Much recent debate has suggested Australia's technical and further education (TAFE) teachers not only need new knowledge and skills but need to perform their professional practices in new ways and in new contexts. What this debate has failed to recognize is that these change discourses are in effect constructing new professional identities for…

Many immigrants, refugees, and aboriginal Canadians learn their own languages in the normal, informal way. These minority languages learned informally are not valued as a skill that yields returns in the labor market in the same way the official languages or formally learned languages do. What counts as a skill in a society, in a given point in…

Since many first line managers (FLMs) have not participated in formal learning, how they make sense of their roles and the training they are doing is significant. A relationship between inadequate literacy skills and ability to do a job is assumed. Language, literacy, and numeracy must be understood in terms of social practice and creation of…

Work-based learning (WBL) is one response of education and training institutions to criticisms they have failed to adapt to changing economic times and the changing nature of work. Formal educational institutions are challenged by the perception that they are inadequate to the task of preparing the present and future work force with the necessary…

This second volume of the Bochum Studies in International Adult Education presents a variety of different perspectives on the topics of citizenship and civil society. Its goal is to give an overview of the European discourse on citizenship and civil society and on the discourse in some selected countries. Part I is comprised of the first of 14…

To take community seriously in the conduct of educational research, the researcher should consider taking down epistemological walls and the "real" ones that confine the processes and products of academic labor to artificially isolated settings. Epistemologically, the question of walls relates to the kinds of knowledge competed over,…

The literacy programs and policies implemented in Australia over the past decade were reviewed to identify initiatives that have and have not had a positive impact on vocational education and training (VET) and lifelong learning opportunities. Policies and practices in seven other countries were also reviewed. The following themes received…

This book, consisting of 17 chapters written by different authors, traces the progress that has been made in developing lifelong learning policies over the past 30 years and examines current challenges to lifelong learning policymakers. Focusing on a global agenda, the book is organized in six parts with thematic chapters following an introductory…