Universities are critiqued for being irrelevant and not contributing to solving real-world problems. Work-integrated learning (WIL) and engaged scholarship are ways to bring universities closer to practice and communities. When reflecting on what it means to engage with society as an academic, there are several potential paths to consider. Through our research collaboration, we reflected […]
‘Anything goes’, the central slogan of the Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism, is perhaps the most notorious phrase in 20th-century philosophy of science. Since it first appeared in 1970, it has provoked a largely critical response. Influential commentators have called Feyerabend’s view ‘inapplicable’ (Agassi[AHB(1] , 2014), ‘nonsensical’ (Nagel, 1977[AHB(2] ), ‘difficult to take seriously’ (Worrall, 1978[AHB(3] ), […]
After spending several years developing and running a master program in Work Integrated Political Studies (WIPS) which gives a master’s degree in work integrated learning, developing and running the course WIL as a research subject on the Ph. D. education in work integrated learning, being part of the WIL-certification process, currently doing research on the […]
Nyligen konfronterades jag med en enkät där jag ombads att utvärdera HV:s information om AIL ur olika aspekter. Var informationen tillräcklig? Var den lättbegriplig? Jag kom att känna en viss handfallenhet inför dessa frågor. Hur skulle jag kunna utvärdera information om någonting som jag efter att ha rannsakat mig själv, kom fram till att jag […]
Providing students with work-based experiences is a popular educational approach. What I find problematic is the general trend to label this approach Work integrated Learning (WIL) rather than Work-integrated Education (WIE) (Billett & Valencia-Forrester, 2020). The International Journal of Work-integrated Learning reproduces this trend by defining WIL as: an educational approach that uses relevant work-based […]
It is 3 am and I am sitting in my living room, listening to the session “Experiences from CEWIL Canada, WIL and ACEN” at the WACE (World Association of Co-operative Education) conference. The three acronyms hold three giant networks focusing on work integrated learning around the globe. The conference should have been held in Kanazawa, […]
After almost 20 years experience of the concept of work integrated learning (WIL), and participation in various conversations and discussions about what WIL is, I am increasingly convinced that it is more relevant to ask the question what WIL can become in the future? WIL can be described as a new discipline within the social […]
Welcome to University West’s research blog about Work integrated Learning (WIL). Through the blog, we want to actively stimulate a theoretically grounded and critical discussion about how WIL can be understood as a multifaceted phenomenon, concept, or research area. We envision that such a discussion will illustrate and develop the core and the elasticity of […]