Book dossier

The New Schoolhouse

by Mary-Ellen Boyle

This unique book describes literacy programs that take place in contemporary workplaces and explores their consequences for the employees (especially the managers), the organizations, and society as a whole. Employing a critical sociological perspective, the author argues that literacy education in the workplace has as much to do with organizational legitimacy and managerial ideology as with illiterate workers. Boyle suggests that employer-sponsored literacy programs have the effect of perpetuating the inequities experienced by those at the bottom of the organizational chart, despite the rhetoric of egalitarianism and opportunity that typically accompanies adult education. Table of contents: * Education, ideology and work * The policies, politics and philosophies of literacy education * Justifying the education strategy: Learning and legitimacy * Learning to be literate at work: Rhetoric and reality * Learning to be literate at work: The impact on organizations and individuals * "No guarantees": Literacy, responsibility and employability * Managers, power and education: Contridictions of location * Literacy, managers and belief: Engaging the contridictions.