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JACE: Abstracts

Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2007

‘For some reason, I’m just tired’: women domestic workers persisting in community-based programmes
Sondra Cuban

A study of women migrant domestic workers in the USA and their reasons for participating and persisting in community-based literacy and ESOL programmes is presented. Case studies and themes were developed about the women’s experiences of work life and how it connected to their programme participation. The findings revealed that the women had health problems that were related to their work, and they participated in programmes in order to better understand them. The women also experienced considerable isolation at work, and attended their programmes in order to socialise and meet other women like themselves. Additionally, the women wanted to learn how to better negotiate workplace texts, and, eventually, use their new-found knowledge and education to move into other occupations. The article ends with implications for practice and policy.

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Promoting an equality agenda in adult literacy practice using non-text/creative methodologies
Rob Mark

This paper examines the relationship between literacy, equality and creativity and the relevance for adult literacy practices. It looks in particular at how literacy tutors can use creative non-text methods to promote an understanding of equality in learners’ lives. Through an examination of the findings from the Literacy and Equality in Irish Society (LEIS) Project (2004–2006), the paper shows how individuals from different fields of research and practice came together to create new insights into how literacy practices might be enacted in different learning contexts. To support this work, the project researched, designed and developed a resource guide (Lamb et al, 2006), which provides support for literacy tutors to explore equality issues using creative non-text methods of learning.
Findings show that with appropriate support, tutors and learners can engage in a collaborative research process that has the potential to influence the ongoing development of literacy learning in new and creative ways. They also show that literacy is more than a set of basic skills to be acquired and that literacy, equality and creativity can be understood through the everyday lives and social practices of learners.

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‘I might be overqualified’: personal perspectives and national survey findings on prior learning assessment and recognition in Canada
D.W. Livingstone and Douglas Myers

Interest in prior learning recognition among Canadian adults is estimated on the basis of a large-scale national survey and illustrated by an account of the development of a prior learning assessment centre and the individual experiences of participants. Both the common principles and the distinctive activities that characterise the prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) field are considered. The survey finds widespread interest in PLAR, especially in the employed labour force, and large unmet demand for both adult education courses and PLAR. There are significant demographic differences: younger adults are much more interested in PLAR regardless of their formal educational attainment, as are non-whites and recent immigrants. Those most involved in informal learning activities have the greatest interest in PLAR, most notably young high school dropouts. Policy implications of these findings and experiences for wider application of PLAR are considered. The direct learner voices quoted in the text can be seen and heard in DVD clips at www.wallnetwork.ca and www.placentre.ns.ca.

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Conflict and co-operation between ‘popular’and ‘state’ education in Latin America
Liam Kane

During the Latin American oppression of the 1970s, as the rapidly increasing number of grassroots ‘popular’ social movements sought to profit from and expand the ideas of the radical Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire, there developed, in its own right, a ‘popular education’ movement which engaged in radical education for change independently of and often in direct opposition to the state. With the apparent demise of open dictatorship and the rise of formal, albeit limited, ‘democratic’ states in the 1990s, the popular education movement began to debate the type of relationship it should now have with the state in this changed political context. In recent years the election of a number of left-leaning governments has made the issue even more urgent. Drawing comparisons with practice in the UK, this article explores the relationship between ‘popular’ and ‘state’ education in Latin America and argues that the strength of the popular education movement outside the state is the most likely determinant of its impact within it.

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Charting the pathways of lifelong learning: a longitudinal perspective on formal study in adulthood
Anne Jamieson and Lesley Adshead

This article explores the pattern of formal study activities over a period of 11 years for a group of adult learners. It is based on a two-phase study of students who enrolled in 1999 on courses run by the Faculty of Continuing Education at Birkbeck, University of London. Taking a longitudinal perspective, conducted retrospectively for 1994–1999, and prospectively for 2000–2005, it focuses on their study pathways and ‘progression’ over this period, exploring the patterns of participation, and whether these are associated with patterns of study motivations and outcomes. Using quantitative analysis of patterns of over this period, four ‘types’ of students were identified: ‘ongoing students’; ‘intermittent students’; ‘resumers’ and ‘one-off students’. Certain trends were discernable in terms of the demographic composition of each of these ‘types’, and in terms of study motivation and benefits. However, there was also considerable variability within each of the types, which highlights the extent of diversity among adult learners and the variety of roles played by education in the life course of individuals.

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Partnership working via community consortia: a higher education perspective
Danny Saunders, Rob Payne, and Lisa Davies

The advantages and difficulties of partnership working for a new university at crisis point in the use of people, time and facilities for the development of widening participation initiatives. The focus is on local partnerships which bring together a wide range of organisations from public, private and voluntary sectors to increase participation in education and training in the South Wales valleys.
Patterns of development were analysed for four consortium-based partnerships. Membership profiles revealed a pronounced dominance by public sector representatives. It was noted that after an initial interest in community partnership operations employers and voluntary sector representatives gradually stopped attending. Meetings were linked with a growing level of administrative detail and local educational authority and school representatives addressed an agenda of education and training provision for 14–19-year-olds; it is suspected that this also explained to some extent the non-attendance of business and voluntary sector representatives because they perceived 14–19-year-old youth dominated agendas as peripheral to their core interests. By contrast, the working groups in the partnerships were characterised by more grassroots involvement from a variety of sectors.
The authors identify four possible strategies for meaningful engagement in numerous and concurrent local partnerships.

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