Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1807/2390

The CSEW is a community of practice, engaged in dialogue, research and action on learning and work issues. Its active steering committee and three working groups bring together academic, labour and community researchers and practitioners. All contribute to the internal life of OISE/UT, both in the graduate program and the pre-service program. They also support the organizational capacity of the labour movement, and develop practical alternative tools to the dominant neo-liberal discourses on learning and work.

The WORK and LIFELONG LEARNING (WALL) Research Network is an initiative of the Centre for the Study of Education and Work.

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Educational policy appropriation and Grameen Bank higher education financial aid policy process in Bangladesh
(2020) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
The paper talks about higher educational polices and their process of policy appropriations, policy as practices, policy as symbolic, policy as rituals, policy as myths, policy backward- mapping and policy-forward mapping, multi-stage policy implementation process, street-bureaucrats planners, and policy reform process for the interest of the socio-economic students of color (SESs) and minority group students . The paper discerns, as an example, how the Grameen Bank higher education student loan policy making process follows the bottom-up multi-stage policy appropriation method in Bangladesh. Literature reviews, conversations with higher education students, contextual analysis, and the author personal working experience incorporates here. The study finds higher education policy analysis is vital for higher educational financial aid policy improvement because policy analysis can explores usefulness of the policy for public well-being and for effectiveness of the policy appropriation.
Canadian higher education student financial aid program
(2019) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
Although Canada is a welfare state, and it has need-based priority student financial aid support policies in Canada; however, its higher education financial aid service is not universal. Rather its higher education support services have neoliberal policy matrix (public grants and private loan) financial aid services began to take root in most Canadian provinces. Although, since 1964, the Canadian financial aid program has provided over $51 billion in Canada Student Loans to more than 5 million Canadians to help them finance their education and equip them to achieve their career aspirations. However, higher education tuition fees and student debt levels are increasing every year. Class sizes and the proportion of part-time contract lecturer positions are increased. The average undergraduate tuition fees were $2,243 in 1990-91 (CFS, 2013), but tuition fees increased to $7,086 in 2018-19. Moreover, Statistics Canada (2015) identifies tuition fees for most graduate programs in Ontario have seen a similar 300% increase since 1990 and are now $8,971 on average, even professional program fees have undergone a much more dramatic increase. Further, after 2016 the tuition costs grew the fastest in Ontario (+402%). Government funding accounted for the majority of operating revenue for Canada’s university institutions, accounting for 83.2% in 1978, leaving students to pay approximately 15% (MacDonald & Shaker, 2013). However, at the University of Toronto, the government grants and the institutional grants cover only 53% of the tuitions and fees of the students. Hence the average Canadian student debt is $27,000, up from $8,000 in 1990 (Burley & Awad, 2014). Moreover, many students will spend half of their working lives paying back their student debts (Graeber 2011, CFS 2011). The Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) student debt the publicly-assisted colleges’ students are 9.1%; and private career colleges is 14.5%; overall 2017 OSAP default rates for Ontario postsecondary institutions is 6.7%. The paper has many secondary data. The author talks with many students, read many articles, books, reports, and newspapers to get the full scenario of the Canada student financial aid policies, programs and products. The study finds although Canada has the need-based higher education student financial aid policies; however, many brilliant students from the low-income group do not have a university education. The study identifies many issues responsible for many students’ inaccessible to college education and increase of student debt. One of the main reason is many college financial aid officers do not elaborately explain student higher education financial aid government policies, programs, and products to the prospective higher education students. Although, the Government of Canada changes many of its higher education financial assistance policies, programs, and products; however, the ratios of the grants: loans are still questionable to many students, researchers, and laymen. Therefore, the federal, provincial and institutional grants need of the increased so that grants portion can be higher than 80% than the loan portion.
American higher education student financial aid policies, products, and services in America
(2019) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
The American higher education student financial aid program is an American national social financing program that has both grant and loan components. This student financial aid program is financed by the public and the private financial institutions, which is a social investment for the American college students for their higher education human resource capital development. Although America provides higher education student grants yearly more than $250 billion; its student debts are accumulating more than $1.5 trillion in 2007-2008. Even now the student debts are more increasing. Therefore, it is important to know what the American higher education student financial aid acts, policies and strategies are at the federal, states and institutional levels; how the private student loan agencies are working; why the student debts are increasing; and what are the issues related to the student financial aid services in America. The federal, state, and institutional financial grants and their policies are continuously changing, but they are legislated by Congress and states legislators. The US Department of Education and many other agencies are monitoring and reviewing the student financial aid policies and budgets. The higher education student financial aid's budgets and policies are altering to comply with the college students' needs and the college's demand. Despite the American student financial aid system is decentralized; however, its policy appropriations need to be democratized.
Social economy community outreach education
(2019) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
The social economy is trying to address the issues of social and economic disparity and to find alternative socio-economic solutions for poverty eradication and to facilitate community outreach public well-being. Currently, the social economy (SE) courses are teaching in many universities, colleges, and develop social enterprise different initiatives. Moreover, social economy researchers present their research findings at different seminars, conferences, symposiums; many books and journals are published on the social economy; however, very few initiatives have taken to educating the end users of community outreach the social entrepreneur. Hence, the paper focuses to discern how social economy (SE) concept, its different initiatives, operational strategies, and policies can be reached to community outreach people in order to orient them about these phenomena. The paper contains the definition of SE, the importance of SE, and issues in SE with examples, how social economy community outreach learning can be facilitated to inform readers. The paper is written based on literature reviews, the author’s personal experience, and secondary data. The paper finds SE ideas are traveling within academicians, researchers, social economy study students, and social economy practitioners. Therefore, the social economy community outreach education is very important to educate community outreach people to develop their understanding of the social economy, their benefit, to know how social enterprises can be initiated and managed by the community outreach people and prospective community social entrepreneurs.
Compare and contrast Grameen Bank (GB) Higher Education Student Loan Service in Bangladesh and the state-managed student financial aid program in Canada and America
(2019) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
This policy research paper narrates ‘Compare and contrast the state-managed Canada and the American student financial aid program with the NGO-managed Grameen Bank (GB) Higher Education Student Loan program in Bangladesh’. This paper is a nutshell consolidation of the research that focuses on to compare and contrast policies, strategies and products of the Canadian and the American student financial aid policies and products with the policies, strategies and products of the Grameen Bank (GB) Higher Education Student Loan program for the second generation of GB borrowers in Bangladesh. The study finds the Canadian and the American student higher education financial aid programs have distinct variations; however, some of their policies, products and implementation strategies are similar to each other; however, the Canadian and the American student higher education financial grants and loans policies have been modifying over time to address the needs and demands of the students since inception. However, although the Grameen Bank student higher education loan policies and products initiated in 199, it remains unchanged even it has limited expansion although the GB student higher education loan program is very popular and it has huge demand in Bangladesh. This research generates new knowledge of NGO--managed student loan financing services in Bangladesh that has impacted on to address the issue of poverty and employment creation in Bangladesh. The research findings help Canada and America and GB Bangladesh to improve their student higher education financial aid services in in these countries.
Grameen Bank Higher Education Student Loan Service in Bangladesh
(2018) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
The purpose of this research is to explore the policies, strategies, products and services of the Grameen Bank (GB) student loan program in Bangladesh. The study will identify challenges faced by the Grameen Bank student loan borrowers in Bangladesh. Moreover, the study intends to examine whether the second generation of GB borrowers participate in the family and community in the social and green enterprises in a more egalitarian way than their parents; explore whether they advocate for social issues like develop schooling behaviors among the marginalized children in their community. The research findings would help GB to improve its student loan services in Bangladesh. This research can generate new knowledge of MFI managed student loan financing services and its impact to address poverty and employment creation in Bangladesh. This study would be learning lessons to other MFIs in the world elsewhere.
Compare and contrast NGO/MFIs developed social safety net services (SSNs) in Bangladesh and state managed SSNs measures in Canada
(2018-08) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
Social safety net (SSN) measures are usually managed by the state for the vulnerable people like seniors, physically and mentally disability diagnosed people, vulnerable widowed and people living with the economic crisis. Recently many NGOs of Bangladesh have developed social safety net services for the vulnerable poor people in Bangladesh. The paper is an attempt to find out (1) what are the SSNs measures are taken by NGOs/MFIs in Bangladesh and how they work; (2) to discern what are the state managed Canadian SSNs services that have served to Canadian vulnerable people and or people living with economic crisis; and (3) compare and contrast SSNs strategies governed by NGOs/MFIs in Bangladesh and public agencies have managed in Canada. This study follows descriptive ethnographic and participatory observation methods working with Grameen Bank and BRAC Bangladesh as well as researcher working experience with Toronto Social Services and Ontario Disability Support Services in Canada. Study uses secondary data and reviews works of literature to provide evidence of the narrations. The research finds Grameen Bank, BRAC and Nijera Kori Bangladesh have developed different SSNs services for vulnerable people in Bangladesh as an alternative of the state-managed SSNs services although Bangladesh Government has initiated many SSNs services through its public and external resources. However, government supported SSNs services are yet not massively reached to all vulnerable people in Bangladesh who have suffered from poverty. Contrarily, Canada SSNs programs are universally followed by the Social Acts of Canada. The Canadian SSN many services have reached massively to its vulnerable population to address their social and economic crisis and poverty. However, SSN financial supports have not complied with the rise of prices in Canada at different time. By reading this paper, readers could learn different social security measures developed by NGOs and MFIs in Bangladesh and the state managed SSNs measures in Canada that are narrated in the paper.
Grameen social business services in Bangladesh
(2018) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
This paper is an empirical research in Bangladesh on the Grameen Bank (GB) Nabben Uddugta (new entrepreneurs) social business equating financing program conducted in 2014-2015 and in 2017. The purpose of this empirical policy research is to explore the policies, procedures, and strategies of this social business equity funding project of the Grameen sister organizations as well as to identify challenges facing the second-generation entrepreneurs of GB borrowers in running their social businesses in Bangladesh. The grameen social business equity financing program is totally different from Grameen Bank microcredit program in Bangladesh. This empirical research study discovers the Grameen new entrepreneurs are not only run their businesses for profits, but they are also engaging in green businesses for restoring harmonious relationships in their local ecology. They are also engaged in many community civic activities even they are protesting against social ill activities in their community that are harmful to community people like stand against dowry marriages, teenage marriages etc.
Organizing, designing, building and forming of groups and centers of Grameen Bank and its services implementation strategies in Bangladesh
(2018) Rouf, Kazi Abdur
The objective of the paper is to narrate the Grameen Bank (GB) group and center organizing, designing, forming, and building tools in Bangladesh and to identify what mistakes the author and his colleagues have made during their journey in GB. It explores how they could do better jobs in organizing, designing, building and forming groups and centers and other activities if they are skilled in the community work ahead of their jobs in GB. The paper discusses different concepts, thoughts and ideas of community organizing, community designing, community building, and different mechanisms of GB loans and savings services for poor in Bangladesh. GB is continuously changes its center organizing and building tools; and developing innovative loans, savings products those are suitable to its borrowers to overcome their poverty. The paper narrates the author and his colleagues’ personal working experience in GB during late 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, the paper incorporates different challenges GB faces like social and economic barriers at the macro and micro level in implementing its services to poor people in Bangladesh at different times; and how GB overcomes these challenges and developed different innovative products and services in its Phase-1 and Phase-11. The narrated history of forming groups and organizing centers of GB and its different loan and savings products evolution process generates new knowledge and evidence in the field of group-based micro-credit. The process of evolution of GB would be a learning lesson for the readers, micro-finance practitioners, researchers and different community organizers in Bangladesh and elsewhere.
WALL Papers: Resources from the SSHRC Collaborative Research Initiative on the Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning in the New Economy: National Survey and Case Study Perspectives
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE, University of Toronto, 2010) Livingstone, D.W.; Raykov, Milosh
The purpose of the Work and Lifelong Learning (WALL) Papers is to provide an integrated list of resources produced by the members of the research network on “The Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning in the New Economy: National Survey and Case Study Perspectives.” The WALL Research Network was funded from 2003 to 2008 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research of Canada (SSHRC) as part of its Collaborative Research Initiative on the New Economy. The WALL Survey was conducted in 2004 with a large representative national sample of the adult (18+) Canadian population (N=9,063). The WALL network included 12 case studies. The case study groups examined learning and work relations in varying work contexts. The WALL Survey and several case studies build on the larger array of case studies completed by the NALL research network (see www.nall.ca). The Work and Lifelong Learning (WALL) Papers includes all books, articles, audiovisual materials, technical reports, conference papers, working papers and theses completed to date by members of the WALL Research Network research team.
Hidden dimensions of work and learning: the significance of unpaid work and informal learning in global capitalism. WALL working paper
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2003) Livingstone, D.W.
Over the past two centuries capitalist social relations and their underlying dynamics have become increasingly pervasive in the spaces of human life, and in particular in the relationships between employment and organized forms of education. The massive scope of this commodification has tended to obscure the enduring significance of other aspects of social practice, especially unpaid work and informal learning and their interrelations with education, employment and each other. These hidden dimensions continue to constitute large parts of our social lives and represent very substantial resources for progressive change in established forms of paid work and formal education. This paper develops this argument and provides some supportive evidence from a Canadian national survey on learning and work (see www.nall.ca) (Author's abstract)
Annotated bibliography on the changing nature of work and lifelong learning. WALL working paper
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2003) Livingstone, D.W.; Stowe, S.; Raykov, Milosh
This general bibliography on contemporary relations between work and learning is a preliminary product of the research network on "The Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning" (WALL) sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). This bibliography builds on two prior bibliographies focused on informal learning (see Adams et al, 1999; Luciani, 2001) produced by the previously funded SSHRC research network on New Approaches to Lifelong Learning (NALL) and available at the NALL website (www.nall.ca). This WALL bibliography is intended to aid interested readers to find indicative recent research studies on paid and unpaid workplaces, formal/further education and informal learning, and the complex array of interrelationships between these respective dimensions of learning and work. It focuses on the 1998-2003 period for work related references and the 2000-2003 period for learning related references. Some earlier items are included on changing dimensions of work, a more limited concern in the prior NALL bibliographies, and areas under-examined in NALL, such as disability studies
The changing nature of work and lifelong learning in the new economy: national and case study perspectives
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2002) Livingstone, D.W.
The first WALL Working Paper describes the National Survey on the Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning in the New Economy and 12 National Case Sties on pertinent topics, and describes the theoretical background as well as research network organization and operational plans for project realization. This project is based on a wide array of previously conducted studies and a comprehensive literature review. Proposed methodology integrates often-opposed quantitative and qualitative approaches to sociological research
Honouring their stories: the experience of one interviewer
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2001) Morais, Anne
The author of this paper was contracted as one of three researchers for the project entitled Learning Capacities in the Community and Workplace: an action research project. The project was sponsored by Advocates for Community Based-training and Education for Women (ACTEW) and, initially, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union. The intent of the project was to uncover and document learning strategies used by adults in three different learning sites: an unionized factory; a community-based employment training program; and a literacy program. The job of this particular researcher was to focus on learners in the pre-employment and literacy programs in Toronto. The method of research was action based: the author was responsible for interviewing adult learners and facilitating sessions on filling out a Skills and Knowledge Profile (SKP)
Revolution of experiences: evolution of the skills and knowledge profile
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2001) Morais, Anne ; Lior, Karen ; Martin, D'Arcy
The Skills and Knowledge Profile (SKP) as presented in this paper is a tool intended to document learning styles and strategies of adult learners. The stated goal of researchers was to develop a systematic approach to capturing the learning of unemployed and employed adults across sectors. In order to develop a user-friendly utilitarian SKP they adopted an action based research method, engaging learners in a unionized factory, community-based women's employment program and community-based literacy program. Volunteers in all the three sites committed their time and efforts to filling out the SKP and then provided us with feedback on the clarity, usefulness and ease of the tool. The paper documents the evolution of the SKP from its inception in the spring of '97 to the end of the '98. The SKP is shown to have traveled through the hands of learners in Ontario and British Colombia and workshop participants in Montreal and Toronto all of which have offered feedback that has made the final product significantly different than the original version. The SKP has experienced revisions on three fronts: the text and format of the SKP; the method by which it is administered; and the purpose of the SKP
Basic patterns of work and learning in Canada: findings of the 1998 NALL survey of informal learning and related Statistics Canada surveys
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2001) Livingstone, D.W.
This study provided extensive statistics and documentation of Canadian adults' work and learning activities. The study included statistics for household labor and community volunteer activities as well as paid employment.
Workers’ knowledge: an untapped resource in the labour movement
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2001) Livingstone, D.W.; Roth, Reuben
This paper makes the argument that underestimation of the current range and depth of workers’ knowledge and skills by union leaders represents a significant barrier to further growth of the labour movement. Surveys and case studies conducted by the SSHRC research network on New Approaches to Lifelong Learning (NALL) have found that unionized and non-unionized industrial and service workers in Canada are increasingly highly educated, increasingly participating in adult education courses and devoting substantial amounts of their time to informal learning activities outside the purview of organized education and training programs. Working people are generally engaged collectively and individually in an extensive array of employment-related and other informal learning activities that are neither fully recognized by most employers or union leaders nor given prior learning credit by educational institutions. This paper will provide an empirical analysis of the schooling, further adult course participation and informal learning of organized and unorganized workers in different occupational classes across Canada and offer some in-depth profiles of workers’ learning activities based on a case study in a unionized auto plant with one of the most extensive worker education programs in the country. In light of the massive amount of informal learning among working people, the strong popular demand for access to advanced education and training programs, the increasingly widespread support for use of prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) and the proliferation of accessible forms of information technology able to facilitate learning networks among workers, it is imperative for unions to address the growing learning interests of workers with more responsive and inclusive educational approaches and programs in order to enhance membership solidarity and attract new members. The major data sources are the first Canadian national survey of adults’ informal learning practices (N=1562) conducted in 1998 and field notes and interview transcripts drawn from participants in the auto plant case study of the Working Class Learning Strategies project conducted at five union locals in southern Ontario during the 1995-2000 period. Recommendations for future education programming strategies to facilitate union growth are based on what has worked most effectively in these locals of differing general organizational strength and demographic profiles (Authors' abstract)
The decision makers and varying conceptions of cultural inclusion at Beedaban School
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2001) Toulouse, Pamela Rose ; Anishnawbek, Sagamok
The following article examines the underlying tensions between three First Nations decision-making bodies; a Parent School Advisory Group, Education Committee and Elementary School Teachers in regards to the Native cultural and language content in the classroom. The goal of the research was to explore and present the concepts, beliefs, practices, worldview and values that underlie and/or guide decisions related to an Aboriginal education issue. The site for this discussion is Beedaban Elementary School on Sagamok First Nation which is a small Anishinabek (Ojibwe, Odawa & Pottawatomi) community located on the north shores of Lake Huron (Authors' abstract)
From informal to organizational learning in the post-industrial workplace
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2001) Laiken, Marilyn
In the light of current examples of re-engineering, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, some Canadian organizations in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors provide a environment for individuals and teams to negotiate effectively the kind of organizational change which has become endemic in today’s workplace. A focus on informal learning through basic social processes contributes to employees’ collective ability to move beyond simply coping with stress to engaging in creative action. A three-year research project, conducted between 1998 and 2001, located and studied, in-depth, four such organizations which were using organizational learning approaches to embed continuous learning within the actual work processes. While each of the cases presents a unique context, they together provide valuable thematic lessons in how to create working environments which contribute both to individual health and to organizational sustainability (Author's abstract)
Toward a redefinition of formal and informal learning: education and the Aboriginal people
(Centre for the Study of Education and Work, OISE/UT, 2001) Burns, George E.
This paper discusses the way in which formal education is recognized in most countries as an important mechanism of socialization, cultural identity, social control, labour force production, social mobility, political legitimation and stimulation of social change. It also deals with the way state authorized agencies such as the school, college, university and so on are viewed both as the normative exemplar of education, and the only bona fide value structures within which meaningful teaching, learning and education is perceived to occur. This pervasive paradigm of education is seen as the essential institutionalized cultural setting in which formal learning can take place and as the only socially valid setting in which learners can get formally educated. It also posits that, lost in the valorization of this compartimentalization of knowledge, are the histories, biases, beliefs and collectively shared knowledge that organizationally link the individual and group as social extensions of one another

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