Conceptualising adult education practice : a critical issue

Master of EducationThis thesis spans the period of training reform in Australia, from the late 1980s to 1996. It examines the relationship between policy and practice, to the extent that a suite of policy reforms have impacted on adult education practice, and the relationship between theory and practice, insofar as particular bodies of adult education scholarship are consistent with, or contest, current adult education practice. The thesis adopts a broad definition of adult and vocational education and training and, draws on the experiences of educators who are located in diverse contexts, but united by their involvement in the teaching of adults. It argues that the predilection for vocational education and training in the wake of training reforms, has blurred the boundaries between educational sectors, imposing a common work-related and vocational focus on all education providers. To the extent that the workplace now stands as the reference point for adult educational curricula, the thesis argues that training reform has served to reorient the nature of adult education provision, redefine its purposes, and reduce the potential for critical adult education practice. It demonstrates that the assumptions underpinning training reform, driven by imperatives of economic rationalism and corporate managerialism, have impacted significantly on the manner in which adult educators conceptualise their practice, and embrace critique and critical practice. It illustrates the power of competency-based training, as the phenomenon embodying the reorganisation of teachers' work, consolidating the implementation of particular adult education pedagogies, and impacting on the nature of knowledge incorporated into curricula. A selection of literature belonging to the paradigm of `critical theory' is examined in order to identify the extent to which it embraces both radical purposes of adult education and diversity in the adult learning environment. A critique, which draws on aspects of feminist and poststructuralist theories, argues for the need to theorise critical adult education in a way that acknowledges location, identity and difference. It is in the light of this theorisation of critical practice that opportunities restoring critical adult education practice are explored