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Abstracts

Volume 36, Number 2, Autumn 2004

Positioning queer in adult education: Intervening in politics and praxis in North America
André P. Grace, University of Alberta, Canada
Robert J. Hill, University of Georgia, USA

Abstract

In this paper w/e provide a North American perspective as w/e explore the formation and comprehension of queer knowledge in adult education and in larger sociocultural contexts. W/e consider the need to position queer in adult education mindful of how queer is historically and currently positioned in culture and society. In doing so, w/e articulate queer – a term representing our spectral community that incorporates a diversity of sex, sexual, and gender differences – and queerness: our ways of being, believing, desiring, becoming, belonging, and acting in life-and-learning spaces. Then w/e turn to queer history and queer studies to investigate queer knowledge as fugitive knowledge integral and informative to our project to transgress the social and reconstitute the cultural in adult education as a field of study and practice. W/e locate queer knowledge as an antecedent to queer praxis, and focus on inclusive queer praxis as a transgressive practice–expression–reflection dynamic and a site of transformative learning.

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Co-participation at work: Learning through work and throughout working lives
Stephen Billett, Griffith University, Australia

Abstract

This paper conceptualises a basis for understanding learning in workplaces. This comprises a duality between how access to workplace activities and guidance is afforded, on the one hand, and how workers elect to engage with what is afforded to them, on the other. This reciprocal basis for thinking, acting and learning is referred to as co-participation at work. The key contributions that workplaces make to workers’ learning comprise learners’ access to workplace activities and guidance. Yet workplaces are contested environments, where participation and learning are shaped by the affordances extended to workers or cohorts of workers that are subject to workplace norms and practices. Consequently, access to these contributions is not equally afforded. How they are distributed and accessed shapes how the workplace invites individuals to participate in and learn from these experiences. Yet, individuals also actively participate in managing their learning. They construe the invitational qualities of what is afforded them and elect to engage with work activities and also shape what they learn. Engagement in work and what is co-constructed through work is negotiated between the evolving social practice of the workplace and individuals’ ongoing development founded in their ontogeneses.

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From science to citizenship: An analysis of twentieth-century trends in corporate rhetoric on employee education
Marina Micari, Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, Northwestern University, IL, USA

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the rhetoric of employee training in two US management trade journals, Personnel and Management Review, from 1920 to 2000. A discussion of forces that have influenced US employee development theory and practice throughout the twentieth century is followed by findings of a thematic analysis of the trade journal articles. Four themes emerged from the analysis: the importance of science, perceived inequalities in ability to learn, concern over cost, and corporate training as citizenship training. The analysis reveals consistency of these themes, with organisational control becoming less overtly expressed and increasingly couched in language that emphasises the worth and needs of the individual.

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Too little time to learn? Issues and challenges for those in work
Lore Arthur, The Open University
Alan Tait, The Open University

Abstract

The research project reported here arose out of questions we had in relation to time pressures, increasingly heavy workloads and concerns that we were, it seemed to us, neglecting our families and friends. We kept on asking ourselves: how do people manage? Open University students, for example, most of whom are working full-time, have families and friends, often study more than 14 hours a week on various programmes for either work-related purposes or personal development. How meaningful, therefore, is the concept of lifelong learning to adults in the context of everyday reality? Does the policy-led demand for lifelong learning not place too heavy a burden on individual learners? What does the concept of ‘time’ mean to them? This paper draws on theoretical perspectives of time (rather than space and time) in relation to lifelong learning in the context of work, seen from both the employees’ and the employers’ perspectives

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Adult literacy education in Botswana: Planning between reproduction and resistance
Tonic Maruatona
The University of Botswana, Botswana
Ronald M Cervero, The University of Georgia, USA

Abstract

This article explores how planning the Botswana National Literacy Programme aided the state in maintaining its power and control over the past two decades. Using critical educational theory as the theoretical framework, it demonstrates how the planning of literacy education promotes conventional views of literacy and perpetuates state hegemony. It analyses how educational planners addressed competing choices of language, audience, and instructional design based on issues such as social status, gender, ethnic differences, and geographical location. The state views planning as a non-contested exercise representing different interests and common concerns. It has, however, met with some defiance from planners and facilitators who engaged in overt and quiet dissent from its hegemony. Consequently, the article explores ways to decentralise decision-making and devolve power to the district levels through using a participatory approach to involve all stakeholders in planning for the programme to respond to the learners’ life tasks.

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Mature working class students in an ‘elite’ university: Discourses of risk, choice and exclusion
Lyn Tett, University of Edinburgh, UK

Abstract

Widening participation initiatives tend to focus on raising the aspirations of the working class rather than changing educational cultures. However, any analysis must take account of the role of the educational institution itself in creating and perpetuating inequalities. Participation in higher education (HE) is an inherently more risky, costly and uncertain ‘choice’ for working class groups and this frames their decisions. This paper focuses on the particular issues and ‘risks’ raised when mature working-class students form a small minority in an elite institution. It draws on the experiences of two cohorts of mature students to examine the contrasting discourses used to explain their exclusion and choice. It argues that if the entrenched inequalities in participation in, and across, HE are to be properly addressed and systematically dismantled, there is a need to understand issues of process and structure, and exclusion and choice, in all their complexity.

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The killing of the Workers’ Educational Association of Victoria: A myth challenged
Gordon Dadswell, University of New England, Australia

Abstract

On 21 March 1941, the Council of the Workers’ Educational Association of Victoria, Australia, (the Association) voted the organisation out of existence. The demise was in no way contemplated, and there was no practical reason why the Council acted in the way it did. This paper is the story of the destruction of a successful adult education provider in the State of Victoria, the roles taken by leading intellectuals, specifically Colin Robert Badger, and the subsequent myth that developed to explain this destruction. A brief description of the development of adult education in Australia is presented. This is followed by an analysis of the growth of the Association in Victoria and the role of Colin Robert Badger in ensuring its destruction. The paper concludes with an analysis of the myth that developed following the demise of the Association.

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