Author: Ajal

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The role of cultural context in continuing vocational training

Author/s: Oktay Akbas ̨

Edition: Volume 51, Number 1, April 2011

Summary: This study analysed how auto repairmen working in micro-enterprises undertake continuing vocational training in relation to cultural context. The study was conducted in Kırıkkale, a city in central Anatolia in Turkey. To this end, the descriptive research technique of structured interview was used. Interviews with 33 auto repairmen were recorded and analysed. The results revealed the means used by auto repairmen to receive vocational training. It was found that the auto repairmen who participated in this study mostly consulted their co-workers as a means of vocational training. In addition, almost all of the craftsmen and foremen seemed to receive help from their co-workers when they encountered a problem which they could not solve on their own. The second most common means included computers and the Internet.. On the other hand, face-to-face education and printed materials were the least commonly used means for vocational training. These findings show that, although they are literate, auto repairmen, who mostly do not take full advantage of formal education and grow up in traditional cultural environments, prefer to use oral communication instead of printed materials as their information sources. These results should be taken into consideration while developing vocational training programs for auto repairmen and other similar groups that are not born into a written culture.

Keywords: auto, VET, training programs, vocational, culture, formal

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 51_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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Occupational mobility in Queensland’s Aged Care, Automotive and Civil Construction sectors

Author/s: Sandra Haukka

Edition: Volume 51, Number 1, April 2011

Summary: Current trends in workforce development indicate the movement of workers within and across occupations to be the norm. In 2009, only one in three vocational education and training (VET) graduates in Australia ended up working in an occupation for which they were trained. This implies that VET enhances the employability of its graduates by equipping them with the knowledge and competencies to work in different occupations and sectors. This paper presents findings from a government-funded study that examined the occupational mobility of selected associate professional and trades occupations within the Aged Care, Automotive and Civil Construction sectors in Queensland. The study surveyed enrolled nurses and related workers, motor mechanics and civil construction workers to analyse their patterns of occupational mobility, future work intentions, reasons for taking and leaving work, and the factors influencing them to leave or remain in their occupations.

Keywords: aged care, automotive, civil construction, occupational mobility, employability

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 51_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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International vocational education and training—The migration and learning mix

Author/s: Ly Thi Tran, Chris Nyland

Edition: Volume 51, Number 1, April 2011

Summary: International VET students have divergent, shifting and in some cases multiple purposes for undertaking their VET courses. Students’ motives may be instrumental and/or intrinsic and can include obtaining permanent residency, accumulating skills that can secure good employment, gaining a foothold that leads to higher education, and/or personal transformation. Moreover, students’ study purposes and imagining of acquired values are neither fixed nor unitary. They can be shaped and reshaped by their families and personal aspirations and by the social world and the learning environment with which they interact. We argue that, whatever a student’s study purpose, s/he needs to engage in a learning practice and should be provided with a high quality education. Indeed, we insist this remains the case even if students enrol only in order to gain the qualifications needed to migrate. The paper details the association between migration and learning, and argues that the four variations emerging from the empirical data of this study that centre on migration and skills’ accumulation better explain this association than does the ‘international VET students simply want to migrate’ perspective. We conclude with a discussion of why the stereotype that holds VET international students are mere ‘PR hunters’ is unjust and constitutes a threat to the international VET sector.

Keywords: international students, VET, motives, migration, quality, education

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 51_1. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.

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When traditions become innovations and innovations become traditions in everyday food pedagogies

Author/s: Helen Benny

Edition: Volume 52, Number 3, November 2012

Summary: This paper explores the way learning to cook remains important for the maintenance of ‘ethnic’ food traditions and how sharing food knowledge plays a role in intercultural exchanges. Continue reading “When traditions become innovations and innovations become traditions in everyday food pedagogies”

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Educational alternatives in food production, knowledge and consumption: The public pedagogies of Growing Power and Tsyunhehkw^

Author/s: Pierre Walter

Edition: Volume 52, Number 3, November 2012

Summary: This paper examines how two sites of adult learning in the food movement create educational alternatives to the dominant U.S. food system. Continue reading “Educational alternatives in food production, knowledge and consumption: The public pedagogies of Growing Power and Tsyunhehkw^”

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Pedagogies of doing good: Problematisations, authorities, technologies and teleologies in food activism

Author/s: Rick Flowers and Elaine Swan

Edition: Volume 52, Number 3, November 2012

Summary: In this paper, we apply a framework from Nikolas Rose to analyse the politics of ‘doing good’ in food activist education, what we call food pedagogies. Continue reading “Pedagogies of doing good: Problematisations, authorities, technologies and teleologies in food activism”

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Food pedagogies in Japan: From the implementation of the Basic Law on Food Education to Fukushima

Author/s: Cornelia Reiher

Edition: Volume 52, Number 3, November 2012

Summary: Japan’s Basic Law on Food Education (Shokuiku kihonhō) was enacted in June 2005 as a response to various concerns related to food and nutrition, such as food scandals, an increase in obesity and lifestyle-related diseases and an assumed loss of traditional food culture. Continue reading “Food pedagogies in Japan: From the implementation of the Basic Law on Food Education to Fukushima”

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A critical race and class analysis of learning in the organic farming movement

Author/s: Catherine Etmanski

Edition: Volume 52, Number 3, November 2012

Summary: The purpose of this paper is to add to a growing body of literature that critiques the whiteness of the organic farming movement and analyse potential ramifications of this if farmers are to be understood as educators. Given that farmers do not necessarily self-identify as educators, it is important to understand that in raising this critique, this paper is as much a challenge the author is extending to herself and other educators interested in food sovereignty as it is to members of the organic farming movement. This paper draws from the author’s personal experiences and interest in the small-scale organic farming movement. It provides a brief overview of this movement, which is followed by a discussion of anti-racist food scholarship that critically assesses the inequities and inconsistencies that have developed as a result of hegemonic whiteness within the movement. It then demonstrates how a movement of Indigenous food sovereignty is emerging parallel to the organic farming movement and how food sovereignty is directly related to empowerment through the reclamation of cultural, spiritual, and linguistic practices. Finally, it discusses the potential benefits of adult educators interested in the organic farming movement linking their efforts to a broader framework of food sovereignty, especially through learning to become better allies with Indigenous populations in different parts of the world.

Keywords: organic, farming, farmers, educators, food scholarship, Indigenous, adult

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 52_3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.