Workplace literacy and power : preliminary investigations

Adult literacy education has traditionally been a site of the intersection of discourses about language and power, constituted largely around the work of Paulo Freire in emancipatory literacy (1970) and Malcolm Knowles (1973) in humanist discourses of empowerment. The current trend towards workplace literacy programs and he discourses of economic rationalism have introduced a major new dimension into this debate. Cultural theorists and literacy educationists have been increasingly critical about the new discourses of workplace training, and particularly workplace literacy, on the grounds that the typical behaviourist methods and functional orientation will simply reproduce social inequities. Preliminary investigations with BHP Steel, Newcastle, however, suggest that workplace literacy programs may be a rich site for the exploration of issues around literacy and power.