Author: Ajal

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Leadership developmental needs – a system for identifying them

Author/s: Marjatta Takala, David Winegar and Jorma Kuusela

Edition: Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009

Summary: This study is an evaluation of the developmental needs of business leaders. Altogether, 190 leaders, representing 22 nationalities, participated in 12 four-day training sessions. The first aim of this study was to identify the key developmental concerns of leaders; the second was to determine what kinds of training methods the leaders preferred; and the third was to design a form that could be used for further training. Fourteen developmental areas were identified.  The key areas that needed development were related to Interaction, Coaching, Giving and Receiving Feedback, and Everyday Work Skills. Artificial experience building and tailor-made training were preferred over lecturing. In further training, activating methods need to be used and demographics taken into consideration.

Keywords: developmental needs, leaders, training methods, coaching, feedback

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Education at the centre? Australia’s national union education program

Author/s: Tony Brown and Keiko Yasukawa

Edition: Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009

Summary: Australian trade unions are at a pivotal moment. In 2007–2008, a review of the training and education programs of the Education and Campaign Centre (ECC), the education arm of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), was conducted through a series of interviews with leaders of twenty-five unions. The review found that Australian unions do not generally view education as a core strategic activity, and many see the ECC simply as a training provider that they could access if they did not have their own trainers. We argue that there are greater possibilities for a national education centre than are currently being contemplated by the union leaders. A key to realising these possibilities lies in unions articulating a shared purpose for union education, and its role in supporting leaders, officials, delegates and activists in the continuing challenges they face in their work.

Keywords: ACTU, unions, strategy, education

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Building capacity through sustainable engagement: lessons for the learning community from the GraniteNet Project

Author/s: Catherine Arden, Kathryn McLachlan and Trevor Cooper

Edition: Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009

Summary: This paper reports an exploration into critical success factors for the sustainability of the partnership between the University of Southern Queensland and the Stanthorpe community during the GraniteNet Phoenix Project – the first phase of a three-phase participatory action research project conducted during 2007–2008. The concepts of learning community, social capital, university-community engagement and partnerships, and co-generative learning through participatory action research and evaluation are brought together to provide a framework for evaluating the sustainability and efficacy of the university-community relationship in the context of the GraniteNet project. Implications of the findings for the ongoing sustainability of the partnership are discussed, as well as for the relevance and utility of identified critical success factors. The paper also discusses implications of the findings for university-community  engagement partnerships that utilise participatory action research and evaluation processes to build capacity through co-generative learning.

Keywords: GraniteNet Phoenix Project, learning community, social capital, community engagement, partnerships, participatory action

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Foucault’s toolkit: resources for ‘thinking’ work in times of continual change

Author/s: Molly Rowan and Sue Shore

Edition: Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009

Summary: This paper was prompted by our interest in two issues associated with Australia’s vocational education and training system: recurring declarations for universal access to vocational education and training (albeit in different forms across different epochs) as the right of all Australians and the continual processes of change associated with the sector over the last two decades. As we approach a time of yet more change in vocational education and training, we call for a rethinking of these two characteristics of a training system, as ‘problems of the present’, situations which in their present form are ‘intolerable’. Reflecting a notion of ‘thinking’ work as personal,  political, historical and practical, the paper offers a glimpse of Foucault (1926–1984) as a person. We explain his use of the term discourse as an overarching frame for understanding ‘problems of the present’. We review two major aspects of his analytic toolkit: archaeology and genealogy. We close with reflections on  the usefulness of these analytic practices as tactics of engagement for researchers interested in historical approaches to vocational education.

Keywords: vocational education, access, Foucault, engagement

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Informal learning: a discussion around defining and researching its breadth and importance

Author/s: Barry Golding, Mike Brown and Annette Foley

Edition: Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009

Summary: Informal learning has often been seen as formal learning’s ‘poor cousin’. Our paper explores and discusses new and different ways of thinking about defining, valuing and researching the breadth and importance of informal learning in diverse national and cultural contexts. This includes a consideration of the power relations that can act to devalue informal learning. It is underpinned by a recognition that not only do a relatively small proportion of adults currently engage in formal learning, but those who do tend already to be dedicated and successful lifelong learners. It leads to a discussion about how informal learning might be framed as part of the solution to adult exclusion, seen to be aggravated by unnecessary adult educational hierarchies, accreditation, assessment and formality.

Keywords: informal learning, inclusion, context, cultural

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

 

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Conceptualising adult and continuing education practice: towards a framework for research

Author/s: Benjamin Tak-Yuen Chan

Edition: Volume 49, Number 1, April 2009

Summary: Adult and continuing education practitioners are the core group of staff that enable the lifelong learning enterprise. However, there are few studies that look into the domain of practice of these practitioners, which is shaped by the organisation and its wider external milieux. Research on this topic naturally calls for the elucidation of practitioners’ values and practice-related orientations that have structuring properties on practice. This paper argues that the theorising of practice must pay attention to the issue of ‘duality of structure’ for the values of practice. It also suggests drawing from a range of theories to help establish the practice-to-milieu connection. Theories may also assist in bridging the abstract-to-reality gap when translating from values to actions. Whilst theories can offer explicative potential for practice, their use is facilitated only through availability of analytical frameworks to organise the practice of teaching adults and program planning into a logical series of components and processes. In this connection, a teaching practice model and a program planning practice model, based on systems theory, are proposed to guide future research.

Keywords: lifelong learning, practice, teaching practice, program planning

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 49_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

 

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Journal objectives over 50 years

Author/s: Various

Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010

Summary: Australian Journal of Adult Learning objectives over 50 years.

Keywords: Australian Journal of Adult Learning, objectives, 50 years

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Significant adult education artefacts

Author/s: Dr Alan Arnott, Dr Alan Davies, Michael Newman, Sally Thompson and Dr Peter Willis

Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010

Summary: We asked a number of people in adult learning to write a short essay on a significant book, article, artefact or media creation that they had experienced relating to adult education/learning sometime in the last 50 years, reflecting on what impact it made on them and their adult educational ideas and practices. All the respondents are long-time adult education practitioners, who also have had, or currently hold, positions of significance in the Association. Here are their responses.

Keywords: adult learning, artefacts, impact, ideas, practices

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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An experiment in method

Author/s: J.L.J. Wilson

Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010

Summary: A one week’s school for training in the work of Co-operatives for Aborigines was held at ‘Tranby’ by the Australian Board of Missions in February this year, organized by the Rev. Alfred Clint. It was the third successive year in which such a school was held. As in former years it consisted of two courses for two groups—one for aborigines, the other for European teachers, administrators and missionaries working in aboriginal settlements.

Keywords: Australian Board of Missions, missionaries, aboriginal settlements

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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National and international associations 50 years on

Author/s: Alan Tuckett

Edition: Volume 50, Number 3, November 2010

Summary: Looking back fifty years is a salutary experience. There is a sense that everything changes, and everything stays the same. Whilst we now have a global non-government organisation to support national bodies in the field of adult learning, most of the national members have a fragile financial base, and the International Council for Adult Education struggles to find secure funders for its global advocacy work. If the profession of adult education has grown dramatically since the 1960s, it feels in too many countries as though it is now well past its zenith, with the optimism of mass literacy campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s giving way to the narrow focus of the Millennium Development Goals—where you look in vain for the explicit recognition of the role of adult education.

Keywords: International Council for Adult Education, global advocacy, developmental goals

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 50_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.