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This conference proceedings contains 65 presentations and 3 colloquiums from a conference that dealt with knowledge at work and knowledge that works and with how education can be successfully integrated into work and work into education. The papers are "Reading the Contexts of Complex Incidents of Adult Education Practice" (Apte); "Models of Work Based Learning for Undergraduates" (Armsby et al.); "Just-in-Time Training as Anticipative Action and as Inferential Understanding" (Beckett); "Learning to Compete" (Beckett et al.); "Co-Participation at Work" (Billett); "Globalization, Work, and Education" (Boland); "Work as the Curriculum" (Boud, Solomon); "Working Towards a Curriculum Framework for Work-Related Learning" (Brown); "Evaluating Organizational Change" (Butler et al.);"New Knowledge and the Construction of Vocational Education and Training (VET) Practitioners" (Chappell); "Facing Realities" (Cornford); "Subcontractors in the Australian Construction Industry" (Crowley et al.); "Learning; Design; Practice; Practitioner Perspectives of Workplace Learning" (Cys); "Learning at the Point of Production" (Daly, Mjelde); "Teaching Online" (Dewar, Whittington); "Spirituality of Work" (Dirkx); "Learning to Work" (Eames); "A Working Ethic?" (Edwards); "Transforming Management Education's Working Knowledge" (Elliott); "Negotiating Knowledge in the Knowledge Economy" (Farrell); "Work Knowing on the Fly" (Fenwick); "Productive Learning at Work" (FitzSimons); "Teachers Redefining Professionalism and Professional Development" (Gambell, Hunter); "Modelling the Invisible" (Gamble); "The New Capitalism" (Gee); "Conceptions of Learning" (Hager); "Recognition of Prior Learning in Higher Education" (Harris); "Promoting Knowledge Sharing in a Training and Further Education Organization" (Hill); "Incentives and Barriers to Learning in the Workplace" (Hodkinson et al.); "Reflections on Empowerment, Workplace Language and Literacy Policy, and Professional Development in England" (Holland); "Enabling Productive Learning at Work" (Holland, Leggett); "Learning Through Working" (Hopkins, Maglen); "Supervisor and Facilitation" (Hughes); "Writing-Up People at Work" (Jackson); "Whiteness as a Social Construct That Drives Continuing Education" (Johnson-Bailey, Cervero); "Knowledge Workers and the Office Economy" (Kurth); "Teaching with Global Awareness" (Lekoko); "Accrediting and Assessing Learning at Work" (Lyons); "Working Knowledge and Work-Based Learning" (McIntyre); "Working Knowledge in Management and Medicine" (Mulcahy); "Workplace Learning from a Curriculum Perspective" (Munby et al.); "The 'Good' Teacher?" (Nicoll); "Professional Identity as Learning Processes in Life Histories" (Olesen); "Local Perspectives on Globalization and Learning" (Payne); "Implementing Work-Based Learning in Higher Education" (Reeve, Gallacher); "Working Knowledge, Economic Metaphors, and the 'Cogito-Economic' Subject" (Rhodes, Garrick); "Technical and Vocational Education in China" (Rongguang); "Preparing Undereducated and Unemployed Parents for the Workplace Through Effective Family Literacy Programs in Texas" (Seaman, Seaman); "Working Knowledge of Online Learning Amongst VET Practitioners" (Schofield et al.); "Working Knowledge for New Educational Landscapes" (Seddon); "Links Between Corporate and Academic Research" (Shannon, Sekhon); "Towards a Definition of Work Based Learning" (Shaw); "Relationships Between R (Research) & D (Development) and Decision-Making in VET" (Smith); "Context Variety Means Four Stories?" (Smid); "Reflecting upon Experiences" (Staley); "Ordering the Menu" (Symes); "Critical Literacy, Cultural Inclusiveness, and Text Selection in English for Academic Purposes Courses" (Thompson); "Communicative Practices in Web-Enhanced Collaborative Learning" (Treleaven et al.); "Role of Emotion in Situated Learning and Communities of Practice" (Turnbull); "Alternative Conception of Competence" (Velde); "Learning in/Through/with Struggle" (von Kotze); "More Things Change" (Wallace); "Deschooled Learning" (Whittington, McLean); "Quality Online Participation" (Wiesenberg, Hutton); and "Emergence of New Types of Communities of Practice" (Young, Mitchell). (YLB)

A study used the standardized Group Embedded Figures Test to assess field dependence-field independence among groups of vocational education teachers of varied ages and teaching backgrounds. The sample consisted of 170 volunteers who were vocational education teachers and trainers in the process of completing the requirements for either a diploma or a bachelor's degree at a university in Australia. Overall, it was found that the sample was "moderately" field independent. There was a significant between-group course effect but none attributable either to gender or to stage of course. Earlier research has shown that more field-independent teachers as compared to more field-dependent teachers tend to do or be the following: (1) perceive objects as separate from their fields; (2) more easily abstract an item from the field and solve new problems presented and organized in different contexts; (3) be less dependent on authority and depend more on their own values and standards; (4) be oriented towards "active striving"; (5) appear more distant and aloof; (6) be more socially detached but have deeper analytical skills; and (7) prefer occupations where they can work alone. The study determined that a degree of field independence is an important consideration in vocational learning because people who are more analytic appear to be able to more effectively use their differentiation and analytical skills in problem solving. The study posits that while in the short term there is a positive benefit of a match between teacher and learner field dependence-field independence, learning styles may be able to be modified. Therefore, it may be more advantageous to learners to experience both field-dependent and field-independent teachers and thereby learn to become more flexible in their learning approaches. (Contains 20 references.) (KC)

Questions about work and learning have arisen from the growing emphasis on learning throughout life and beyond formal educational settings. Technical and further education and technological universities are seen as being in crisis, partly as a consequence of the emergence of new knowledge discourses that have disturbed traditional ideas about what counts as knowledge. The trend for national systems of education to embark on policies of vocationalization may not be new, but the rationale is--linking systems of education into the economy. Work is becoming the epistemological organizer of the contemporary university and usurping the position formerly held by disciplines and fields of study. Work-based learning (WBL) challenges the adequacy and utility of the organization, production, and transmission of knowledge as it has been practiced in modern educational institutions. WBL awards formalize workplace learning, subjecting it to educational processing of various kinds, particularly through intensively negotiated curriculum and assessment practices. Vocational teachers use the discourses of working knowledge to construct a legitimate occupational identity different from that of teachers in other disciplines. For workplace educators (called facilitators) and production line workers, their identity is how to "be" and "do" in a context of new discourses and new knowledge. (Contains 14 references.) (YLB)

This publication is comprised of 12 position papers from the National Equity Workshop held at the University of Technology Sidney (Australia) at which participants summarized their positions on the way equity should be understood, their views on the strengths and weaknesses of current vocational education and training (VET) policy, and what they saw as the priorities for future research. The papers are prefaced with a summary of the conclusions of the workshop--strengths of current research, weaknesses, and new directions--and participant biographies. The papers are: "Using Statistical Methodologies to Interrogate Large Data-Bases" (Katrina Ball); "Managing Diversity" (Kate Barnett); "Aborginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategic Policy and Research Priorities for VET, 1999" (Tony Dreise); "Equity Outcomes" (Tom Dumbrell); "Equity and VET: An Antilogous Project? A Personal Story of Equity Work in VET" (Elaine Butler); "Regrouping Equity" (Barry Golding, Veronica Volkoff); "Equity: VET for the Good of the Nation" (Ian Falk); "An Overview of Current Equity Research in the National Program" (Jennifer Gibb); "Locality and Community Agency in VET Research" (John McIntyre); "Equity for Training and Employment: Research Questions from a Policy Perspective" (Marion Norton); "Position Paper" (Rachel Robertson); and "Some Observations on Equity in VET" (Kaye Schofield). (YLB)

This document contains materials about and from the "History of Adult Literacy Weekend" that was held at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. The following papers about the weekend are included: "Foreword" (Patricia Ward, Rosie Wickert); "Introduction" (Rosie Wickert); "Focus on Oral History" (Janis Wilton); and "Arch Nelson Reminisces about Adult Literacy" (Arch Nelson). Also included are a list titled "Emerging Research Questions" that was compiled after Janis Wilton's workshop, and abstracts compiled by Rosie Wickert of six background reports. The texts of the background reports contained in this document are: "Helpful Histories" (Deborah Tyler, Lesley Johnson); "How Adult Literacy Became a Public Issue in Australia" (John Hodgens); "Introduction of 'Debating Literacy in Australia: A Documentary History 1945-1994'" (Bill Green, John Hodgens, Allan Luke); "'Fall out the Illiterates'--Lessons from a World War II Adult Literacy Program" (Darryl R. Dymock); "'An Issue of Significant Community Concern': The Postwar Development of Adult Literacy Policy and Provision in Australia" (Darryl R. Dymock); and "A Selected Chronology of Events" (James A. Draper). Several background reports contain substantial bibliographies. Appended is a list of key dates in the history of adult literacy. Contains 11 references. (MN)

These 12 papers reflect the range of issues and perspectives discussed at a forum that addressed three main topics: what a feminist critical literacy pedagogy is; a gender perspective of policy, organizations, and teachers' work; and concepts and practices of equity and inclusivity. The papers are as follows: "Questioning 'Progressive' Pedagogies" (Alison Lee); "Towards a Feminist Critical Numeracy Pedagogy" (Betty Johnston); "A Letter to Conference Participants" (Tricia Bowen); "'Once Upon a Time...': An Examination of Some Picture Books in the Light of a Feminist Critical Literacy Pedagogy" (Terri Morley-Warner); "Policy, Organisation, and Teachers' Work" (Jill Sanguinetti); "The Struggle for Critical Literacy and Feminist Reform: Some Axioms and Observations" (Nicole Gliding);"The Reconstruction of Women's Work in Adult Education" (Jennifer Angwin); "Bilingual NESB [Non-English Speaking Background] Women: An Untapped Resource" (Marta Rado); "Concepts and Practices of Inclusivity: Centring White Ethnicity in Literacy Practice" (Sue Shore); "A Crisis of Identity: Developing Strategies for Gender Inclusive Literacy Practices" (Jeanne Solity); "Talking on the Outer Edge" (Merilyn Childs); and "Postscript: Notes for a Film" (Delia Bradshaw). The forum program is appended. (YLB)