Behind the Mask: Researching Literacies and Identities in the New Workplace

CRINA VIRGONA AND PETER WATERHOUSE

WE WRITE FROM THE ANTIPODES. We operate, as practitioner-researchers, from a small private company. We are about as global as our local fish and chip shop. However we very much emulate the philosophy of “acting locally and thinking globally” and it is in this vein that we research, write and read professionally. Let us tell you briefly about some research projects we have conducted over the last 18 months.

Generic Skills and the Displaced Worker

One project was on generic skills and the displaced worker (Virgona et al., 2002). This project attempted to pick up on the discourse of generic skills championed by employer organizations and skills management groups, and to find out how this discourse resonated with experienced workers as they re-entered the job market. “Generic skills” has come to mean many different things. Recently it has become the catch phrase that fills the gap between technical competence and total commitment to company and logo. This employer-driven discourse encroaches on the dangerous territory of employee values, attitudes and beliefs which it attempts to name, prescribe and measure.

In our research, we wanted to understand what generic skills meant to displaced workers, how they had developed and applied their skills and how they adapted them. The project uncovered issues of labour market bias and disqualification; of skills shifts in response to global work cultures and the remodeling and re-naming of skills as job seekers read the job market. We were interested to observe the slippage of the discourse between policy makers and practitioners as they vie to control, name and embrace “new” generic skills and behaviours. Most practitioners believe that generic skills can be understood and developed only in the context of the workplace. Policy makers however use the term as if skills were autonomous acquisitions that are transparent and transferable. We concluded that both uses of the term have value but can mislead the community in their understanding of the nature and application of skills.

That project is finished now and the report is with the publishers. It will become available through the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), the research arm of the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) (www.ncver.edu.au).

Use and Value of Qualifications to Employers

Our other significant research project last year investigated the use and value of qualifications to employers (Townsend et al. in press). The researchers ventured around Australia in rural and city locations, in small and large companies, seeking answers from employers about their attitudes to Vocational Education and Training (VET) and qualifications. Predictably it revealed an ambivalence. There was the usual concern that specialist skills are not thoroughly addressed, or not addressed at all, as was the case with the surf board manufacturer. On the other hand there were those who found that VET training allowed them to develop skills within their workplaces with a level of interpretation that served the interests of all parties. This project was likewise funded by NCVER and the report will be available on the above website in time.