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JACE: Editorial

In this issue of JACE, our opening articles, from Sondra Cuban and Rob Mark, focus on aspects of adult literacy. Cuban’s work concerns literacy programmes and female domestic workers in the US. She argues that such individuals are barely visible, have few rights and might be considered to be modern-day slaves. The study offers a number of implications particularly for literacy programming around issues such as healthcare, civic education, the sexual division of labour and the creation of community-based feminist collaborative education. Mark, in the context of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, considers links between literacy and equality and its application to adult literacy practices. Specifically, he looks at the ways in which literacy tutors can use creative non-text methods to promote an understanding of equality issues in learners’ lives. In so doing he argues that new skills and understandings are gained by such learners, though greater challenges exist in combating the inequalities that they explore in such programmes.

Prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) has gained currency in various parts of the world and in various guises, for example as ‘Validation d’expérience’ in France and ‘Recognition of Prior Learning’ in South Africa, and is firmly based in the policy rhetoric of bodies such as the European Union. Nonetheless, much scepticism exists as to its viability. Livingstone and Myers’ paper will, therefore, be welcomed by advocates of practices within this domain. Based upon the experiences of 15,000 Canadians, two national studies and the specific experiences from practices in Nova Scotia, the paper presents a comprehensive picture of adults’ interest in PLAR, and of considerable unmet demand. The authors offer a welcome innovation: links to websites containing DVD clips of some of the voices cited in the text.

Liam Kane deals with an equally vast canvas when considering popular education in Latin America, considering the role that it has in the modern age. He points to a debate on ‘public’ (state) versus ‘popular’ education at 2003 World Education Forum in Porto Alegre, which attracted an audience of some 3,000. The essential issue that he explores is the ‘extent to which the relationship between popular and state education is one of conflict or of co-operation’. This, he suggests, is not straightforward: it depends on the nature of the state, particular ideological interpretations and the strength and imagination of particular popular education movements. A particular criticism of much of educational research is its lack of a longitudinal perspective; further, what exists tends to cover short periods of time. Anne Jamieson, however, provides us with an analysis of the formal study activities over of a group of adult learners over 11 years, based on a two-phase study of students who enrolled on courses run by the Faculty of Continuing Education at Birkbeck, University of London. Her analysis identifies four ‘types’ of students: ‘ongoing students’; ‘intermittent students’; ‘resumers’ and ‘one-off students’. Not only is the temporal extent of Jamieson’s work unusual, but it is also a rare piece of work of this level of sophistication with the domain of university continuing education provision in the UK.

Our final article by Danny Saunders and colleagues at the University of Glamorgan considers the forms that community partnerships take in the area of widening participation in South Wales. The authors identify ‘four possible strategies for meaningful engagement’ in partnerships, and, whilst they consider that all options have flaws, assert that whatever approach is selected must adhere to a key edict of mutual benefit for all partners.

For this editor, this issue of JACE demonstrates the robustness that can be achieved in research and thinking in post-compulsory education. I am currently thinking of how I can characterise JACE amongst those journals that cover the adult and continuing education territory for a round table at the AERC in Halifax in June. It would seem to me that what we are looking for is analytical rigour and relevance on the ground, and I am pleased that these articles meet these essential criteria.