This tendency to technocratic reductionism is termed the. "technical and administrative approach"24 by Martin, and the "ideology of qualification"25 by Dundurand.

Human Relations Vs. Technocracy

The liberal perspective underwent some modification after 1972 with the incorporation of ideas and techniques from the "human relations" movement into the ABE component of the Canada Manpower Training Program. These included the lowering of authority barriers between instructors and students, the paying of greater attention to the emotional climate of the learning setting, the emphasis on intrinsic need and motivation in learning,, etc. 26 In part, these innovations represented a reaction against the heavy technocratic ("technical and administrative") orientation of the program up to that time, and an assertion of the broader psychological and social psychological dimensions of education and literacy. To what degree did the new human relations sub-theme serve to modify the "adaptation" or "domestication" thrust of the liberal perspective?

In a 1975 article. entitled "Human Relations in Adult Basic Education: A Curriculum of Student Concerns", the author, a Canadian ABE instructor, observed that:

This entire process may be summed up in the notion of responsibility--not the interpretation that implies "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts", obligation and duty, but one that sees responsibility as "the ability to respond" to yourself and your environment, as well as the ability to chose to accept or not accept what is happening with you. A person who is responsible and" responsible" will accept what he does and does not do as an expression of himself, and does not blame others, "the system", or fate for what he is. He responds fully to life, with awareness of what is, and acts on free choice, free because they have come from this awareness.27

As represented in this statement, the philosophy of human relations is clearly superior to the technocratic approach in that it recognizes the individual as a human subject with a full range of capabilities and needs, and not just as an economic object bent on conformity. However, the notion of an a-contextual "free will" operating above political, economic and social forces is a highly problematical one, and obscures the need of the poor for critical tools to confront the very real "system" which so powerfully impinges on their lives outside of the classroom. Martin observes: