Enhancing Expertise

We need to consider in more profound ways what we mean by expert practices which can ameliorate the social problems produced by the excessive individualism of late capitalism. This move involves bringing together three elements to form a more expanded notion of expertise. These are the individual agency evident when experts foreground what is important in a task when working with others; an ability to align one’s actions with other people’s strengths and needs; and a capacity to negotiate forward looking responses for unpredictable objects of activity. (Edwards, 2007)

Know-who which embraces withitness thinking demands more than boundary crossing and brokering to access resources; it involves on-going and unchoreographed movements of action and withdrawal based on constantly revised interpretations of a changing object and a respect for the expertise of the other actors. (Edwards, 2007)



(1) Anne Edwards, DRAFT Enhancing Expertise Through Interagency Working, The Oxford Centre for Sociocultural and Activity Theory Research (OSAT), Dept of Educational Studies, University of Oxford


A different world

The dominant human capital approach emphasizes on functional skills aiming at economic competitiveness where learners are merely economic entities. This view reduces important social dimensions of learning. Serving the human longing for a different kind of world, and development is essential role of higher education.