This glimpse into factories, hospitals, other work settings, and work-related literacy programs, shows the massive changes in expectations for workers' "skills" in the twenty-first century, especially regarding language and literacy.
Changing Work, Changing Workers looks at U.S. factories and workplace education programs to see what is expected currently of workers. The studies reported in Hull's book draw their evidence from firsthand, sustained looks at workplaces and workplace education efforts. Many of the chapters represent long-term ethnographic or qualitative research. Others are fine-grained examinations of texts, curricula, or policy. Such perspectives result in portraits that honor the complex nature of work, people, and education.
For example, one chapter examines the shop floor of a computer manufacturer in Silicon Valley and shows how well-intentioned organizational changes, such as the imposition of self-directed work teams, often go awry, particularly in multicultural workplaces. Another chapter provides the history of a federally funded literacy project designed for garment workers in New York City, documenting the struggles and achievements that accompanied this attempt to prepare immigrants for alternatives to work in a rapidly downsizing industry. Other settings and topics include a community college where minority women are prepared for the skilled trades; an auto-accessory plant with a "pay-for-knowledge" training program; a union-based literacy program designed for hospital workers; and the popular vocational curriculum called "applied communications."
Recenzijos
"The question of what workers need to know has become big business. The workplace education worldespecially its language and literacy componenthas been invaded by hucksters and opportunists of almost every imaginable typeencouraged and driven on by the (often ill-conceived) policy predilections of bureaucrats eager to assist national industries and businesses to achieve competitive advantage. Activity has reached fever pitch, but all too often it lacks pedagogical soundness, and rigorous supporting research.
"This book addresses these shortfalls head on. It does so with clarity, principle, and a profound integrity. It exposes inadequate practice and provides clear directions toward improvement. If I recommend no more than one book this year, it will be this one." Colin Lankshear, coeditor of Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis, and the Postmodern
Daugiau informacijos
This glimpse into factories, hospitals, other work settings, and work-related literacy programs, shows the massive changes in expectations for workers' "skills" in the twenty-first century, especially regarding language and literacy.
List of Illustrations ix List of Tables xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xxiii Introduction Hearing Other Voices: A Critical Assessment of Popular Views on Literacy and Work 3(40) Glynda Hull Part I: Perspectives from the Classroom Discourses of Workplace Education: A Challenge to the New Orthodoxy 43(41) Katherine Schultz Pedagogical Innovation in a Workplace Literacy Program: Theory and Practice 84(33) Judy Kalman Kay M. Losey ``It Changed Something Inside of Me: English Language Learning, Structural Barriers to Employment, and Workers Goals in a Workplace Literacy Program 117(24) Debby DAmico Emily Schnee ``Friends in the Kitchen: Lessons from Survivors 141(18) Sheryl Greenwood Gowen Carol Bartlett Dick and Jane at Work: The New Vocationalism and Occupational Literacy Programs 159(30) W. Norton Grubb ``Its Not Your Skills, Its the Test: Gatekeepers for Women in the Skilled Trades 189(25) Marisa Castellano Widening the Narrowed Paths of Applied Communication: Thinking a Curriculum Big Enough for Students 214(35) Mark Jury Part II: Perspectives from the Factory Floor Complicating the Concept of Skill Requirements: Scenes from a Workplace 249(24) Charles Darrah If Job Training is the Answer, What is the Question? Research with Displaced Women Textile Workers 273(22) Juliet Merrifield High Performance Work Talk: A Pragmatic Analysis of the Language of Worker Participation 295(21) Oren Ziv Nurses Work, Womens Work: Some Recent Issues of Professional Literacy and Practice 316(19) Jenny Cook-Gumperz Karolyn Hanna Finding Yourself in the Text: Identity Formation in the Discourse of Workplace Documents 335(15) David Jolliffe Teamwork and Literacy: Teaching and Learning at Hardy Industries 350(33) Sylvia Hart-Landsberg Stephen Reder List of Contributors 383(4) Index 387
Glynda Hull is Associate Professor of Education, University of California, Berkeley, and is Director of Berkeley's College Writing Programs.
