Abstract
This article presents the results of research where the main objective was to achieve a better understanding of the uses made by professionals in the adult education sphere of the official knowledge that provides the framework and guidelines for their work. The study was undertaken using Bernsteins theoretical model of the structure of official pedagogical discourse, and employed an essentially ethnographic fieldwork methodology to analyse the work of a team of adult education specialists working in a local development association in the north of Portugal. The results of the study show that the team was able to make both reproductive and recontextualising use of official knowledge, thereby demonstrating that, even in workplaces where external prescription is extremely influential, it is possible to put official knowledge to alternative i.e. more effective, locally-adapted use.
Highlights
In the field of adult education, the study about professional educators and trainers has a long standing tradition (Scheffknecht, 1980; Jarvis, 1997; Merriam & Brockett, 1997), and we can say that in the last years this research has gained more visibility
The research reported on here was undertaken on the basis of an ethnographic study of a team of adult education professionals in an Education and Training Centre (ETC) attached to a local development association (LDA) in the north of Portugal
The choice of the LDA, and the corresponding ETC and adult education team was the result of a three-phase process: (1) a survey of all the associations of this type active in the north of Portugal was conducted; (2) an assessment was made of the extent of each association’s involvement in adult education; and (3) a representative case was chosen for further in-depth study
Summary
In the field of adult education, the study about professional educators and trainers has a long standing tradition (Scheffknecht, 1980; Jarvis, 1997; Merriam & Brockett, 1997), and we can say that in the last years this research has gained more visibility. A series of thematic issues dedicated to the adult education professionals, organized by the European Journal of Education (Osborne, 2009), and by the European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults (Jütte, Nicoll, & Salling Olesen, 2011a), are symptomatic of the growing importance of this particular area of research. Some of this research has described and reflected about the diversity of adult education professionals (teachers, trainers, animators, training managers, etc.), their work contexts (schools, associations, training or community centers, etc.), their working conditions, (volunteers, part-time or full-time paid professionals) (Jarvis, 1997; Merriam & Brockett, 1997; Osborne & Sankey, 2009; Jütte, Nicoll & Salling Olesen, 2011b). The debate about the existence (or not) of adult education professionals and the necessary requirements to be a professional (academic degree, basic theoretical competencies, codes of ethics, regulations to define and access the profession, among other issues) has been enriched by different authors in the last two or three decades (Jarvis, 1989; Jarvis & Chadwick, 1991; Merriam & Brockett, 1997; Osborne & Sankey, 2009; Ackland, 2011)
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