Reading Work : Literacies in the New Workplace

Reading Work explores changing understandings of literacy and its place in contemporary workplace settings.

It points to new questions and dilemmas to consider in planning and teaching workplace education.

By taking a social perspective on literacies in the workplace, this book challenges traditional thinking about workplace literacy as functional skills, and enables readers to see the complexity of literacy practices and their embeddedness in culture, knowledge and action.

A mixture of ethnographic studies, analysis, and personal reflections makes these ideas accessible and relevant to a wide range of readers in the fields of adult literacy and language education and helps to bridge the divide between theory and practice in the field of workplace education. Reading Work: Literacies in the New Workplace features: four distinct but related ethnographies of literacy use in contemporary workplaces; a social practice view of literacy brought to the workplace; collaborative research undertaken by experienced workplace educators and academics working in the areas of adult literacy and second language learning; implications chapters for both practice and theory--presented not as a series of steps but rather as reflections by seasoned educators on shared dilemmas; and engaging, accessible writing that encourages workplace practitioners to read, learn from, and do their own research.

This book is an important resource for academics who teach workplace educators; practicing workplace educators/trainers/instructors; administrators and planners of workplace programs; human resource managers, supervisors or quality coordinators who believe education can make a difference; unionists advocating for better education programs for their members; and policy makers interested in satisfying all these other stakeholders and seeing maximum results from workplace learning.

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