Choosing to learn or chosen to learn: the experience of Skills for Life learners

Abstract

It has been estimated that as many as one in five adults in England have difficulties with literacy or numeracy skills. Raising the standards of language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills amongst all adults of working age in England has become one of the government’s highest priorities.

Following the launch of the Skills for Life strategy in England, adults with poor LLN skills were targeted to attend training provision to upgrade their skills. As a result of the strategy, some identified target groups, i.e. the unemployed and benefit claimants, have found that receipt of benefits has had ‘conditionality’ attached to it; that is, they are required to undertake activities, including training, in order to maintain welfare benefits.

Whilst resistance is often associated with motivation, this paper argues that making attendance at training provision a ‘conditionality’ of receipt of welfare benefits is unlikely to result in an increase in an adult’s LLN skills. We argue that whilst attendance at training provision can be increased through the use of such sanctioning interventions, this negative intervention does not result in a learner engaging in the training activities. There is a distinct difference between attending training programmes and engaging with training provision.

Using the conceptual framework provided by Pierre Bourdieu’s discussion of reproduction in culture, society and education, we argue that the Skills for Life strategy is being used as an apparatus of symbolic violence; being legitimised through misrecognition.

Introduction

Skills for Life, a national strategy to tackle the needs of adults in England with poor language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills, was launched by the government in March 2001 (DFEE, 2001). The strategy sets out the government’s agenda for change and expresses the aspiration to improve the skills of those groups where LLN needs are greatest. Its stated mission is ‘to give all adults in England the opportunity to acquire the skills for active participation in twenty‐first‐century society’ (DFEE, 2001, p. 3). Some of the key priority groups identified in the strategy are the unemployed and benefit claimants, prisoners and those supervised in the community and other groups at risk of exclusion.

The strategy has had, and continues to have, a huge impact on all those involved in education in the post‐school sector (Crawley, 2005). It argues that by ensuring the adult population is given every opportunity to develop their LLN skills they are more likely to be active participants in the twenty‐first century, both socially and economically (Papen, 2005). The government has invested large sums of money (3.7 billion pounds sterling by 2006) (House of Commons, 2006a) to ensure the strategy is embraced and penetrates all areas of training, including community education, private training providers, prisons, workforce training and further education colleges in a way few policies have.

Research evidence (Brooks et al., 2001) suggested that some unemployed adults (a target group of the Skills for Life strategy) were reluctant to address their LLN skills. As a result, a series of pilot schemes were established to test whether training programmes with attached incentives or sanctions would result in more individuals commencing and, perhaps more significantly, completing training provision. Incentives included additional financial rewards, and sanctions included the possibility of withdrawing welfare benefits.

We present findings from a research project to argue that the Skills for Life strategy is being ‘misrecognised’ as legitimate by those charged with achieving the targets associated with it. We argue that the use of ‘sanctions and sweetners’ (Stanley et al., 2004) to increase attendance at Skills for Life training programmes does not, in fact, result in learners engaging and participating in training programmes (O’Grady & Atkin, 2005; Brooks et al., forthcoming) but that actually the reverse is the case, with learners becoming increasingly resistant and frustrated by the training experience. This paper questions whether it is reasonable for the government to use the welfare system as a tool towards attempting to change the behaviours of its recipients (Stanley et al., 2004).

Context

Adult language, literacy and numeracy learners often appear to be resistant to learning these skills. However, it is widely acknowledged that for many adults with poor LLN skills, when asked about their skills level, they do not feel they need to develop their skills and are comfortable that the skills level they have is sufficient to meet their requirements on a day‐to‐day basis (Ekinsmyth & Bynner, 1994 in Brooks et al., 2001). However, in adult education, resistance to learning is a well‐known phenomenon, often being explained as an issue of motivation (Wedege & Evans, 2006).

This research study explored the experiences of adults attending Skills for Life training programmes, being guided by the general question ‘What are the effects of the Skills for Life strategy for adults with poor language, literacy or numeracy skills?’ In order to explore this question, the following sub‐questions were constructed:

1. How do adult Skills for Life learners understand their language, literacy and numeracy skills?

2. What types of training programmes are available to adult Skills for Life learners?

3. How do learners engage with Skills for Life training programmes?

4. What are the future aspirations of adult Skills for Life learners?

Theoretic framework

The work of Pierre Bourdieu, particularly his discussion of symbolic violence and its role in the reproduction of society, is engaged to provide a lens to interpret the data.

The Skills for Life strategy (DFEE, 2001) provides an excellent example of what Bourdieu terms symbolic violence and, in particular, misrecognition and legitimisation.

Bourdieu’s thesis of symbolic violence considers the relationship between education and social reproduction. Bourdieu argued that education is an organised attempt to ensure that specific processes of social order and restrain are continually (re)produced through indirect cultural mechanism. He suggests that symbolic violence is the imposition of systems of symbolism and meaning (alternatively, described as ‘culture’) upon groups in such a way that they are likely to be experienced as legitimate (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). Such ‘legitimacy’, he argued, obscures the power relations which permit such impositions to be successful.

In explaining symbolic violence, Bourdieu emphasises education, and particularly pedagogic activity, as a process of inculcation (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). He argues that the long‐term function of pedagogic work is the production of dispositions which generate ‘correct’ responses from agencies endowed with authority, with pedagogic work being a substitute for physical constraint and coercion, legitimising its product by producing legitimate consumers of the product (Jenkins, 2002).

Research methodology

To address the research questions shown earlier we undertook a study which explored the experiences of specified target groups of adults (long‐term unemployed, prisoners and hard to reach groups) attending training under the umbrella of the Skills for Life strategy. Learners were attending training across three institutions within the East Midlands area of England: a large further education college, a private training provider and a prison.

Life history interviews were the primary methodological approach for this study. The fundamental theme of life history research is that all aspects of life interact with and have implications for each other (Goodson & Sikes, 2001). Using this approach allowed data to be gathered that reflected the participant’s experience contextually and also allowed for exploration of individuals understanding of events and the way they see, experience or interpret such events (Atkinson, 1998).

The research sample contained 44 learners and 10 Skills for Life practitioners across the three participating institutions. All learner research participants were attending Skills for Life training programmes and all practitioner research participants were engaged in either the delivery or management of language, literacy and numeracy provision. The learner sample is reflective of some of the key priority target groups identified in the Skills for Life strategy. A total of 54 life story interviews were undertaken. These interviews were supported by additional data collected through informal classroom observations and discussions.

Training providers and their Skills for Life training programmes

Whilst all participants were attending Skills for Life training programmes, the three programmes had very different structures.

Private training provider training programme

The private training provider involved in the study was contracted to deliver a training programme on behalf of Jobcentre Plus (the government‐funded employment agency facility and the social security office in the United Kingdom). The training programme, entitled Basic Employability Training (BET), was one of a suite of training programmes offered by the Jobcentre Plus under the umbrella of Work Based Learning for Adults (WBLA). This programme is seen by the government as:

A vehicle for tackling the basic skills and other barriers to employment faced by people with the most severe basic skills problems … but the key aim of the provision remains to move people into work. (Webb, 2003, p. 13)

Adults who participate in BET have been unemployed and in receipt of welfare benefits for a minimum period of 26 weeks. Adults being considered for this programme are required to undertake a skills assessment. If they evidence LLN below (UK) Level 1 (this is roughly equivalent to Level 2 of the International Adult Literacy Survey scale) in either literacy or numeracy or both, they are referred to the BET programme. This lasts for a fixed period of 26 weeks and incorporates periods of job search activity, work placement activity, and intensive basic skills support. Adults are required to attend for 30 hours per week. Success on this programme is measured in two ways: by obtaining employment or by achieving a Skills for Life qualification. Should a participant complete the training programme and remain unemployed they are unable to re‐enter the programme unless they evidence a further 26 weeks of unemployment.

Adults who it is felt may be eligible to attend the BET programme but decline to attend either the skills assessment or the BET programme itself, can be ‘directed’ by Jobcentre Plus staff to attend. If adults continue to not attend either the skills assessment or the BET programme, ‘sanctions’ can be imposed on them in the form of loss of welfare benefits by Jobcentre Plus staff. However, based on the data collected for this study, it must be recognised that, in reality, sanctions are rarely imposed. The concern is rather the threat of sanctions to ensure clients’ compliance with Jobcentre Plus ‘conditionality’.

Adults who are eligible and do attend the BET programme automatically receive a training allowance and partial reimbursement of any travel costs incurred. Adults achieving a Skills for Life qualification also receive a financial reward, currently £100 sterling.

Further education training programme

The further education college involved in this study offered a large suite of programmes which were all designed to support and develop LLN skills. As well as having discrete LLN classes, it also ran courses in which the LLN component was embedded within the course itself. Examples of such programmes include pottery, digital photography, art, history and IT classes. Learners could access as many of these classes as they wished. The classes ran throughout the week, both during the day and in the evenings. Learners did not receive any financial incentive for attending, although there were no fees attached to attending the programme.

Prison training programme

The training programme provided by the prison offered dedicated LLN classes. Additionally, learners were able to access classes in IT, cookery, art and life skills. At the time of this study these classes were not linked by an LLN theme but were run as discrete programmes. Learners were able to access between three and five sessions of education per week. Learners who attended education classes were eligible to receive a payment which, interestingly, was significantly lower than that received by other inmates undertaking workshop employment (in this prison the payment for education was 75 pence per session compared to approximately £3.00 for workshop activities).

Findings and discussion

Data were analysed comparatively between training providers and also thematically, with the emerging themes drawn out for further discussion.

Following initial analysis of the data it became clear that learners were attending Skills for Life training provision for distinctly different reasons. Initial analysis of the data suggests that Skills for Life learners attend their training programmes either electively (voluntarily) or as a result of a mandatory requirement (non‐voluntary learners).

Voluntary learners appear to attend training following some form of critical incident and have a clear idea about their reasons for attending in terms of their goals. Conversely, non‐voluntarily learners were attending training due to extrinsic influences, such as a potential penal sentence or the removal of welfare benefits.

The data support the theory that interventions in place for some priority target groups, identified in the Skills for Life strategy, are ensuring learner attendance. However, it is not clear that attendance at provision ensures active participation and engagement: a key indicator of likely progression and achievement.

Coercive social control, in the form of actions carried out by agents responsible for the implementation of the Skills for Life strategy are, in fact, working to ensure that such activities become misrecognised as legitimate. Indeed, so embedded has the policy become that its legitimacy (Bourdieu) has become a cultural ‘taken for grantedness’ amongst those charged with its implementation.

Voluntary learners

Learners who had elected to attend training provision were found primarily in further education provision; the most traditional pathway of post‐compulsory education in England. Learners in this type of provision were predominantly female, had generally had a disjointed experience of compulsory education, with periods of expulsion or suspension and had been employed in low‐skilled occupations, such as production lines or the service industries. When asked why they had started the provision, the majority of learners stated they had taken the decision as a result of some particular trigger, or critical incident. Examples of such incidents included becoming recently divorced or separated, having a child recently start school or, perhaps more interestingly, having a child recently leave home on whom they had become dependent to support them with their LLN needs.

Learners engaged in this programme were likely to have been unemployed prior to attending the training programme and, on trying to re‐enter the employment market, found their previous employment no longer existed. Alternatively, learners were newly unemployed due to redundancy and were unable to find new employment in the same or similar occupational sector.

Having made the decision to attend an LLN training programme, learners regularly spoke of their aim to achieve a qualification at the end of the training programme and had clear goals and targets about how such qualifications sat in a broader action plan associated with future employment and employability.

There was also evidence of voluntary learners amongst those engaged in the training provision at the prison. Some prisoners reported attending education in order to be able to write letters home and keep in touch with their family, particularly if they had children with whom they wanted to maintain communication. Once again, critical incidents featured. Some learners found themselves at the start of a long period of imprisonment and aimed to use the time to achieve the education which had previously eluded them. They discussed in some detail the ways in which they wanted to use the education system to develop the skills they felt would be necessary to gain employment on re‐entry into society.

Interestingly, for some repeat offenders, education was an activity they routinely undertook during periods of imprisonment but which formed no part of their lifestyle when ‘on the outside’. Their identity as a prisoner was closely associated with their role as a learner. Interestingly, Porter et al. (2005) established that students face a variety of difficulties that impede their efforts to participate in training provision steadily and intensively and suggest that programmes require the ability to support adults to dip in and out of provision as their ability to participate fluctuates in line with their multiple identities and chaotic lifestyles.

Voluntary prison learners additionally described periods of interrupted compulsory schooling, whether through truancy or expulsion. In addition, some of the participants discussed at some length additional barriers they had faced to acquiring LLN skills in their past, including various forms of addictions, behavioural difficulties and family difficulties.

Non‐voluntary learners

It became clear that there were as many learners attending training provision through compulsion, or on a non‐voluntary basis, as there were attending voluntarily. These types of learners were most often found attending the prison training programme or the training programme being delivered by the private training provider on behalf of Jobcentre Plus.

Learners in the prison, attending training programmes on a non‐voluntary basis, were likely to be doing so for some extrinsic reason. The prison involved in this study was a large male remand prison and, so, whilst inmates had lost their liberty, they were not formally required to undertake any activities. However, reasons given for participating in education suggest some prisoners were extrinsically motivated to attend education and could be defined as non‐voluntary learners. Some of the reasons given for attending education included gaining extra socialisation time with other inmates, avoiding long periods of ‘bang‐up’ or because attending education is anecdotally thought to positively influence future sentencing.

Learners attending Jobcentre Plus training provision, via private training providers training had all been unemployed previously. When learners attending this provision were asked why they were attending, the majority referred to it as a ‘conditionality’ of receipt of welfare benefits; that is, they understood there was a threat of sanctions and, possibly, a loss of benefits if they did not.

In direct contrast to the voluntary learners, when learners discussed the training programme and their future aspirations, this group were much more likely to respond with negative statements, such as:

You get sent, don’t you (TP L B 009)

Well, I didn’t like the idea but, at end of day you’ve got to go or no benefits, so … (TP L B 011)

This type of learner was most likely to have little or no history of employment. A significant number of learners attending the training programme were ‘repeaters’ in that they had attended the training programmes more than once, sometimes on multiple occasions. Learners described a history of attending a number of government‐funded training programmes. Many of the learners also described a history of poor attendance during their compulsory school years or of attendance at special schools for people with identified learning difficulties.

Learners attending this type of training programme were much more likely to be either passive participants in training programme or, alternatively, reject it completely. Passive learners, when asked, were unable to describe why they were attending the training programme, what they planned to learn or had learnt, what they felt they wanted or needed to learn, or why they were being asked to learn these LLN skills. Learners said they simply did as they were told and what they were told until it was time to leave. Learners who rejected the training completely consistently declined to participate in any training activities and actively encouraged negativity towards the training programme amongst the learner cohort. Essentially, this group have become ‘institutionalised’ as welfare benefit claimants and have adopted the associated behaviours; indeed they behave as an ethnic group.

Learners who participated in this study stated, without exception, that they preferred the work experience component of the training programme, even when the work experience bore no relation to any likely future employment opportunities.

Conclusions

Whilst the government is endeavouring to ensure that all adults of working age reach a minimum standard of knowledge competency (human capital), there is an underlying assumption within the Skills for Life strategy that this is a wholly realistic and attainable target for all adults in England, including those who speak English as a second or third language. The government legitimise their use of interventions to meet this goal by stating they are in line with advice from the OECD on government support to assist adults of working age to achieve a minimum standard of basic skills (OECD, 1997).

It is widely recognised that adults with low level basic skills are more likely to encounter periods of unemployed or low skilled employment (Parsons & Bynner, 1999). Unemployed adults may be considered to be avoiding sustained employment by not taking any action to remediate their skills need and, therefore, the use of interventions such as ‘directions’ and ‘sanctions’ are generally regarded as legitimate. Indeed, there are signs of a general trend towards the use of such actions within recent government policy initiatives; see, for example, the recent debates surrounding incapacity benefit and disability living allowance that discuss the introduction of such interventionist techniques (House of Commons, 2006b).

The introduction of the welfare state was designed, since its inception in 1911 (National Insurance Act, 1911), as one which provides welfare benefits as a form of financial support, acting as a ‘cushion’ whilst individuals seek new employment, not as an alternative to employment. As a society, or culture, adults of working age who have long periods of unemployment and receive welfare benefits from the government are expected to be able to evidence, as a minimum, that they are working towards obtaining employment (in any form) and are not relying on the government to provide them with financial subsistence indefinitely. The adoption of this cultural attitude adds its force to the power relations within society and allows for the systematic reproduction of such activity. Indeed ‘unemployment numbers’ are announced regularly and seen as an indicator of policy.

Because such interventions are seen as legitimate by society, they are recognised as legitimate by the enforcers of the policy: the power relations which are at play are concealed. In effect, the intervention is presented, and misrecognised as legitimate and reasonable, both by the enforcer (Jobcentre Plus staff) and the target group (adults with poor LLN). The policy becomes successfully enforced upon the target group by those acting on behalf of the government. The target group have little or no redress and are therefore dominated by those imposing the policy. Similarly, those acting as enforcers of the policy have incidentally become instruments of social control.

Adults who find themselves unemployed for long periods of time, whilst they may resent the actions enforced upon them, feel they have no rights of choice or a voice in the actions that are being taken on their behalf, largely because, ultimately, they are dependent on the welfare system for financial support in lieu of employment.

The policy culture associated with Work Based Learning for Adults is a deficit one which appears to embrace failure; indeed without failure it has no substance. Disciplinary actions form part of the contractual obligations associated with welfare benefit assistance. Learners who do not act in accordance with the requirements are disciplined via a series of verbal and written warnings, eventually leading to directions (refers to the requirement of an adult in receipt of welfare to undertake an action at the request of their advisor) and, ultimately, sanctions (refers to the suspension or withdrawal of welfare support to an adult who does not undertake an action upon the direction).

Many learners attending Jobcentre Plus training provision were unable to see how they could improve their skills by any significant level. For some, the Jobcentre Plus training programmes seemed like a ‘return to school’ with classroom‐based activities which were dominated by paper exercises. Additionally, many of the participants considered their LLN skills to be adequate (Ekinsmyth & Bynner, 1994 in Brooks et al., 2001), although Atkin et al. (2005) found that learners were often aware of their lack of basic skills but thought they either could not learn or had other priorities and instead developed coping strategies. Atkin et al. (2005) found that adults were only likely to seek help with their LLN skills when they identified a need to do so; often occurring following a change in circumstances, either personal or professional.

This paper highlights how some adult LLN learners have been experiencing the implementation of the Skills for Life strategy when accessing training programmes, and argues that making an adult attend a training programme through the use of interventions, such as directions and sanctions, does not mean full engagement and participation with the training programme and can lead to an increased resistance to engage in subsequent training programmes. It is not surprising that learners questioned the value of such training programmes when they rarely lead to better life conditions, in the form of employment. The reality, evidenced by the data, is that they were much more likely to be asked to participate in a further Jobcentre Plus training programme following a further period of unemployment, than actually to re‐engage with the labour market or take up mainstream further education opportunities.

Interestingly, learners attending BET programmes reported enjoying work‐placements more than periods of time within a classroom setting, even if those placements appeared to be of little benefit in terms of achieving sustainable employment. It may prove beneficial for policy‐makers to consider how training programmes for the unemployed could be structured in such a way to allow learners to decide their place of work and training support needs.

It appears that there is a wide range of Skills for Life training programmes for those who wish to seek them out. However, for those adults who are unemployed and claiming benefits the available choice of programmes becomes more limited. What is available is prescriptive, inflexible and general. Training programmes are for a fixed period of weeks and number of hours with a fixed pattern of delivery, allowing little or no opportunity to ensure that training is designed to meet the individual needs of the learner. As Atkin et al. (2005) point out, for effective delivery the needs and motivations of adult LLN learners need to be fully understood.

Our findings suggest that there are some shared characteristics amongst adults with poor LLN skills, such as prior educational and employment histories. What separates these adults are their reasons for engaging in training programmes to develop these skills. This paper argues that the rigidity of Jobcentre Plus training programmes and the limited range of training programmes is a major contributing factor to the continuing resistance of this group to engaging in learning to develop their literacy and numeracy skills.

It seems clear that the government, and by default society, would benefit from developing a more flexible approach to the delivery of the Skills for Life training programmes (Atkin & Merchant, 2004; Atkin et al., 2005). This idea embraces the concept of learner persistence presented in the work of Porter et al.(2005) who, as noted earlier, established that students faced a variety of difficulties that hampered their efforts to participate steadily and intensively in literacy learning and that programmes, which provided a range of pathways to learners with less emphasis on group learning and more emphasis on one‐to‐one learning, allowed students to dip in and out of provision as their ability to participate fluctuated (Porter et al., 2005).

The deficit model currently in place actively reinforces the notion of failure (failed to obtain employment, failed to achieve minimum standards of literacy, language or numeracy on assessment, failed to secure employment during the training programme, failed to evidence tangible increase in LLN skills through the acquisition of qualifications, etc). When this is associated with compulsion to attend training programmes through the use of directions and sanctions, it is perhaps not surprising that the result is largely a reluctance to participate.

In this paper we have argued that making attendance at training provision a ‘conditionality’ of receipt of welfare benefits is unlikely to result in active participation and engagement in Skills for Life training programmes. In a recent study by Brooks et al. (forthcoming), the use of financial incentives for attendance at literacy programmes has been trialled and it was found that, in fact, the use of the incentive actually increases drop‐out from training programmes, rather than the reverse. This is a worrying finding for the government and their policies which appear to rely heavily on such interventionist strategies to coerce adults to attend training provision. Taking the views of the learners in this study as a starting point would lead policy‐makers to reflect on current practices associated with training provision for adults with poor LLN skills and consider how provision can be developed to support adults to participate and engage in LLN training programmes.