Waking up to yourself : the ethical work of the young adult learner

The ability to re-engage disaffected learners - 'drop-outs', re-entry students who have previously not completed high school qualifications and disaffected young males (Polesel, Teese, & O'Brien, 2001) - has been reported as a significant measure of the success of the five original senior colleges in New South Wales. Their success in attracting and retaining groups traditionally resistant to mainstream offerings and therefore most likely to experience difficult transitions to work, training or higher education, positions these colleges as having an important role in the range of interventions aimed at keeping young people in education and training (and out of unemployment statistics). When giving an account of the attractive features of such sites, the term 'adult learning environment' is variously used by students and teachers to describe the processes and outcomes of the range of classroom and institutional interactions at the colleges studied. This paper explores the concept of an adult learning environment and its potential to shape the conduct of students by reporting on recent data gathered through interviews with students at a senior college, framing the discussion in terms of Foucault's concept of governmentality