Creating a Blueprint for a Critical Social Pedagogy of Learning for Life and Work: Canadian Perspectives

• Main Author: André P. Grace
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cyclical lifelong learning; critical social pedagogy; learner participation; Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.499.6856; http://www.adulterc.org/Proceedings/2006/Proceedings/Grace.pdf

Abstract: In Canada, current federal learning-and-work policy is focused on individual learner-worker development using an iteration of lifelong learning as cyclical. Increasing numbers of disenfranchised young adults are resisting participation in such learning. In this regard, I consider the predicament of young adults in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. To help us think about adequately addressing the dislocation they experience in life and work, I offer a Freire-informed vision of a critical social pedagogy of learning and work. Current Canadian federal learning-and-work policy aims to enhance the social as an effect of enhancing the economic. Such policy is focused on individual learner-worker development using an iteration of lifelong learning as cyclical. In this neoliberal milieu, cyclical lifelong learning has become not only a norm, but also a culture and an attitude. It is focused on assimilation, conditioning workers to get with the program, which is framed in neoliberal pragmatic terms. Still a current Canadian phenomenon indicates that increasing numbers of young adults are disengaging from participation in such learning that the federal government considers being a preventative measure. In this paper, I discuss young adults ’ reactions to what