Abstract
This
paper challenges common sense understandings of the relationship between literacy and
numeracy skills and (un)employment. Focusing in particular on literacy skills, the paper
first outlines the human capital argument that improving literacy skills adds to the
economic value of individuals, enterprises and the nation. This dominant discourse is then
challenged by an alternative sociocultural approach to literacy known as the 'new literacy
studies'. Reference is made to ethnographic studies of how people use and value a range of
literacy practices in workplace contexts, including two studies undertaken by the author.
By linking these micro studies to broader macro structural factors it is argued that
literacy 'problems' play an ideological role in supporting dominant capitalist interests.
In a reversal of the usual dominant discourse, literacy problems are seen to be
produced/caused by particular economic conditions as dominant groups effectively shift the
responsibility for these conditions onto those who lack skills, and in particular,
literacy skills. This critical perspective undermines current priorities in policy and
research.
Introduction
This paper forms part of a project which
examines the relationship between literacy and numeracy skills and a range of indicators
of wellbeing, with the key focus in this paper being employment, and its corollary,
unemployment. Most people assume this relationship to be relatively unproblematic because
the discourse on the role of literacy, (and to a lesser extent numeracy) and
(un)employment is well known. When, for example, the former federal Minister for
Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Dr Kemp in the midst of a recent ‘literacy
crisis’ stated: There are direct links between poor literacy, school drop out
rates and youth unemployment (DEETYA 1996a: 1), few people would have questioned this
statement. Most people believe, and would rarely challenge the view that literacy and
numeracy skills are essential requirements for employment in the current globalised world,
and that lacking literacy and numeracy skills may contribute to, in fact may cause,
unemployment. To promote dialogue and debate on these issues, my aim in this paper is to
challenge these common sense understandings with an alternative critical discourse.
The Dominant Discourse on Literacy, Numeracy and Employment
An appropriate starting point is a brief
outline of the dominant discourse on literacy, numeracy and (un)employment. At the outset,
however, I need to point to the research and policy bias to date in favour of the role of
literacy. Numeracy has not featured so prominently and is sometimes subsumed within a
broader definition of literacy (for example, see DEET 1991a: 9, and the notion of
quantitative literacy in Kirsch et al 1993) or included within a term such as
‘basic skills’. Often, and particularly in recent government reports,
researchers refer to literacy and numeracy as one, failing to make a strong distinction
between the skills (e.g. Lee and Miller 2000, Miller and Chiswick 1997, Rahmani 2000). The
bias in favour of literacy is reflected in this paper as I refer predominantly to literacy
studies, though, as with many other studies, to some extent numeracy is inferred in
discussions on literacy. I do nevertheless make reference to some recent significant
numeracy studies.
Literacy skills assume enormous significance
in contemporary Western society. Citing the former Minister Dr Kemp, again, he stated in a
media release that: The single most important mission of schools is to provide every
student with adequate literacy skills (DEETYA 1996a: 1). Literacy is generally equated
with success in life, with notions of a person being ‘educated’, obtaining a job
and having access to the ‘goods’ and trappings of wellbeing that are valued
highly in society. The corollary to this perspective is that lack of literacy has dire
consequences. For example, on the first page of the Australian Language and Literacy
Policy (ALLP) we find the following unequivocal statement:
There is a strong and well demonstrated
relationship between low levels of literacy or English language competence and high levels
of unemployment and other forms of social disadvantage (DEET 1991a: 1).
The relationship between literacy skills and
(un)employment has received particularly high prominence since the late 1980s with
increasing recognition that if the skills of the nation’s workforce do not improve
then the nation will become uncompetitive in a globalised economy (see Dawkins and Holding
1987; DEET 1991a/b). Dawkins, former federal Minister for the Department of Employment,
Education and Training, for example, claimed that for Australians: ... literacy is the
difference between competing in international markets with a well trained workforce - and
stagnation (International Literacy Year 1991). Further, there have been claims that
lack of literacy or low literacy skills in workplaces costs the nation billions of dollars
in lost productivity each year (Miltenyi 1989, Singh 1989). Commonly, lack of literacy is
represented as a scourge, with negative implications for the economic security and
productivity of individuals, enterprises and the nation generally (DEET 1991b: 20-23). It
is seen to restrict the ability of workers to adapt to new technology and new workplace
practices, and leads to safety concerns, costly mistakes and a host of other negative
features (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and
Training 1991: 18-26). Not surprisingly, in view of this dominant discourse, federal
governments since the early 1990s have channeled considerable funds into both literacy
programs in workplaces (the Workplace English Language and Literacy program, WELL) and for
the unemployed (see DEET 1991a/b, 1996, DEETYA 1996b, Rahmani 2000).
Australia, of course, is not alone in focusing
on literacy skills and (un)employment. The recent Moser Report in the United Kingdom
(Moser Report 1999) for example, makes explicit the economic implications of low literacy
(and numeracy) skills, and in the United States improving the literacy skills of workers
has long been regarded as integral to economic development (e.g. Chisman and Campbell
1990; Darkenwald and Valentine 1984, Newman and Beverstock 1990). Literacy programs are
also claimed to be an essential aspect of recent ‘welfare-to-work’ initiatives
in the United States (Martin and Fisher 1999). Perhaps the best international examples of
the stated relationship between literacy skills and economic wellbeing are the many OECD
(Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) reports over the last decade (e.g.
OECD 1992, 1995, 1997, OECD/Statistics Canada 2000). These reports draw on international
comparisons of literacy rates using standardised measures and they all strongly recommend
a focus on improving literacy skills as the ‘key’ to unlocking the benefits of
globalisation (e.g. OECD 1995: 23).
Organisations such as the OECD are respected
authorities on economic development. Their reports, together with many government reports
and academic opinions, some of which are cited in this paper, represent a powerful and
dominant voice on the relationship between literacy skills and aspects of employment. They
are part of a broader human capital discourse which sees education as an investment which
will lead to greater economic productivity. Literacy skills are, as one government
publication put it: Just like farmland and goldmines, we can use them to help our
country to grow and prosper in the 21st century (DEET 1992a: 1, Wickert and Baynham
1994). They are skills that are seen to add to the economic value of people, to increase
their exchange value in the labour market (see Marginson 1993, 1997).
Within this discourse literacy skills are
elevated; they are viewed as a set of technical skills which, once acquired, usually lead
to positive employment outcomes. This ‘model’ of literacy has been termed
‘autonomous’ by Street (1984, 1993) because literacy is considered a cognitive
skill relatively autonomous of social context. In many studies based on this model the
literacy levels of particular groups of people are measured using a range of indicators,
and usually higher literacy levels are found to correlate with higher income/status jobs,
and the reverse is the case for lower literacy levels (for recent Australian studies, see
Lee and Miller 2000; Miller and Chiswick 1997). The measures or the indicators of literacy
vary considerably across different studies, ranging from the estimations and beliefs of
employers and their organisations (see House of Representatives Standing Committee on
Employment, Education and Training 1991: 9-12), to sophisticated statistical surveys
conducted across a range of standardised literacy related tasks (e.g. OECD 1995, 1997,
OECD/Statistics Canada 2000, Australian Bureau of Statistics 1997). On the basis of both
these beliefs and the statistical findings powerful institutions invariably assume the
authority to identify individuals and groups of people as lacking or deficient in literacy
skills and to ‘prescribe’ some form of literacy provision for the economic
wellbeing of all concerned; individuals, enterprises, and the nation. I use the word
‘prescribe’ here as it relates to some observations made by Freebody (1992: 73)
almost a decade ago in which he stated:
We are never describing literacy activities,
no matter how commonsensical our assertions may be. We are always prescribing, saying what
should be, and so presenting ourselves as arbiters of what counts as literacy to a
community that has not generally learned to read our announcements critically ...
These comments appear to correspond to the
situation involving powerful and influential organisations like the OECD with their
International Adult Literacy Surveys (IALS) based on standardised measures. These surveys
with their seemingly ‘objective’ findings lead to commonsensical assertions
about the state of literacy in different countries, and they enable the OECD and others
(government agencies in particular which draw on the OECD findings) to present themselves
as arbiters of what counts as literacy and to ‘prescribe’ solutions involving
the need for increased literacy provision.
The New Literacy Studies
My approach to the role of literacy (and
numeracy, explained later) differs from the dominant one outlined above. Rather than focus
on measuring the extent to which different individuals or groups of people possess a
particular set of literacy skills, my focus is on what literacy actually means to these
people. It involves analysing how literacy is used and valued by people in different
social contexts seen from their own perspective, and it follows from the work of
researchers such as Freebody (1992) who argues for the need to study ‘in a principled
ethnographic sense’ everyday literacy practices in specific communities. This shift
from a focus on standardised ‘skills’ to literacy ‘practices’ relates
to the distinction Street (1984, 1993) makes between an ‘autonomous’ model of
literacy described briefly earlier, and an ‘ideological’ model, one based on
studies of literacy practices in a range of social contexts and which often brings into
focus the central role of power relations (Street 1993: 2). From another perspective,
especially in relation to the OECD surveys, we can see this distinction to be about
quantitative and qualitative research, between measuring an apparently neutral and
‘objective’ literacy using standardised tests (the IALS), as distinct from
trying to understand through ethnographic studies the use of a wide range of literacy
practices in a cultural context imbued with ideology and subjectivity (see Druine and
Wildermeersch 2000: 396-7). Critics of the IALS point out that standardised literacy
measures are unlikely to accurately describe the literacy activities/practices of the
groups of people surveyed largely because they fail to adequately account for different
cultural contexts (see Hamilton and Barton 2000).
This reconceptualisation of literacy based on
literacy practices and sociocultural context has been referred to as the ‘new
literacy studies’ (e.g. Barton 1994, Gee 1990, Street 1993) which gained popularity
mainly from the mid/early1980s based on the ethnographic studies of sociolinguists such as
Heath (1983) and Levine (1986), and anthropologists such as Street (1984). In the past
decade or so many more academic studies have contributed to the new literacy studies to
the extent that, at an academic level at least, there is now a serious challenge to the
dominance of the more traditional ‘autonomous’ model of literacy (see, for
example, Baker and Luke 1990, Barton and Hamilton 1998, Barton, Hamilton and Ivanic 2000,
Barton and Ivanic 1991, Baynham 1995, Cook-Gumperz 1986, Gee 1990, Gowen 1992, Hull 1993,
Lankshear 1997, Luke and Freebody 1997, Prinsloo and Breier 1996, Street 1993). As I will
indicate later, however, there are powerful interests at stake in maintaining the
dominance of the autonomous model.
The ‘new literacy studies’ focus on
the social nature of literacy, on micro literacy events and the practices that shape them
that are used by people in their everyday lives (see Barton 1991, Barton and Hamilton
2000). These practices are so numerous and varied that many researchers now refer to
literacies rather than the one literacy. Barton and Hamilton (1998), for example,
in their ethnographic study of the literacy events and practices of a local community in
the north of England identified a wide range of local or vernacular literacies. These
involved people’s diaries, notes, lists, cards, newsletters, sale notices, souvenirs
and myriad other literacy related activities not regulated by formal institutional rules,
and featuring diversity and hybridity.
As part of this ‘social turn’ as Gee
(2000) calls it, numeracy studies have also developed along similar lines (see Baker 1995,
1998, Baker and Street 1994, Johnston et al 1997, Lave 1988). Baker
(1998: 38), for example, argues that numeracy is usually presented as a set of pure
skills separate from contexts in which they may be used, and it can be seen to fall
within an ‘autonomous model’ drawing parallels to Street’s (1984, 1993) use
of the term with literacy. Numeracy ‘as social practice’, by contrast, involves
the uses of numeracy (or numeracies) in cultural contexts and acknowledges power
relations (i.e. an ‘ideological model’). A builder, for example, will use string
to compare the lengths of diagonals in approaching the practical problem of establishing a
right angle, which is a quite different approach to that of a mathematician, and yet, it
is the school-based formal mathematics of the latter (the ‘autonomous model’)
that is valued and given power and status in society (Baker 1998: 39-41).
Importantly, ethnographic studies of literacy practices reveal the role of
social networks. People do not necessarily engage in these practices in isolation. Many
studies indicate that literacy practices can involve sharing, such as a group reading of a
letter (see Heath 1983), or assistance with literacy related tasks can be exchanged for
other services in a local community (Fingeret 1983, Moll 1992). Often, people act as
‘mediators’ or literacy ‘brokers’ in assisting others (Barton and
Hamilton 1998, Baynham 1993). In the workplace which is most relevant for this paper,
increasingly there is evidence that within informal ‘communities of practice’
workers engage collaboratively with literacy practices (e.g. Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996,
Gowen 1994, Hart-Landsberg and Reder 1995).
As I have indicated in relation to
Street’s (1984, 1993) ‘ideological’ model of literacy, ethnographic studies
of literacy practices usually reveal relations of power. Barton and Hamilton (1998: 7),
for example, state that these practices: are patterned by social institutions and power
relations, and some literacies become more dominant, visible and influential than others.
To better understand questions and struggles over power relations involving dominant and
marginalised literacies, it is useful to work within a conceptual framework of discourses,
a term which has already featured strongly in this paper. In a broad sense, the term
discourse is used here to help to explain how people’s beliefs and attitudes result
from the way they are socialised into viewing and acting in the world. Gee (1990: 142,
1999: 7), a leading literacy theorist understands a discourse (though he distinguishes it
with a capital D) to be about identifying oneself with a member of a socially meaningful
group, involving the sharing of beliefs, values and behaviours, in fact, ‘ways of
being in the world’. Most people, however, are unaware that their beliefs, and
especially those involving literacy, form part of a discourse which has ideological and
therefore political implications. This is largely because, as Fairclough (1989)
illustrates, these beliefs, have become ‘naturalised’; they are
taken-for-granted, common sense understandings which have become accepted by most people
as apolitical ‘truths’. The more dominant and popular the beliefs, the more
natural and commonsensical they appear, which of course is the situation with the
relationship between literacy skills and economic wellbeing.
In depth studies of literacy practices in
different local sites, however, often contradict this dominant discourse. What follows is
a brief outline of some ‘critical ethnographies’ of workplace related sites
undertaken in the past decade and even earlier:
Holmes and
Storrie (1985) in a small British study of a retraining program involving basic skills for
retrenched steel
workers illustrated the program was largely a sham. There was no alternative work
to be retrained
for in the steel town, and the program could be seen to be conducted largely as a
means of
pacifying former steel workers.
Gowen (1992),
studied a workplace literacy program involving housekeeping, food service and
laundry workers
in a United States hospital, a program which was narrowly conceived and
attempted to
change the behaviour of these workers to bring them into line with management
expectations.
The program failed to acknowledge and value the existing work practices of these
workers which in
many cases were more appropriate to the work context.
In a later study
Gowen (1996) examined workplace literacy issues in a manufacturing company in
the process of
moving towards ‘total quality’. She found that, despite management’s focus
on
worker skill
deficiencies, literacy played a relatively minor role in this work as most of the work was
informal and
relied on oral communication. She concluded that the focus on worker skill deficiencies
effectively
enabled management to privilege their own more powerful positions.
Hull’s
(1993, 1997) work with bank clerks illustrated how inflating the credentials for access to
jobs
often did not
relate to the skills required on the job.
Hull’s work
featured in Gee, Hull and Lankshear (1996) with operator level teams in an electronics
assembly plant
indicated contradictions in the ‘new work order’. The discourse stressed
cooperation
and worker
empowerment, but in practice top-down hierarchies often continued to operate.
Darrah’s
(1996, 1997) research in a Californian manufacturing company indicated that the failure of
teams to work
effectively had more to do with organisational and structural factors than lack of
workers’
skills.
Tannock’s
(1997) study of a workplace literacy program in a canning factory demonstrated that
even with the
cooperation of unions, the interactions between teacher and worker closed off the
free expression
of workers’ ideas and opinions and aligned them to attitudes and behaviours
favourable to
management.
Holland (2001)
in a British study showed that unions were largely at one with government and
business in
their understanding of the dominant discourse on literacy which focused exclusively on
what workers
lacked. Union promotion of government sponsored initiatives aimed at increasing the
‘skills for
life’ of workers was unlikely to assist workers in their jobs.
Jackson (2000)
indicated that the focus in new workplaces practices on the ‘textualisation’ of
work,
on documenting
everything or ‘writing up’, served to make workers ‘subject to’
workplace texts,
which led to
high stress and brought workers within more oppressive power relations.
Similarly,
Farrell (2001) focused on ‘textual practices’ in the new work order, and showed
how
‘expert
outsiders’ (including teachers) encouraged a shift in the legitimacy of knowlege
claims at
work from those
based on individual expertise to abstract and generalisable claims. This had the
effect of
threatening existing worker identities and existing worker relationships.
Most of these studies focus on the
perspectives of the workers, those ‘subject to’ the dominant discourse on
literacy and (un)employment (see Black 2001: 4-12), and invariably these perspectives
contradict this discourse in various ways. But such is the apparent ‘common
sense’ and naturalness of this discourse that most people, including those closely
involved with workplace literacy issues (government officials, administrators, company
representatives, teachers) continue to believe and thus help to maintain this dominant
discourse (see Castleton 2000).
In the following two sections I will briefly
outline some of my own research which reinforces the arguments I wish to make in this
paper. There are two studies; the first involves unemployed people, and the second
involves maintenance and construction workers in a local council.
Case Study No.1 - Literacy and the Unemployed
In 1991 the federal government released its
Australian Language and Literacy Policy (ALLP), and an important part of that policy was
funding for jobseeker literacy programs. So began funding for jobseeker literacy programs
which have survived changes of federal governments and continue today, though in a
modified form.
Clearly, these programs were designed from the
outset to assist the unemployed to get work, and they have always been underpinned by the
assumption that low literacy is a factor which contributes to, and indeed may cause,
unemployment. From late 1991 unemployed people, and especially those considered long term
unemployed, were referred by the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) to literacy
providers. Jobseekers often had little choice other than to participate because the
program fell within a process known as ‘reciprocal obligation’, that is, in
return for income support jobseekers were obliged to take up any reasonable offer of
assistance and do whatever they can to improve their employment prospects (DEET 1992b:
17).
For my research study I interviewed a total of
twenty-seven CES ‘clients’ who were referred to a TAFE college in early 1993
(see Black 1995a, 2001). There were more males than females (16 male, 11 female); and most
of the respondents spoke languages other than English at home (19).
Many of the respondents indicated they were
happy to be referred to a literacy program, especially those with poor oral skills in
English. It seemed a welcome opportunity to develop their skills in spoken and written
English, and furthermore, they seemed to believe that it would lead, in some cases almost
magically, to jobs. This corresponds to Auerbach’s (1994: 10) contention that;
One of the biggest myths that ESL learners
hold on to is that English is the solution to their problem, that the reason they have low
status jobs is that their English isn’t good enough and if only it were better,
everything would be fine.
Everything was not so fine for other
respondents. The English speaking background respondents in particular were far more
pragmatic. They would only attend a literacy program if they could see a direct link to
jobs, and most could not. These respondents, despite the risk of losing their unemployment
allowances, left the program early.
For some respondents the chances of gaining
employment appeared remote, regardless of their level of literacy. One had back problems
and a compensation claim pending following an accident while working on the railways.
Another had a dust allergy and was unable to work in a factory, besides, as he stated, in
his previous line of work: no need talk with machine. One man was sixty and ready
to retire. Another, Mary, at fifty, after spending many years in a clothing factory and
working as a cleaner, felt she should not be forced to attend a literacy program. She had
always found work in the past, and had no difficulties working as a hospital cleaner. She
felt that improving her literacy skills would make little or no difference to her job
prospects.
An in-depth examination of the previous work
histories of the respondents indicated that literacy had played but a minor role. Mario,
for example, had to seek out his wife in order to produce written quotes in his work as a
building sub-contractor. But he nevertheless managed OK; his employment was not
threatened. Similarly, two Lebanese respondents relied to some extent on their wives for
literacy support in managing food outlets, but it was more of an occasional frustration
than any form of disadvantage in the workplace. The inescapable conclusion from the
interviews was that literacy had not played a significant part in the employment outcomes
of these respondents in the past, and so why should literacy make a difference now? Had
the nature of work changed overnight? Or were there other agendas operating? I will
address these questions later in this paper.
Case Study No. 2 - Literacy and Teamwork
The second case study features local council
workers with responsibilities for cleaning and repairing drains and small construction
jobs such as footpaths and roundabouts. The enterprising manager of the depot was in the
process of restructuring the traditional work ‘gangs’ into ‘competitive
teams’. The ‘competitive marketplace’ (see Hilmer Report 1993) had resulted
in other local councils being pressured to either ‘contract out’ some services
or to establish profit-based ‘business units’. The depot manager introduced
‘competitive teams’ ostensibly as a means of warding off these measures in this
council. If his new ‘teams’ could become competitive with outside contractors
then their jobs with the council could be saved. Maintenance and construction workers
therefore had little choice - essentially they were told to become competitive or they
would lose their jobs.
The manager and two of his supervisors were
concerned that the existing workers might not have the skills to work effectively in
competitive teams, and there was talk of establishing a literacy class. The
‘new’ work involved workers taking greater responsibility for ordering supplies
and equipment, organising their time, and keeping track of their costings. Reference was
made to workers needing to be ‘teched up’: I mean, we’re talking about
putting computers in trucks (supervisor). The manager mentioned that the new
‘teams’ were expected to be able to quote for work while on the job, and not to
simply refer it to the engineers for an assessment at a later date.
My research study involved observing workplace
practices and recording in-depth interviews with fifteen of the local council workers, in
addition to the manager and his supervisors. The aim was to examine both the literacy
practices involved in this type of work and the skills of the workers to undertake these
practices (Black 1998, 2001). All the workers were male, most from English speaking
backgrounds, most lacked formal schooling, and the average age of the respondents was 48
years.
Although the manager of the depot stated his
team members would need to have a reasonably high level of literacy, observing the
teams ‘in practice’ revealed few literacy practices were in fact required in
this line of work. Most team members were required only to ‘sign on’, and the
main form of communication was oral, both informally within teams, and by two-way radio
with the depot. If a written report was required, such as an incident report documenting
an accident such as cutting through underground cables, team members would not normally
write their own report: That normally comes up with Vincent ... Vincent’s the cost
clerk, but he’s in charge of all the incident reports (supervisor’s
comments). Numeracy skills appeared more significant, such as calculating concrete pours,
but these were soon learnt on the job: ... you’ve only got to multiply the width
by the length ... give us three by four is twelve, that’s 1.2 (cubic metres),
that’s four inches (100mm in depth) ... you learn that (supervisor). This
was not the sort of academic maths learnt at school involving the understanding of
underlying concepts, instead, it was an example of performance driven numeracy, that is,
numeracy learnt ‘in practice’ (Baker 1998). But even these practices were not
undertaken by everyone on the teams; it was the team leader who assumed most
responsibilities for the calculations and all ‘paperwork’, after all, he was
paid more to do this.
While some workers admitted they had poor
literacy and numeracy skills in a formal schooling sense, as with the concrete pour
calculations above, this had little impact on their work performance. As another worker
stated: Well, I get by on jobs here, like, I can lay bricks, got me truck licence
through here ... I can do whatever I find in my life that I need to be able to do ...
Even a task such as quoting the cost of a new driveway would not prove difficult. There
would always be someone on the team who could provide assistance with a written quote.
Social networks of support were crucial in
this type of work. While the manager had established ‘competitive teams’, from
the workers’ perspective, they were still in ‘gangs’ with the same rules of
‘mateship’ applying. All that had changed for them was the nomenclature, and the
fact that some people received extra pay for being team leaders, an issue which had become
a source of division within the workforce. In fact, there were deep divisions within this
workforce. Some workers regarded the extra pay for team leaders as a form of
‘bribery’: ... bribe one man to get the best out of the rest. There was
deep resentment and cynicism directed towards management at the ‘town hall’ for
their priorities which appeared not to include maintenance and construction activities.
Over the years the number of staff at the town hall, and their remuneration, had increased
exponentially, and yet here in the maintenance and construction depot workforce numbers
had been reduced and as one workers stated: I’m not much better than a person
living on the dole, and then I come here and I cop this (workplace reforms, and a
manager who said he wanted his workers to be happy at work in the way that he was).
As part of the shift to competitive teams all
workers were obliged to attend formal training sessions conducted by the manager and
supervisors who extolled the virtues of working ‘competitively. Many workers resented
this formal training. They were especially opposed to American videos featuring Tom
Peters: ... you see videos, every video you see is on an assembly line track ...
American, Yanks, you must do this. They also resented a return to a formal learning
environment which had not served them well in the past: ... You know, I feel like a
school kid again. When asked in the interviews about the type of training they would
prefer, these workers suggested they wanted to learn on-the-job and from their fellow
workers: ... they’d have to have someone, right, you go out with that gang, you
stay there for a fortnight, you learn the way that they do this ...
Any formalised literacy or numeracy program
envisaged by management would have failed with this group of workers. Quite apart from the
resistance of these workers to formal learning environments, the literacy and numeracy
practices in this line of work did not warrant it. These practices could easily be managed
on the job with workers learning from each other, from within their own ‘communities
of practice’ (Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998). This type of learning promoted by
the workers seems to fit within Lankshear’s (1998) notion of ‘cultural
apprenticeship’ involving peers working on authentic tasks with experts in a
supportive environment (see also Hull 1997: 25).
It was apparent that there were two views on
reality in this workplace: one, a new culture guided by visions of a new work order
expounded in current management texts (knowledge workers, working smarter, more flexibly);
the other, an old culture based on the lived, conflict-oriented experiences of workers
borne out of a history of struggles with management (see Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996:
31).
Micro/Macro Links
The above two case studies challenge aspects
of the dominant discourse on literacy/numeracy and (un)employment. In this section I will
indicate some of the links between the micro aspects of the everyday lives of individuals
and groups revealed in these two case studies, and the political economy, the broader
macro-structural aspects of power. It is this ‘meshing’ of micro and macro
aspects that is promoted by social researchers such as Marcus and Fischer (1986) and
Layder (1993) and which represents the ‘critical turn’ in the history of
qualitative/ethnographic research (see Denzin and Lincoln 1999).
Looking first at unemployed people referred to
literacy programs, the interviews indicated that while in a normative ‘schooled’
literacy sense the respondents were found lacking, this had not prevented them from
working in the past. At the time of the interviews in 1993 Australia was in the midst of
an economic recession, and essentially it was the economic climate that had changed and
resulted in so much unemployment, not people’s lack of skills. Although the nature of
work has changed rapidly, especially in the past couple of decades, not all jobs are now
in leading edge industries requiring meta-level knowledge (e.g.Levett and Lankshear 1994).
On the contrary, most new jobs in Australia and in overseas developed nations are
predicted to be in the low paid retail, trade and service sectors (see DEET 1995, Apple
1999), and many of these jobs will involve repetitive and deskilled textual competence
(Luke 1992: 9). This, of course, does not prevent employers from ‘screening out’
applicants on the basis of their literacy/numeracy ability in the belief that those with
better skills may have other favourable work traits (such as drive, compliance with rules
etc - see Rubenson 1989: 389, Street 1990: 6). But it does indicate that many jobs do not
require high levels of literacy and numeracy ability.
It can be argued that the issue is not so much
a widening ‘skills gap’, rather, a ‘widening jobs gap’, particularly
in poor economic times (see Hart 1992: 76). From a government and business point of view,
however, it is precisely this poor economic climate that encourages a focus on lack of
skills, because in so doing, responsibility for the problem of unemployment shifts to
those who can be identified as having a literacy ‘problem’ (see Black 1995b).
That is, by highlighting the common sense notion that people cannot get jobs because they
lack literacy skills; the responsibility (the blame) effectively resides with them, and
the government’s role is then to provide these people with assistance (i.e. literacy
programs). Politically, this strategy is likely to be more effective, and certainly
easier, than focusing on the real cause of unemployment, the crisis of the political
economy of capitalism: ... the structural problems of poverty, of the de-skilling and
elimination of jobs, of capital flight, of systemic racism and sexism, problems that are
‘naturally’ generated out of our current economic and political arrangements
(Apple 1987: viii).
While statistics on literacy and numeracy
levels indicate a relationship with employment status, that relationship is not
necessarily ‘causal’. Behind the statistics are a host of complex variables.
Macro-structural factors such as manufacturing enterprises moving off-shore in the pursuit
of cheap labour are more likely to relate to the ‘cause’ of unemployment than
lack of literacy or numeracy skills. Moreover, in recent years the whole basis of human
capital theory has been questioned by some educators (e.g. Porter 1993), with leading
literacy theorists such as Luke (1992: 10) maintaining: there are no across-the-board
connections between increased literacy skills and economic activity.
In the case of the local council workers, they
also were being targeted for their lack of literacy skills, though ‘in
practice’, it was difficult to demonstrate that lack of literacy or numeracy skills
was significant in their work performance. The manager and his supervisors wanted changes
from their workers, but improved literacy skills were not the main issue. They wanted
their workers to take on a new social identity; to work with renewed commitment and
enthusiasm, to be ‘happy’ even. (Black 2001: 201). Lack of literacy was in
effect a ‘code’ used by management to indicate that workers lacked this new
social identity, this new set of beliefs and values aligned with those of management. The
‘new work order’ can be seen to represent a ‘soft touch hegemony’
(Gee, Hull and Lankshear 1996: 23), a discourse which on the surface appears to be in the
interests of workers. In encouraging workers to identify themselves with the core values
of the company/enterprise, however, the primary purpose is not worker happiness, an
‘enchanted workplace’ (Gee 1994) , but increased productivity. Many of the
maintenance and construction workers recognised this sub text in the changeover to
‘competitive teams’ because they had a distrust of management borne out of
conflict over many years. Publicly they went along with the changes because they had
little choice - their jobs depended on their compliance, but privately they resisted it
(see Foley 1999 for examples of worker resistance and alienation).
I would argue based on my studies that there is
a causal relationship between literacy (and numeracy) and (un)employment, but that it is
the opposite to the dominant discourse outlined at the beginning of this paper.
Lack of literacy and numeracy skills do not cause unemployment or limited
employment opportunities. Rather, it is these economic conditions that cause
literacy and numeracy problems. They give rise to the need for governments and others,
acting in the interests of capital, to produce and inflate literacy and numeracy
problems, even though, as an increasing number of ethnographies of workplaces indicate,
literacy and numeracy are not the problem, or at least not the main problem. While this
perspective is unconventional in the current ‘new times’, it is not original. As
Aronowitz and Giroux (1985: 66) in a critique of the ‘literacy crisis’ of the
1970s stated, the problem of low literacy or functional illiteracy: is produced by the
constitution of the job market by economic and social inequality and political
powerlessness.
Implications for Policy and Research
In the current political and economic climate
the implications of the above perspective are such that they are unlikely to be taken
seriously by those with dominant interests. Essentially, I am arguing that literacy and
numeracy skills may not be the significant factors in the economic development of
individuals, enterprises and the nation that they are made out to be, and that where there
is a need to improve literacy and numeracy practices in workplaces, this can often
be accomplished effectively through informal networks of assistance from fellow workers.
That is, workers in ‘communities of practice’, learning through a process of
‘apprenticeship’ from more experienced and skilled workers (see Billett 1999,
Lankshear 1998, Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998).
The policy implications of this perspective
are immense. For a start, it would undermine important elements of neo-liberal ideology
which currently results in a great many people of low socio-economic status being
identified as ‘deficient’ and being blamed for economic woes (see Apple 1999).
Thus there would be the need to look to other factors in explaining away poor economic
performance. In particular, it would call into question the rationale for the provision of
literacy and numeracy programs with solely economic ends, specific government funded
programs such as those for unemployed people and those for people in employment (e.g. WELL
programs). Such a perspective would question the validity of the now obligatory
standardised literacy ‘measure’, the National Reporting System, which currently
(like the IALS internationally) identifies those in need of literacy and numeracy
provision (see critique of the IALS by Hamilton and Barton 2000). And there would be
implications also for a professional sector comprising trainers, teachers and
organisational advocates whose interests are bound up with an inflated
‘autonomous’ notion of literacy and numeracy. The starting point for many of
these people/organisations would need to be the ‘culture’ of the workplace, and
how to work within existing ‘communities of practice’.
The implications for research are significant
also. There would be a new research focus on in-depth studies of literacy and numeracy
practices in the whole range of workplace contexts. In particular more would need to be
known about numeracy practices given the current research imbalance which is reflected in
this paper. There would be a shift towards researching the perspectives of workers, of
‘hearing other voices’ (Hull 1993), rather than those of management which
currently predominates. The ‘politics’ of workplace literacy would be
highlighted. Questions would be asked of the extent to which teachers are aware of the
political implications of their teaching in workplace contexts and whether their position
in relation to the human capital discourse can be characterised as ‘mute opposition
beneath a passive acquiescence’ (see Lee and Wickert 1995: 145). Teachers would need
to learn to become more ‘strategic’ in their approach to teaching and learning
(Foley 2001) and would need to learn to interrogate workplace curriculum/texts in order to
better represent the interests of workers (see Castleton 2000, Farrell 2001, Jackson
2000).
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