This book provides an analysis of how global capitalism, digital disruption, and new worlds of work have reshaped ideas about language, literacy and numeracy (foundation) skills in a neoliberal foundation skills apparatus in Australia since the 1980s.
The book uses Michel Foucaults genealogical approach to producing critical histories of our present. From this perspective it examines how these disruptions have transformed what was once a voluntary, not-for-profit community movement of education for migrants and marginalised people into a sophisticated government, community, and for-profit training and skills sector which imagines foundation skills learners as choice making consumers.
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Prelude: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Value Proposition of Being
Human
1 Garrys Story: Part 1
2 Garrys Story: Part 2
3 A Conversation between Peter and ChatGPT: Part 1
4 Garrys Story: Part 3
5 A Conversation between Peter and ChatGPT: Part 2
1 Developing a Genealogy of the Problem of Foundation Skills
1 Introduction
2 The Changing Nature of Language and Literacy as Foundation Skills
3 The Emergence of Foundation Skills as a Skills Market in Australia
4 Genealogy as a Critical History of Thought
5 Apparatus and Governmentality
6 Our Toolbox
7 Structure of the Book
2 Neoliberal Capitalism and the Problem of Foundation Skills
1 Introduction
2 The Emergence of Neoliberal Markets in Australia
3 Globalisation, Flexible Capitalism: Changing Labour Markets and a New
World of Work
4 Discussion: Individual Responsibility and the Neoliberal Template for
Social Policy
3 The Neoliberal Foundation Skills Apparatus
1 Introduction
2 The Historical Moment of Urgent Need: Policy, Surveys and Mutual
Obligation
3 Strategic Function of the Apparatus: Resistance, Regulation and
Transcendent Possibilities
4 The Elements of the Apparatus: Characteristics and the Nature of Their
Connection
5 The Foundation Skills Apparatus: Debates and Truth Claims
4 Creating a Skills Market: The Marketisation and Commodification of
Foundation Skills
1 Introduction
2 Foundation Skills as a Commodity: Students, Funding, Knowledge and Skills
3 Hidden Privatisation: The Victorian Training Guarantee
4 Discussion: Policy Change and Reflexive Governance
5 The Choice-making Learner as a Customer: The Individualisation and
Responsibilisation of Foundation Skills
1 Introduction
2 The Emergence of Individualisation and Responsibilisation in Foundation
Skills
3 The Impact of Individualisation and Responsibilisation at the Program
Level
4 Discussion: The Subjugation (and Responsibilisation) of Socio-Economic
Disadvantage in the Foundation Skills Apparatus
6 A History of the Future of Foundation Skills
1 A History of the Present of Foundation Skills
2 A History of the Future of Foundation Skills
Bibliography
Index
Garry Argent is Lecturer in the School of Education at Deakin University. His research focuses on the foundation skills of adults, vocational education and applied learning in schools.
Peter Kelly is Professor of Education in the School of Education at Deakin University. His research focuses on young peoples education, employment and well-being in times of crisis at the convergence of the sixth mass extinction and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
