Feeling the heat - Developing individual, social and professional agency for, in and through work placements

In this world of uncertainty and incessant change, young people must be empowered to negotiate risk, reflexively construct identities and make choices (Professor Furlong in Wyn, 2009). Such qualities are developed through experiences in a variety of practice-based learning environments that offer opportunities to make decisions and judgements particular to the purposes of the specific contexts. University classrooms offer limited opportunities (Hayward, Blackmer et al. 2007), while workplace contexts are a rich source of practice-based learning situations for developing agentive students. A case study conducted across a small cross-section of stakeholders involved in a co-operative education (co-op) program within an IT business degree in an Australian university, found evidence of students developing senses of self through actively engaging in the co-constructed and co-participative practice of exercising agency to emerge as budding professionals. However it was found that being in the workplace did not necessarily promote agentive development. Building individual capacity is not solely individually driven but powerfully influenced by others (Beckett, 2010). It is proposed the design, delivery and management of co-op work placements encompass the individual, social and professional dimensions of work-based learning through a whole-of-program approach (for, in and through work placements) that cross university and organisational boundaries.