Abstract
Stephen Black brought his experience as a teacher and administrator in adult education to his research that informed this book on working-class adults in Australia and their dealings with literacy. The book provides instructive findings from case studies through a critical examination of ideologies, policies, and practices of literacy education.
Overview
The subtitle “Dominant Versus Local Voices” gives the blueprint to findings that reveal contradictions between intentions behind policies and realities of working-class Australians. The introduction gives historical and political background, and Black states that he is on the side of working-class people in their struggles. He explains how, since the 1980s, dominant groups have set policies for adult literacy education that align with interests of neoliberal capitalism. Black uses the phrase “violence of literacy” to describe how policymakers use a deficit model of literacy as a weapon to blame victims of structural classism that works to keep many working-class people in jobs lacking living wages, security, and humane conditions. The varied case studies include prisoners, long-term unemployed people, public-sector construction workers, production workers of manufacturing companies, students of adult literacy courses, students at an alternative vocational high school, and diabetes patients. The concluding chapter brings together themes from the findings.
Evaluation
The case studies in this book combine effectively to demonstrate how adult literacy education in Australia has served the interests of neoliberal capitalism rather than the needs of working-class people. The theory of human capital, based on capitalist growth rather than human rights and needs, drives the policies and practices. Black shows in each study how the government has misdiagnosed literacy deficits in a predominately working-class group while turning a blind eye to structural problems caused by a tunnel-visioned ethos of market fundamentalism. He compellingly explains how working-class groups become scapegoats for a misinformation campaign that obscures the complex realities behind hyper-capitalist social relations.
Each case study brings illustrative examples that portray the struggles and hopes of individuals in situations with required or recommended literacy interventions. The study on long-term unemployed people, conducted in 1993 during a recession, revealed that the jobless people wanted jobs to become available rather than mandatory literacy training that took time away from the job search. Some non-English-speaking immigrants stated that they could work their prior jobs well enough without English. The government imposed mandatory literacy lessons as a condition for receiving welfare but did not address the structural reasons behind unemployment in capitalism. The study on public-sector construction workers occurred during the inauguration of a “new work order” that came with the “new capitalism” of the 1990s. The government stated a goal of having workers become more involved in goal setting and report writing after completion of literacy courses. Workers, though, saw the trend as a competition between teams and against private contractors. They interpreted “work smarter” as “work harder” and complained that only team managers were receiving bonus pay. They also claimed that on-the-job training would have been more effective than literacy lessons in classrooms. These are only two examples. All the studies had similar findings of a misguided literacy fix to problems that working-class people could and did handle in their own ways. Furthermore, as Black asserted, the literacy interventions came from a deficit model that misidentified groups as less worthy because of perceived literacy shortcomings.
The merits of this book are numerous. The studies bring critical analysis of political economy that often is missing in education research. The chosen groups are diverse, but all involve individuals living and struggling in the working class in Australia. Citations include similar studies from Europe, which indicate global trends. Some of the studied groups include non-English-speaking immigrants, and Black addresses their literacy work to learn and use English in their working and personal lives. Missing, though, is the mention of ethnicity among the Australian-born subjects. Given the history of oppression against the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia, it would be helpful to know which of the Australian-born individuals had Aboriginal heritage. Despite this one omission, this book involves rigorous studies with important findings.
Recommendations
Black conducted the studies in this book mostly in the 1980s and 1990s, but the findings still are relevant. Neoliberal capitalism has a firm grip on education policies in Australia and in much of the world. The corporate media support this paradigm of human capital, and Black addressed how a widely popular but uncritical television series in Australia, shortly before the time of his writing, had made a dubious claim that nearly half of Australians lacked sufficient literacy skills for their work and their daily lives. Black's book provides a strong counter-narrative to this, and it brings an important contribution to the ongoing work of resistance to the deficit schooling model of neoliberalism.
