Ten Years of Adult Literacy Policy and Practice in Canada: Literacy Policy Tensions and Workarounds

Authors

  • Suzanne Smythe Faculty of Education

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20360/G2WK59

Abstract

The years 2003 – 2013 marked a coming-of-age in the adult literacy field in Canada, as it reconciled the politics of international literacy surveys and their accountability regimes with the actualities of literacy work among people caught in the nets of neoliberal economics. The concepts of policy networks, powerful literacies and workarounds are used to capture how educators attempt to escape or repair the effects of standardized accountability regimes to create new networks of adult literacy practice that reflect local learning needs and interests. The nexus of this struggle suggests consequences for the work of all educators within an emerging ‘new precariat’ and downgrading of public education spaces.

Author Biography

Suzanne Smythe, Faculty of Education

Assistant Professor

Adult Literacy and Adult Education

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Published

2015-06-09

How to Cite

Smythe, S. (2015). Ten Years of Adult Literacy Policy and Practice in Canada: Literacy Policy Tensions and Workarounds. Language and Literacy, 17(2), 4–21. https://doi.org/10.20360/G2WK59

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 2 (2015): Special Issue: A Landscape View of Literacy Studies in Canada; Editors: Burcu Yaman Ntelioglou and Jennifer Rowsell

Section

Articles

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