Abstract
This chapter looks at the socio-cultural implications of universalized education for workers. A universalized education for workers by workplace e-learning happens through hypermedia-centric, constructivist-based workplace e-learning that configures technologies, constructivism, and instructors, for a knowledge-based workplace. Workplace e-learning for workplace adult education and training has changed over the past decade with respect to the changes and complexities of the learning process. This is especially true given the growing prevalence of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Distance education in the tertiary sector is looked at to see what is revealed from workplace adult education and training encounters with workplace e-learning. This raises questions about workplace e-learning for a global workforce. Workplace e-learning epitomizes a constructivist practice in the workplace; heavily based on European and Western industrialized values; and, remains unconcerned with the culturally specialized adult learning needs and goals of a diverse, global, and multi-facetted, cohort of adult learners. Looking primarily at the constructivist turn in distance education, perspectives of epistemology, ontology, and pedagogy, are referenced that support this trend. The universalizing ramifications of this hypermedia- centred, constructivist trend in workplace e-learning for workplace adult education and training are concerning for a global and diverse cohort of adult learners, who will come to represent the workforce in the future. Technique is increasingly used as the omnibus answer for all learners’ needs and goals. ‘Technology’ increasingly replaces epistemology and ontology as the singular perspective for authentic learning. Some of the unseen, conformist, and persuasive effects of technology, constructivism, and instructors, are now problematized for a global workforce.