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Editorial

Volume 36, Number 2, Autumn 2004

Mirror writing: reflecting back
Miriam Zukas, University of Leeds, UK (m.zukas@leeds.ac.uk)

The Studies Editorial Board set up an International Advisory Group (IAG) a couple of years ago with the express purpose of gaining fresh perspectives on the journal from colleagues in other countries. Under Richard Edwards’ editorship, we decided to ask the IAG to evaluate the 2003 volume of the journal, to try and establish from these critical friends how the journal was doing and how it might develop. The feedback arrived shortly after I took over in January 2004, and the Board has since had the chance to discuss it. We were very grateful for the feedback which was copious, fascinating, constructively critical, sometimes contradictory and highly instructive. In our discussions, we agreed that it would be useful to air some of the issues raised by the IAG in this edition of the journal, partly to share with readers the dialogues that help construct the identity of a journal and partly to invite further contributions.

A central set of issues emerged which were concerned with diversity, internationalisation and Britocentrism (if one can use such a neologism). The IAG noted that in our aims we had set ourselves the task of promoting the field of adult education, developing theory, challenging ‘conventional wisdom’ through innovative work, providing critical debate, and ensuring a diversity of voices and paradigms. Whilst they felt that the journal achieved the first four of these aims, some members suggested that the volume had not achieved the aim for a diversity of voices. Two aspects were noted. The first highlighted that the journal had no contributions from the global south, diaspora groups, indigenous populations, immigrants, colonised groups, black insurgency and so on; nor were there discussions of racism, Africentric knowledge, indigenous knowledge, immigrant learning or international comparisons beyond the reaches of the UK and Europe. The second aspect was that we needed to be more international. As one member of the IAG put it, ‘The authors during 2003 seem not to represent the UK but rather the UK and the parts of the empire that became dominated by people from the UK and its traditions, educational systems and perspectives’.

The Board has struggled with these issues at many of its meetings. As a group, we feel that the journal has managed to achieve a diversity of theoretical voices and paradigms, but we recognise that the criticism is fair in relation to race and country. One challenge is that a journal like Studies does not solicit articles, but responds to what is sent in, and so the papers reflect what comes to the journal. The Board (and, more recently, IAG members) recognise that this is not an adequate response if one is trying to encourage articles about race, marginalisation, new knowledges and so on. We are therefore looking to enhance the IAG membership to help us in this respect, and will be taking action accordingly. We are also constantly reviewing the membership of the Board and, as Board members, we will seek to encourage potential contributions when we attend conferences and so on. Furthermore, one way of encouraging contributions is to ask individuals to review papers for us, and the IAG very kindly provided us with a comprehensive list of individuals who will be help us broaden our reviewer base. We would also like to alert you, the readers, to these issues and to encourage you, if you are researching such issues, to consider Studies as a potential outlet for your work, or to alert others to our aim.

Another point forcefully made by some of our contributors is the extent to which British authors fail to take account of international audiences in their writing. Whilst some of this might be picked up through the editorial process, we shall, in future, be encouraging authors and reviewers to watch out for assumptions of knowledge of UK issues and history and I will be amending our guidance accordingly. We will also be making stronger connections with non-UK-based adult education research organisations and conferences to ensure that people are aware of the journal and its international policy.

One further way of encouraging contributions on particular topics is to invite symposia on specific themes of interest to scholars and researchers. For the first time, we have published in this edition a call for proposals for symposia. Each symposium would be a collection of four or five papers on a particular theme, with one person taking responsibility as the lead proposer. You will find details of the call just after this editorial.
Another set of issues raised by the IAG in its evaluation of last year’s volume had to do with the focus of the journal. It was suggested that Studies should perhaps leave the area of higher education to other journals but, on reflection, the Board felt that this would be difficult to achieve, given that many adults are educated in higher education contexts. It would also be undesirable, given that it is our focus on the education of adults, broadly defined, rather than a sectoral interest in adult education, which is the defining feature of the journal.

Two further points about the IAG feedback. First, it was noted that the journal has a clear identity as a conceptual journal with strong theoretical debates. Second, and somewhat at odds with this, it was noted that there was not as much critical debate within the journal as one might expect. Over my last six months as Editor, I have been struck that some papers submitted for review often fail to engage with previous theoretical debates within the journal, particularly in relation to crucial and contested themes such as social capital, personalised learning and evidence-based policy. This intensive reflection has not, however, stopped the work of the journal proceeding and this edition, another bulky one, both reinforces some of the points made by the IAG and contradicts them. The papers come from Australia, Botswana, Canada, England, Scotland and the USA. The first, André Grace and Robert Hill’s article, ‘Positioning queer in adult education’, is a good representation of what might be called the marginalised voices (at least, in the education of adults) of ‘queer’. Although the authors take a North American perspective, the paper’s exploration of queer knowledge in order to ‘transgress the social and reconstitute the cultural in adult education as a field of study and practice’ has implications for those working elsewhere. The authors analyse the North American field of adult education as a site of relationships of power and examine the extent to which academic adult education has recognised and fostered queer persons and knowledge. Their historical account suggests that moments of resistance and visibility have helped transform the field. Those of us who recall some of the highly marginal early meetings of the group that later became the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Allies Caucus will find this argument convincing! The ‘queer’ movement (if one could call it such a thing) would not have happened if individuals like Grace and Hill had not seized opportunities at conferences and the like to open up discussion on these issues. In other words, conferences afforded new possibilities for learning and Grace and Hill actively used those possibilities to open up new spaces for learning – what Stephen Billett might call ‘co-participation’. Billett’s paper deals with a challenging theoretical problem for those considering learning in the workplace. He explores the relationships between, on the one hand, the ways in which the workplace affords workers certain workplace activities and guidance and, on the other, the ways in which those workers elect to engage with those activities and guidance. He terms this ‘reciprocal basis for thinking, acting and learning’ co-participation. Whilst recognising the ways in which workplaces unevenly (unfairly?) distribute certain forms of participation, Billett recognises that individuals actively construe these affordances and manage their own learning and development in part through their own ontogenesis.

Marina Micari’s paper is also concerned with the world of work and learning. She explores the rhetoric of employee training through an analysis of two North American management trade journals. The 80-year scope of the review enables one to see how some themes remain consistent, although increasingly they are expressed in language that focuses on the ‘worth and needs of the individual’, rather than the language of organisational control. These findings confirm in an interesting way the trends so clearly observed by postmodern commentators.

The postmodern complaint is often one of time. And how do people combine work and learning, if learning is conceptualised as an activity which is separate from work? Lore Arthur and Alan Tait examine this notion of time in relation to both employers’ and workers’ perspectives from nine companies in England. They note that these two groups understand time and time pressures quite differently, with employers paying little attention to the time needs of learners (even though there might be extensive support in other ways). They raise questions about the extent to which it is meaningful to talk about lifelong learning in the context of everyday reality, suggesting that the policy-led demand for lifelong learners places too heavy a burden on individuals. Tonic Maruatona and Ron Cervero’s study takes as its starting point a rather different policy context: they explore planning for adult literacy education in Botswana over the last two decades. They are particularly concerned with the ways in which such planning promotes conventional views of literacy and perpetuates state hegemony. Because adult literacy education is regarded by planners as uncontested (despite competing issues of language, audience and instructional design), there has been little place for addressing issues of power and difference. Nevertheless, the research reports moments of defiance and the potential of a participatory approach for programme planning that will involve all stakeholders.

Lyn Tett’s research is also concerned with contestation of the status quo in her examination of two cohorts of mature students participating in higher education in an elite institution in Scotland. She argues that, if we are to challenge the inequalities in patterns of participation in higher education, we need to understand the complexity of exclusion and choice that continue to exist, and not to assume that these challenges disappear once marginalised students set foot inside the institution.

The final paper in this volume reflects some of the themes above: historical analysis, politics, the contestation of the status quo. However Gordon Dadswell also draws attention to the ways in which myths are constructed through his careful analysis of the demise of the Workers’ Educational Association of Victoria, Australia. He explores how a successful adult education organisation came to vote itself out of existence for no apparent reason. He looks particularly at the role of one leading intellectual in this demise and reminds us of the power of individuals to reconstruct history.

Finally, our review section is as extensive as ever thanks to our diligent reviewers and we hope you find the range and variety as useful as our IAG members, who told us that this was one thing we certainly had right.