Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YD, UK.
E-mail: ias@lancaster.ac.uk
Workshop: Changing literacies in the knowledge-based economy?
4-5 May 2006
Please note, this research programme has now concluded and these pages are maintained here as a record of the activities of the Institute for Advanced Studies.
Co-ordinators: David Barton or Karin Tusting or Zoe Fowler
The Lancaster Literacy Research Centre hosted
a workshop on 4th-5th May 2006 entitled ‘Changing Literacies in
the Knowlege-Based Economy?’, with the support of the Institute
for Advanced Studies, as part of the 2005-2006 Knowledge-Based Economy
research programme. The purpose of the workshop was to explore how the
range of changes in contemporary society glossed with the title ‘the
Knowledge Based Economy’ interact with changing literacy practices.
Such changes include new working practices, increased auditing and self-monitoring
requirements and changes in communications technologies. Governments and
international organisations often frame these shifts in terms of the skills
people are seen to need in order to participate productively and contribute
to competitive national economies, and these ideas have had a significant
impact on education, both in schools and post-compulsory. The workshop
attracted participants from a wide range of countries and backgrounds
with an interest in the issues, as well as a good representation of Lancaster
scholars.
The First Day
On the first day of the workshop, speakers focused on changes in working life and practices related to the concept of the knowledge-based economy. In the keynote presentation, ‘Knowledge on the Line’, Hermine Scheeres, from the University of Technology, Sydney, challenged restricted notions of who is engaged in knowledge work by showing the knowledge work production line workers are engaging in in restructured workplaces. Sondra Cuban and Uta Papen from the Literacy Research Centre responded, relating these ideas to data from their own research, Sondra in relation to care workers and Uta to tourism workers in Namibia. Anna-Malin Karlsson, from Stockholm University, reported from the Swedish ‘Literacy Practices in Working Life’ project, focusing on the different roles and literacies offered to workers in modern organisations. Lesley Farrell, from the Faculty of Education at Monash University: Literate Practice and ‘grass roots globalisation’ at work in the knowledge economy; drawing on Appadurai’s concept of the ‘ethnography of circulation’ to examine how people develop and draw on literacy practices to circulate potentially emancipatory ideas in workplaces, contrasting ‘globalisation from above’ and ‘globalisation from below’. Richard Harper, from Microsoft Cambridge, spoke on changing workplace practice in offices and the future of global connectivity. Celia Roberts and Sarah Campbell, from King’s College London, demonstrated from a research project on job interview practices the impact of the increasing textualisation of the job interview, with compelling video data.
The evening was spent very pleasantly at the Priory restaurant in Scorton for food, drinks and animated conversation, after a walk around the church for the energetic – the less energetic contenting themselves with drinks in the sunshine outside the pub.
The Second Day
On the second day, the focus shifted to incorporate the implications of these social changes for education, and the relationships between education and the workplace. Jill Sanguinetti, from Victoria University, Melbourne, and Yvon Appleby, from the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre, presented analyses of different policy responses to national skills and employability agendas. Evangelos Intzidis, from the University of the Aegean, Greece, brought a perspective looking at the articulation between literacy and citizenship in the Knowledge Society in European Commission and OECD policy documents. Mary Hamilton, from the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre, analysed the role of Individual Learning Plans in aligning learner and teacher identities with system goals. The workshop ended with a panel of Lancaster University researchers: Sylvia Walby spoke on financial literacy and democracy in the knowledge-based economy, Lucy Suchman on the technopolitics of knowledge work, and Candice Satchwell on the relationships between students’ home literacies and literacies in Further Educational vocational courses.
Outcomes
The event was a highly productive one, with lots of time and space for generative discussion. Contributors expressed a range of perspectives on the Knowledge-Based Economy, but there was a general agreement that the KBE discourse entails significant changes for literacies and for policy in education and employment, and that many of these changes are textually mediated. Taking a social practice perspective on such transformations enables their analysis in relation to what people are actually doing in their work and in their lives, in contrast to assumptions within the dominant discourse which are not always tested out in practice.
We were blessed with a mini heatwave for the occasion, which meant coffee and lunch breaks took place outside in the sunshine – probably the first time Australian visitors have been so complimentary about Lancaster weather! Some participants were able to take advantage of this with a walk in the Lake District on the Saturday after the workshop.
We are currently exploring possibilities for a publication which continues and extends these discussions.
Further details of the event are available at http://www.literacy.lancs.ac.uk/ from which powerpoints and some papers from the event can be downloaded.
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