Workplace literacy : Canadian literature review and bibliography

To address this question, this paper first provides an overview of the literature in the field of adult literacy in Canada, identifies emerging themes within workplace literacy research, and discusses the various theoretical and ideological perspectives of researchers and stakeholders in the field. [...] In addition to investigating emerging themes and areas of research in the workplace literacy 1 A number of governments, such as in Canada and the UK, provide Essential or Basic Skills programs that generally include literacy and numeracy as components of the skill set conceptualized within the program. [...] Audrey Thomas views the plentiful and expanding literature on adult literacy and the development of specialty areas in the field, such as workplace literacy and family literacy, as indicators of the field’s maturity (xviii). [...] The work provides a thorough overview of research conducted from a social practice perspective in the field of workplace literacy and orients the reader to the central issues and debates within the field. [...] Barker identifies adult literacy as a policy issue because of the number of adults in Canada − as in the other industrialized countries − who do not have the level of literacy skills required to participate actively in the community, the economy and lifelong learning (Problems…, 1).