In reviewing what lecturers found valuable for their professional development, it has been argued that "professional reading" of both higher education research and literature in their disciplines is a major theme for individual enhancement. Despite the increased interest in the writing practices of students and staff in higher education, however,…

The topic of informal learning and work has quickly become a staple in contemporary work and adult learning research internationally. The narrow conceptualization of work is briefly challenged before the article turns to a review of the historical origins as well as contemporary theories and methods involved in researching informal learning and…

Australian unions have adopted new organizing methods to rebuild and develop their organizations. This represents a change in direction from the commitment to partnership and tripartite planning that characterized the Accord period under the Labor governments of the 1980s and 1990s to a new focus on capacity building. A serious decline in union…

This paper unfolds through the eating, speaking mouths of online learners and teachers and theorists as a way of exploring the educative potential of holding in tension the ambiguous virtues of the body and the (no)body in formal and informal electronic learning environments. Online learning research commonly devalues the body and takes the body…

Textual analysis of course materials from a distance-delivered teacher development course reveals how they construct the concept of a good teacher. Standards of competence become normative and prescriptive discourses that limit critically reflective practice. (Contains 23 references.) (SK)

T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" articulates a view of lifelong learning as a process of grappling with questions about identity and existence. This contrasts with the dominant policy discourse of lifelong learning as a straightforward task of acquiring government-sanctioned skills, knowledge, and attitudes. (Contains 44 references.) (SK)

Analysis of methods used by the right-wing environmental social movement to alter gains made by environmentalists finds that conservatives have both grassroots and elite sponsorship and the movement is an effective site of adult learning, resistance, and meaning making. (Contains 89 references.) (SK)

Challenges the notion that excellence requires higher education by analyzing the approaches to learning of self-educated people in a variety of fields ("farm-gate intellectuals"). Considers how they fit into the anarchist-utopian tradition in adult education and how universities and adult educators can benefit from understanding their learning…

Learning throughout working life results from everyday thinking and acting, shaped by work practices. The quality of learning depends on the kinds of activities and interdependencies available. Individuals' ability to maintain vocational practice is shaped by their opportunities for engagement and interaction. (Contains 64 references.) (SK)

Assessment should be focused on the cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and affective aspects of lifelong learning. Both qualitative and quantitative methods such as learning and study strategies inventories, affective instruments, and learning logs should be used. (Contains 63 references.) (SK)

Reviews the status of graduate education for women in the United States and Canada, historical perspectives on women's work in the workplace and home, and barriers to graduate education for women. Uses psychological and liberatory models of feminist pedagogy to elucidate a feminist direction for graduate education. (Contains 49 references.) (SK)

Facilitation in the workplace, especially when undertaken by supervisors, can pose challenges involving hostile conditions and coercion, diminishing its effectiveness for adult learning. It requires examination of the dynamics of trust building, the roles of participants, and the use of facilitators whose interests are independent of the context.…

Reflective practice may be enriched by an expressive approach in which practice is portrayed rather than analyzed. Expressive approaches include empathic and intuitive phenomenology, which can assist in exploration of significant events as lived experiences. (Contains 42 references.) (SK)

Outlines the usefulness of discourse for guidance and counseling; explains how discourse can solve theory-practice problems. Maps and locates guidance and counseling practice in relation to six discourses: user, practitioner, professional, manager, policymaker, academic. Contains 39 references. (SK)

Examination of transformative discourse in South African worker education 1970-2000 shows early links to emancipatory education; a shift to human capital discourse in the 1990s; and changing understanding of how and where knowledge is produced, the kinds of knowledge valued, the social purpose of education, and the meaning of worker experience for…