This case study examines influences on the selection and delivery of
knowledge in the employment preparation provision of a trade union in British
Columbia. Bernstein's theories of curricular code and Bourdieu's perspectives on
social and cultural capital are used to analyse data collected by interviews,
observation, and documentary analysis. The emergent themes are organisational
structure, pedagogic practice, diversity and difference, and the good employee ideal,
with each of these demonstrating the tension between the philosophical orientation
of the organisation, as a representative of the labour movement, and the demands
of the funding and policy structures within which it operates. Analysis illustrates
the way curriculum is shaped by forces external to the immediate educational
setting, the most pervasive being the requirement to function as an effective means
of transferring cultural and social capital to unemployed people. The possibility of
using employment preparation as a mechanism to achieve progressive ends is
severely limited by the need to acknowledge the priorities of funders,
administrators, learners, and the neo-liberal backdrop against which the programs
operate. The study implies approaches to curriculum emphasising decisions taken
by instructors and learners mask wider structural influences on knowledge
formation, and more research on the sociology of knowledge in adult education is
called for.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10908 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | St. Clair, William |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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