Core or periphery? The positioning of language and literacies in enabling programs in Australia

Abstract

Enabling education has a respected and established place in Australian higher education as an alternative pathway into university study. While the value of enabling education in providing access to higher education is undeniable, its provision across Australia is necessarily diverse, as individual programs respond to the needs of their local communities. This resulting diversity makes it difficult to gain insight into the field of enabling education. Given the purpose of enabling education is to prepare students for tertiary study, the role of academic literacies and language (ALL) is central for both Native English Speaker and Language Background Other Than English students, and it is to this focus that this paper attends. To shed light on the field, this paper presents the findings from a national audit of enabling education, providing a much-needed overview of the enabling programs offered across Australia, focusing on the ways that language and literacies are taught, positioned and, in some cases, disconnected from practice. Drawing on this analysis, we discuss how language and literacies are positioned as either central or periphery to the core work of enabling programs and begin a discussion which seeks to place ALL at the centre of enabling education.