Perpetuating precarity in theory and in practice: a case study of work-integrated learning in the non-profit sector in Northern Canada

ABSTRACT Work-integrated learning (WIL) is a process of curricular experiential education within a workplace or practical setting. WIL is portrayed as a win-win, yet this research suggests that WIL perpetuates precarity and deepens inequalities between students, between different types of employers, and between geographic regions. Using the Human Development and Capabilities Approach (HDCA), this study investigated how eight diverse non-profit organisations (NPOs) in northern Canada are positioned to support students to develop personal agency through WIL. Most WIL research is urban-centric, focused on for-profit industries and framed within Human Capital Theory (HCT), making this study an outlier. Using a case study approach underpinned by critical and social realism, this study explores the ways in which WIL enables and constrains the development of agency at individual, social, and institutional levels. The research shows inconsistencies in current approaches to WIL. The increasingly precarious positioning of NPOs within the labour market threatens their ability to offer students (future) decent work. The institutional and policy environments that undergird WIL do not acknowledge the distinctness of non-profit organisations within a neoliberal economy and this makes invisible other dimensions that affect decent work, such as the regulatory environment, collectivisation, and the ‘contracting regime.’