This paper makes the case for adult literacy (including numeracy) practitioners to play a greater role in health literacy initiatives in Australia. The paper draws on data from a national research project that investigated adult literacy partnerships and pedagogy viewed from a social capital perspective. The primary purpose of the project was to…

This paper contributes to pedagogical debates on how to meet the learning needs of young people who are disconnected from school. It presents a case study of a program which aimed to prepare students for their Year 10 equivalent school leaving qualification in a basic education section of a Technical and Further Education (TAFE) college in…

The primary purpose of this project is to produce a set of guidelines on how to deliver adult literacy and numeracy education and training using a social capital approach. Social capital in this project refers to the networks that operate during resourcing, course design, recruitment, teaching and evaluation. The study focused on three specific…

This Support Document reports in detail on two of three components of the methodology. The first part of this document features the literature review, focusing in particular on the three areas of health literacy, financial literacy and literacy in the justice sector. It also includes a background section on policy. The second part of the Support…

The three case studies featured in this publication need to be viewed in conjunction with the recent National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) report: "A New Social Capital Paradigm for Adult Literacy: Partnerships, Policy and Pedagogy" (Balatti, Black & Falk 2009). The case studies form an important research phase of…

There is strong evidence that participation in education and training can produce social capital outcomes. There is also strong evidence that such outcomes are useful outcomes; they can enhance the development of other outcomes often called human capital and they can contribute to the social-economic wellbeing of the learners and the communities…

An Australian study analyzed contributions of adult learning to eight categories of well being. The analysis illustrates that the process of drawing upon social capital is intrinsic to learning and directly involved in realizing socioeconomic outcomes. Socioeconomic benefits of learning partly derive from learners' identity formation and…

This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report "Reframing Adult Literacy and Numeracy Outcomes: A Social Capital Perspective" [ED493887] and is an added resource for further information. The original report investigated whether adult literacy and numeracy courses produced social capital outcomes, which…

This study investigated whether adult literacy and numeracy courses produced social capital outcomes, which are changes in students' connections with networks of people. Interviews seeking information about participation in adult literacy and numeracy courses were conducted with 57 students and 18 teachers in four courses, one each in the Northern…

The socioeconomic contributions of adult learning to community were examined from a social capital perspective. The concepts of human capital and social capital were differentiated, and the relationship between learning, human capital, and social capital was explored. The relevance of social capital in describing the wider benefits of adult…