Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Work Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Marginalized Voices

Abstract

This paper takes as its starting point the argument that education is much more than the preparation of young people for the world of work. Drawing on Paulo Freire (1998), it rejects the fatalism of neoliberalism leading to narrowly conceived and instrumentalist approaches to vocational education and training based on the ideology that students can ‘adapt and therefore, survive’ (p. 27). This paper draws on Australian research to explore how young people themselves make sense of these educational practices and based on these narratives what can be done to re-create the kind of society that ‘is both humane and just’ (p. 94).

Authors

• Barry Down, Murdoch University

• John Smyth, University of Ballarat