Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologist of the Month for August 2020, Kathia Serrano Velarde (Heidelberg University, Germany). Her article for Current Sociology, Informal learning in formal organizations: The case of volunteer learning in the hospital is Free Access this month.

Kathia Serrano Velarde

Your article “Informal learning in formal organizations: The case of volunteer learning in the hospital” was recently published in Current Sociology. How did you come to research this topic?

K. Serrano Velarde: I had the chance to cooperate with a colleague on a project dealing with the German voluntary service in 2013/2014. Although this was the first time I dealt with the topic of volunteering, I was surprised by the educational commitment of young volunteers. Not only did they invest a lot of time and effort in their daily work, they also did so with the explicit wish to learn something for themselves. A life lesson so to speak. I remember thinking how interesting it would be to follow their learning path. This is how this study came about. I did a number of interviews with volunteers in different types of organizations (refugee help, disability care and, of course, hospital work) to start with – hospital work was by far the most challenging learning environment for volunteers, so I chose to focus on this extreme case.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

K. Serrano Velarde:
1) If people want to learn, they’ll always find a way to do so – however constraining the work culture may be. The case of rule-breaking in the hospital illustrates this point nicely.
2) Learning at work really is about finding the right teacher and investing in this relationship.

What do you see as the wider social implications of your research? How could things change in the future?

K. Serrano Velarde: Let’s be realistic: we are heading towards a future where young people will find it increasingly hard to enter the job market. Temporary placements and precarious work situations like those experienced by our hospital volunteers will be more abundant. There is a need to focus on the way professional staff operate around and deal with potential learners, how they shape their learning trajectories and influence their career choices.

Interested in more? Have a look at the following suggestions from Kathia Serrano Velarde, our Sociologist of the Month:

My first article on the topic was co-authored with Rabea Haß:
Haß, R. & Serrano Velarde, K. (2015). When Doing Good Becomes a State Affair. Voluntary Service in Germany. Voluntas 26(5): 1718–1738.

This is a piece I found most illuminating with regard to how volunteers understand their work (as helpers):
Haski-Leventhal, D. & Bargal, D. (2008). The Volunteer Stages and Transitions Model. Organizational Socialization of Volunteers. Human Relations 61(1): 67–102.

If you ever want to understand learning in a hospital, you may read the following:
Becker, H. (1977). Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School. New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Books.
Kellogg, K. (2009). Operating Room. Relational Spaces and Microinstitutional Change in Surgery. American Journal of Sociology 115(3): 657–711.

Could you tell us more about your trajectory? How did you come to the field of sociology?

K. Serrano Velarde: I have always been interested in education and learning. As a French national who has had the chance to experience education in different countries (Germany, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Sweden), I became fascinated by cultural differences in learning, communication and even authority relations in schools and universities. Although I am a linguist and educational scientist by training, I did my PhD in sociology. In hindsight I guess that I asked too many questions about the broader social implications of education to remain in my original branch of studies!