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Abstract
This dissertation analyzes the train the trainer literature published by the American Society of Training Directors. Michel Foucault’s archaeological analytic was used to conceptualize and design the study and also to interrogate the literature on how subject matter experts are trained to train others. The speaking subjects, although important, were not the focus of this study. The focus was on exploring how various speakers were able to speak what they have spoken about how trainers should be trained. The study was guided by the following questions: 1) In what ways has the train the trainer (TTT) concept been articulated in the ASTD literature? and 2) What conditions of existence have made these articulations possible? The analyses showed that assertions about training trainers in ASTD had been articulated by practitioners, academics, and ASTD office bearers. The articulations on training trainers became possible by classifying and organizing various training objects in multiple ways and relying on concepts like scientific research located in the broader social science domain. The author’s organizational positions and roles, educational degrees, and work experiences have been implicitly used as the authority to speak about different aspects of training trainers. Self-referential and self-legitimating strategies have been used in discursive circularity to produce truths about training trainers. Three conditions of existence: the tension between ASTD, human resource development (HRD), and psychology around research; the influence of economic rationalities; and ubiquity of scientific management and universal claims have made it possible for the articulations on training trainers to be made in ASTD. Findings indicate the pervasive influence of market-based rationality and the modern episteme in ASTD's train the trainer literature and that traces of positivism and neoliberalism have surreptitiously helped construct the train the trainer materials. The study concludes that train the trainer literature, a seemingly mundane and harmless concept, helps reproduce neoliberal trainers.