PLAR: Finding Quality in the Dynamics of Social Practice

Authors

  • Joy Van Kleef Canadian Institute for Recognizing Learning

Abstract

This article discusses some of the implications of a recent case study on quality in PLAR for immigrant nurses to Canada. The results reveal complex relations within and across the nursing profession's communities of practice and communities of interest that operate as vehicles for negotiating shared understandings and power. Immigrant nurses who bring knowledge acquired in cultures and educational systems unfamiliar to Canadian authorities stand outside the periphery of the nursing community without a place or voice in the discourse. The author concludes that PLAR can provide a means of giving them voice if nursing stakeholders negotiate a shared understanding of the quality of the process. The author recommends that Baartman et al.'s (2007) quality criteria and concept of assessment in education be explored as a quality framework for anchoring PLAR in nursing registration.

Keywords: Prior learning, nursing, quality criteria, community of practice

Author Biography

  • Joy Van Kleef, Canadian Institute for Recognizing Learning

    Joy Van Kleef is CEO of the Canadian Institute for Recognizing Learning. She has worked in the field of Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) for over 20 years. Her learning in this field is both academically and experientially based. Van Kleef has a Masters degree in Political Studies from Queen’s University, a Masters degree in Adult Education from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Ph.D. from l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. Over the past 10 years, Van Kleef has specialized in research and the management of projects related to adult learning recognition and labour force development and has completed more than 90 projects during that period.

    Her work in PLAR is well known across Canada. She was the principal author of A Slice of the Iceberg: Cross-Canada Study of PLAR (1999) involving seven institutions and over 15,000 adult learners. Van Kleef also authored Quality Assurance Practices of Postsecondary Institutions in Canada (2002) as well as Feedback from Learners: A Second Cross-Canada Study of PLAR (2003). Joy has designed and evaluated PLAR services for post-secondary institutions and regulatory bodies, conducted national consultations, designed and conducted PLAR activities in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, South Africa and Mexico. Her current pre-occupation is quality assurance in the recognition of prior learning in regulated professions.

Joy Van Kleef

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Published

2012-09-28

Issue

No. 2 (2012): PLA: Quality Assurance and Accountability

Section

Invited Essays

License

Authors retain copyright of their work, and readers are free to print, share and distribute materials from PLA Inside-Out as long as they respect the rights of the author.  Materials included in PLA Inside-Out cannot be published without an author’s permission.

How to Cite

PLAR: Finding Quality in the Dynamics of Social Practice. (2012). PLA Inside Out: An International Journal on Theory, Research and Practice in Prior Learning Assessment, 2(2). https://plaio.org/index.php/home/article/view/30