Resistance to learning: a discussion based on participants in in-service professional training programmes

Resistance to learning is a phenomenon well-known to most tutors and trainers of adults, but has received remarkably little attention in the literature. The article is based on an interview-based study carried out on participants on in-service training programmes in social services (n= 124), intended to explore the nature and extent of such resistance. A contrast is drawn between ‘additive’ and ‘supplantive’ learning, and it is suggested that resistance is more likely to the latter, because of its accompanying element of loss. Attention is drawn to the similarity of presentation of ‘situational’ and ‘ulterior’ resistance, and it is suggested that the latter broadly follows the pattern of crisis suggested by Caplan (1964), among others