critical assessment

Assessment and evaluation also bear the effects of our failure to fully contextualize the lives of learners. Union educators have pointed out that the assumption underlying much of workplace literacy is that workers and management have the same interests in education. Certainly, some interests are shared, but others aren't.

More importantly, educational programs that direct learners toward participating in and measuring up to existing standards, understanding existing systems, and complying with organizational goals usually leave out avenues for conceptualizing, supporting, and making change.

What the work of anthropologists shows is that the population in our programs needs not only literacy but also an expansion of existing opportunities for both work and education. We and our students need to understand not only how education affects work, but also how racism and sexism, and the social capital that comes with class status, determine which jobs are available to whom.

(p. 13)

Politics, Policy, Practice And Personal Responsibility:
Adult Education In An Era Of Welfare Reform
by Deobrah D’Amico,
Ph.D. Consultant to the Adult Literacy Media Alliance,
the Consortium for Worker Education and the Literacy Assistance Center

NCSALL REPORTS #10 April 1999

click on cartoon for more legible version
originally published october 2004 in the literacy enquirer