Mark Tennant

Reconstructing the lifelong learner: Pedagogy and identity in individual, organisational and social change

This publication examines adult learning for change through a number of diverse case studies and theoretical perspectives to demonstrate that personal change is bound to broadenorganisational and social change. The authors investigate the implications of theorising education as a means of self-change for educational practice. Case studies focus on self-help books, work-based learning, corporate culture training, HIV/AIDS education, gender education, and sex offender education. The authors conclude with a study of how the experience of writing an academic text has contributed to their own identities.

Putting doctoral education to work: challenges to academic practice

Professional doctorates designed to meet the needs of particular groups (education, nursing, business, law, etc.) have been established, and the PhD now encompasses a wide range of academic pursuits. However, the combination of the PhD and designated professional doctorates does not exhaust the range of doctoral‐level education. Is there a particular role for a doctoral‐level qualification for those who do not wish to follow the academic path of the PhD, or the designated path of existing professional doctorates? This paper argues that there is such a need, and identifies and explores some of the issues to be faced in addressing such a need. The paper focuses on three challenges for academic practice in doctoral education arising from this. First, the impetus for new forms of doctoral education is considered and what this implies for the diversity of current provision. Second, the target population for new professionally orientated doctorates is examined, namely ‘new knowledge workers’, those who operate in areas not covered by specialized doctorates and those who wish to negotiate transdisciplinary programs. Finally, the paper examines issues universities face in meeting the needs of new populations of doctoral candidates, particularly the need to develop new academic cultural practices.

Perspective Transformation and Adult Development.

The way Mezirow (1991a) links the concept of perspective transformation to the process of adult development illustrates a pervasive tension in his work. On the one hand, Mezirow has been credited with highlighting the social dimension of adult learning and education; on the other hand, his theory has been criticised for lacking a social critique: he theorises the individual side of the individual-social dialectic at the expense of the social side. These criticisms, however flawed, do have some sub-stance when applied to Mezirows views of how adult development relates to perspective transformation. Specifically, Mezirow does not sufficiently explore the social origins of the life course, which leads him to consider examples of normative psychological development as instances of perspective transformation. Perspective transformation is best conceived as a developmental shift (a new world view) rather than simply developmental progress in a taken-for-granted world.

Doctoring the Knowledge Worker.

In this paper I examine the impact of the new ‘knowledge economy’ on contemporary doctoral education. I argue that the knowledge economy promotes a view of knowledge and knowledge workers that fund...In this paper I examine the impact of the new ‘knowledge economy’ on contemporary doctoral education. I argue that the knowledge economy promotes a view of knowledge and knowledge workers that fundamentally challenges the idea of a university as a community of autonomous scholars transmitting and adding to societys ‘stock of knowledge’. The paper examines and then dismisses the proposition that professional doctorates are the principal vehicle through which ‘working knowledge’ is incorporated into doctoral education. While professional doctorates may have been tactically useful for universities, there are broader transformations in doctoral education that transcend the professional doctorate/Ph.D. distinction. I argue that as doctoral education adopts the practices of ‘self’ pertinent to the knowledge economy, the ‘subject’ of doctoral education shifts from that of the ‘autonomous student’ to that of the ‘enterprising self’.

The Staged Self-Directed Learning Model.

Grows article Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed (Adult Education Quarterly, Spring 1991), in which he presents his Staged Self-Directed Learning (SSDL) Model, concludes with an implicit invitation for others to participate in the “ongoing conversation of those who encourage self-directed, lifelong learning.” The following response to his article is offered in the spirit of this “ongoing conversation.”

Transformative Learning in the Context of Suicide Bereavement

This article examines the experience of suicide bereavement through the lens of transformative learning. Its purpose is twofold: first, to analyse the dynamics of the grieving process and the transformative experience of the bereaved; second, to use this analysis to draw implications for theory, practice, and research on transformative learning. It is a study of the way in which those bereaved by suicide construct meaning about the self-volition of the death and their ongoing relationships with the deceased, themselves, and significant others. In common with transformative learning, this quest for meaning proceeds through discourse, dialogue, and the re-storying past events and relationships. While the study illustrates the general thrust of transformative learning theory, it also highlights some of its limitations as it is commonly expressed and conducted. These limitations are discussed in relation to the tension between cognition and affect, the role of relationships, and underlying conceptions of the self.

Adult Education as a Technology of the Self.

Adult education has a long history of interest in the development and transformation of the self. As such it is useful to consider a range of adult education programs as belonging to and extending the lineage of ‘technologies of the self’ identified by Foucault (1988). In all such programmes, even the most individualistic, there are implicit or explicit theorizations concerning the nature of the self and the way the self relates to others or to society more generally. The purpose of this paper is to explore the postmodern critique of the dominant theorizations of the self in adult education: the psychological/humanistic and the sociological/critical; and to comment on the ‘solution’ proferred by a postmodern theorization. The postmodern critique is valuable in drawing attention to the difficulties of theorizing some kind of originary, core, true, stable, or ahistorical self. Nevertheless it is important to acknowledge that in many of the sites in which adult educators work, the pursuit of a coherent, cont...

Working Knowledge: Australian Universities and "Real World" Education

Universities are at a pivotal point in their history and are undergoing dramatic changes. One of the more significant of these changes is the move towards instrumental programmes of learning, as manifest for instance in workplace and work-based learning. This paper argues that this trend threatens the existence of the liberal university, where knowledge is pursued predominantly for its own sake. The paper identifies four dominant discourses in higher education and suggests that these discourses co-exist with one another, and are sometimes dominant, at other times recessive. It argues that the trend to a post-industrialised labour market has seen the emergence of a vocationalised discourse in higher education, which stresses the instrumental at the expense of the liberal.

Issues of Identity and Knowledge in the Schooling of VET: A Case Study of Lifelong Learning

This article discusses two school‐based case studies of vocational education and training in the areas of information technology and hospitality from the perspective of the agendas of ‘lifelong learning’. Lifelong learning can be seen as both a policy goal leading to institutional and programme reforms and as a process which fosters in learners identities that enable them to thrive in the circumstances of contemporary life. These case studies suggest that current approaches to vocational education and training in schools are enacting the first but not the second of these agendas. Institutional barriers are being removed and work placements drawn in to schooling programmes. However, the pedagogy, assessment and curriculum of the programmes emphasizes short‐term (and conflicting) knowledge objectives rather than orientations to flexible lifelong learning. We argue that it is teachers rather than the students who are thrust most forcibly into adopting new learner‐worker identities consonant with the attributes of ‘lifelong learners’ and the demands of the contemporary workplace.

Adult education in Australia; shifting identities 1980-2000

In this paper we analyse changes in the provision of adult education in Australia in the 20 years to 2000. We do so by identifying the ways in which adult education has responded to global trends and issues relating to demography, the ‘knowledge economy’, the changing workplace, and the changing role of the state from a ‘provider’ to a ‘purchaser’ of education. Perhaps the key change in adult education since 1980 is that it has been reconfigured as ‘adult learning’, while paradoxically increasing its profile in the guise of the ‘ACE’ sector, and thus standing alongside TAFE and the universities as a major postsecondary education provider. We argue that adult education provision in 2000 is more widely recognized, inclusive of more activities, more central, better managed, more abundant, and that it has recognizably responded to the changing context in which it is located.