, what ways of learning and teaching, are relevant and in what ways, for a necessary reconfiguration of the “knowledge triangle” (of research, education, and innovation) of which higher education and research form parts?
So, as it says in the subtitle, there are challenges in many fields. The challenge is institutional, because it concerns the relations to our surroundings and the mutual readjustment and reconfiguration of all three tasks, by looking at how different solutions of the third task influence the two other main tasks, research and teaching. It concerns what the Norwegian Employers Association (NHO) has coined as “læringslivet” or “the learning life”, with an excellent equivocal pun in Norwegian, which unfortunately doesn’t translate easily into English. It concerns how to organize socially, or societally, in order for everyone and every organized activity to learn and improve all the way through life, both individually and collectively. The challenge is also definitely organizational, since finding ways of organizing and reorganizing appropriately for the third task internally at institutions of higher education, is a big challenge. I’ll return briefly to this at the end, concerning our own institution. The challenge is also clearly educational, as different educational courses seek to collaborate and share responsibility for education and learning with work-life and communities through so-called “university-schools”, “educational kindergartens”, “enterprise-masters” or other similar terms, partly inspired by “university-hospitals” collaborating with universities in educating physicians. It’s educational also by...
It’s all about the third task.
The conference mail-invitation to everyone at the HiOA (Oslo and Akershus University College / Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus), says the challenge is all about the third mission or task for the institutions of higher education in Norway, and in a way it is. Norwegian public universities and university colleges do have a threefold mandatory mission: teaching, research, and a third task or mission. The third task contains everything from popularization to innovation and entrepreneurship, and extensive collaboration with surrounding communities and work life in organized development and learning. The third mission creates large and specific challenges for universities and colleges, not only in Norway but around the world. At the same time, the third mission is of particular importance for institutions like the HiOA, mostly educating for professional practice, and with ambitions of developing as universities with a special orientation towards work life and the field of professional practice.
But how to solve the third task or mission optimally, is a question lacking simple answers due to its comprehensive and variegated character and because solving it has to happen in close collaboration with surrounding work life and communities. It also creates challenges because different ways of solving this task have different consequences even for the other two tasks – research and teaching – in all the educations and disciplines. The three tasks are not separate silos. They are interconnected. Hence, solving the third task creates institutional and organizational but also epistemological and methodological challenges. The questions are: What kinds of knowledge or ways of knowing, what ways of learning and teaching, are relevant and in what ways, for a necessary reconfiguration of the “knowledge triangle” (of research, education, and innovation) of which higher education and research form parts?
So, as it says in the subtitle, there are challenges in many fields. The challenge is institutional, because
Etter den nylige oversettelsen av Graeber & Wengrows (G&Ws) The dawn of everything (2021, på norsk som Begynnelsen til alt) og Wengrows forelesning 19.oktober i år i Universitetets aula i Oslo, skrev Marit K. Slotnes i Morgenbladet (42): «Hvis en annen fortid er mulig, kan fremtiden også se annerledes ut.» Det er litt av en utfordring. Hvordan er det mulig, og har det noen politisk enn si forskningspolitisk betydning?
G&W gjør opp med historie- og utviklingsmetafysiske, skjematiske og lineæreoppfatninger av hvordan forhistoriske og førmoderne kulturer og samfunn har vært «primitive», enten i Hobbes’ naturtilstand av «alles krig mot alle» eller i Rousseaus likestilte og harmoniske urtilstand i smågrupper.
Hobbes’ Leviathan hevder å ivareta en sivilisatorisk fellesinteresse ved å disiplinere alle autoritært, siden de ikke kan styre seg selv. Rousseaus urparadis ødelegges på sin side av den samme sivilisasjonens disiplinerende krav. Begge likestiller «sivilisasjon» med jordbruksrevolusjon og statsdannelser gjennom bydannelser basert på hierarki, arbeidsdeling og strukturell og sosial skjevfordeling av makt og velstand.