Tag: access

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Workplace learning: depression as an ‘undiscussable’ topic in eight information and communications technology organisations in South Australia

Author/s: Lisa Davies

Edition: Volume 48, Number 2, July 2008

Summary: More than 800,000 Australians every year are affected by depression. Despite evidence that depression is manageable, that people can be successfully treated in individually appropriate ways and that earlier identification and treatment are associated with  more rapid recovery, depression appears to be poorly recognised and understood. In this paper, I focus on depression in the workplace. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with human resource managers in eight organisations within the deregulated information and computing technology sector in South Australia. I focus on managers’ ability to access information about depression, and their beliefs about the value of work-based education about the illness. I also report on managers’ understandings of prevailing attitudes towards depression and mental health education in their workplaces. The analysis is conducted within a qualitative, interpretive framework.

Keywords: mental health, depression, workplace, managers, access, information

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Travelling against the current: an examination of upstream and downstream educational interventions across the life span

Author/s: Jenny Silburn and Geraldine Box

Edition: Volume 48, Number 1, April 2008

Summary: Current social and economic circumstances are presenting universities with a more diverse general student intake whose support needs are increasingly similar to those of traditionally
defined equity groups. This paper examines a Murdoch University equity program to demonstrate that simply increasing access does not always translate into increased benefit. It presents an argument for the restructuring of existing equity enabling programs and increasing transitional support for all students to achieve more substantive equality in student outcomes.

Keywords: equity, social, economic, access, transitional support

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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.