Is the Professionalisation of Adult Basic Skills Practice Possible, Desirable or Inevitable?

Abstract

This paper explores the meaning and implications of a policy-driven professionalisation of adult basic skills practice. Written amidst competing theoretical conceptualisations of professionalism, the paper focuses on a particular policy moment in Adult Language, Literacy and Numeracy (ALLN) practice in England: Skills for Life. The paper argues that the possibility of implementation of this policy is limited. The policy is filtered through the fragmented nature of the field, the embeddedness of literacy and what this paper calls an 'anti-professional' stance of ALLN practice. For policy makers, professionalisation is desirable, and its impact is far-reaching. It enables control of a key aspect of the service sector implicated in the supply of flexi-workers required by a globalised economy. In discussing the inevitability of professionalisation the paper draws on a small-scale research project to locate a space for the professional imagination, a space in which ALLN practitioners express motivations at odds with policy imperatives and enact professionalisation in ways that arguably hijack the momentum and resource that the policy provides.

Locating post-16 professionalism: public spaces as dissenting spaces

“…New Labour's Skills for Life policy is an intriguing reference here. Between 2001 and 2010, Skills for Life exemplified New Labour's ideas about education as shifting from an adjunct to a direct focus for economic policy (Dennis 2010). Literacy and Numeracy provision were recast as strictly vocational, an economic good predicated upon global competition between states.…”

“…These uncertainties are well-rehearsed and can be revisited elsewhere (Bathmaker and Avis 2005;Dennis 2010;Robson 1998;Stronach et al 2002). Instead, I explore how those with an interest in teaching or who present themselves as teachers engage in digitally mediated communication incidentally, articulating a notion of professionalism in the process of online exchange about an important aspect of public policy.…”

Locating post-16 professionalism: public spaces as dissenting spaces

“…New Labour's Skills for Life policy is an intriguing reference here. Between 2001 and 2010 Skills for Life exemplified New Labour's ideas about education as shifting from adjunct to direct focus for economic policy (Dennis 2010). Literacy and Numeracy provision were re-cast as strictly vocational, an economic good predicated upon global competition between states.…”

“…It is not my intention to further define teacher professionalism. These uncertainties are well-rehearsed and can be revisited elsewhere (Bathmaker and Avis 2005;Dennis 2010;Robson 1998;Stronach et al 2002). Instead, I explore how those with an interest in teaching or who present themselves as teachers engage in digitally mediated communication incidentally articulating a notion of professionalism in the process of online exchange about in important aspect of public policy.…”