This paper examines data drawn from interviews with homeless people who were undertaking a "Clemente" programme offered by the Australian Catholic University in the Vincentian Village in East Sydney. The "Clemente" programme, conceptualised by Shorris, is based on the belief that an education in the humanities empowers people to engage in a more…

This article explores the concept of the "vocational" in contemporary educational discourses, and argues for the centrality of vocational aspects of learning in making meaning. The existing tensions are seen to lie between discourses that place the vocational at the bottom of a hierarchy of knowledge and value, and discourses concerning…

This article examines ways in which more explicit connections might be forged between students' experiences as humanities students, and their experiences as part-time workers. The purpose is to connect particularisations of meaning with the development of a coherent whole, by using Van Oers' (1998) framework for contextualisation. It is argued…

The idea of general knowledge is often put forward as a desirable learning goal, in all sectors of education: in schools, universities and even in technical and further education, especially in a changing society. The promotion of such knowledge is usually in terms of its being different from and more desirable than other knowledge, such as…