Understanding unskilled work as a condition for participation in adult education and training

Abstract

This article discusses how to comprehend why people working in unskilled jobs are less likely than other groups to position themselves as educable subjects and engage in adult education and training. The article outlines how different research traditions examining recruitment to and participation in adult education and training reveal and explain distinctive participation patterns. These traditions are critically reviewed to identify how they provide specific understandings as well as certain blind spots. The review reveals a striking absence of research into unskilled work and thus a tendency to overlook how engagement in particular kinds of work condition people’s perception of adult education and training. It is finally argued that future research must pay closer attention to people’s specific work-life and examine how engagement in specific historical, social and material (changing) work practices condition their perception of adult education and training.