Making Sense of the Learning Turn

Anders Örtenblad is Professor of Working Life Science at the University of Agder, Norway. With his keen interest in learning and education, as both phenomena and concepts, he has extensively researched and authored on the idea of the learning organization, organizational learning, and management education. He has edited numerous books and journals, including The Oxford Handbook of the Learning Organization (OUP, 2019) and The Oxford Handbook of Metaphor in Organization Studies (OUP, 2024). He is a keen advocate of research as open, academic debate.

• Norman Longworth: ForewordList of ContributorsPART I. THE LEARNING TURN: A BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION1: Anders Örtenblad: Toward an Increased Understanding of the Learning Turn: Background and Introduction2: Anders Örtenblad: On the Usage of the Premodifier Learning Among Scholars and Practitioners3: Bertus van Rooy: Linguistic Modifiers and the Construction of Concept MeaningPART II. REFLECTING ON LEARNING AND ITS USE AS A PREMODIFIER4: Marianna Papastephanou: Learnification, Premodifiers and Learning(s)5: Anke Redecker: Recognition in a Learning World - Topics of Global Education6: Malcolm Tight: Learning Your Place7: Leonard Holmes: What is Learning that an Organization (or Anything Else) Can Do It?8: Rob F. Poell: Is Learning Viewed as a Synonym of Training?PART III. EXAMINING SINGLE TERMS IN WHICH LEARNING IS THE PREMODIFIER9: Tyson E. Lewis: "Learning Toys" as Education through Commodification10: Norman V. Jackson: The Impossibility of the Learning Organization11: Max Visser: Learning Climate12: John A. Cotsomitis: The Learning Economy: What do we Mean by the Modifier Learning?13: Frederik Hertel and Michelle Wicmandy: The Global Learning Economy14: Hans Chr. Garmann Johnsen and Jon P. Knudsen: Can Regions Learn?15: Bertus van Rooy and Roosmarijn Rentier: The Meanings of "Learning Organization" from the Perspective of UsagePART IV. EXAMINING MULTIPLE TERMS IN WHICH LEARNING IS THE PREMODIFIER16: Michael Reynolds and Russ Vince: Being Alone Together: A Critical Exploration of Learning in "Learning Group" and "Learning Community"17: Philip Cooke: "Fortune Favors the Prepared Mind": Learning Knowledge without Experience is Not so Smart18: Anders Örtenblad: Comparing Two Similar Terms in which Learning is the Premodifier: A Study of Seven Term Couples19: Anders Örtenblad: Belonging and Being Unique: The Dual Function of the Learning PremodifierPART V. BEYOND LEARNING: ON ITS WAY TOWARD BEING REPLACED BY OTHER COGNITION-ORIENTED PREMODIFIERS SUCH AS KNOWLEDGE AND SMART20: Marianna Papastephanou: Interpreting the Decline in the Common Use of the Learning Premodifier21: Anders Örtenblad: Learning City, Knowledge City, Smart City: Three Mountains in the Same RangeKen Spours: Afterword: Reflections on the Learning Premodifier and the Learning Turn

Making Sense of the Learning Turn is not an easy feat. Örtenblad and the other twenty authors bravely tackle this quest addressing the significance, value, and consequences of the "learnification". They chart and critically assess its turn-of-century heyday, minutiously examining and interrogating "learning" as a premodifier of such things as cities, regions, communities, toys, groups, and organizations while also tracing and heeding a warning on the emerging new words replacing it. The multidisciplinary breadth, critical depth, and clarity of this book are impressive making it a "go-to" reference for anyone interested in understanding the terms of "learning".