The Final Report of the 'Learning Capacities in the Community and Workplace Project': Unionized Industrial Workplace Site (Ontario), Winter 1998. NALL Working Paper.

The Ontario Industrial Workers' research site offered a basic analysis of issues relevant to the Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) research and the labor education community. Project goals revolved around the need to examine development and applications of a new PLAR instrument, the Skills and Knowledge Profile (SKP), which is uniquely suited to examine the types of strategies, practices, and capacities that working class participants typically use. Primarily qualitative data from interviews were analyzed. SKP exhibited "situated" dimensions which, from a worker's standpoint, largely determined the perceived effectiveness of the instrument. Social organization of skills, knowledge, and learning processes were seen as a significant issue in the context of working class learning strategies, workers' practices, and progressive application of PLAR instruments such as SKP. In discussions of PLAR, SKP, and labor unions, notions of class consciousness were intertwined with informal learning relations. Intersection of class consciousness and development of critical views on the power relations among forms and conceptions of skill and knowledge led to the notion of a Workers' Knowledge Bank. In in-depth discussions, workers indicated the practical use/value was embedded within the process of administration itself and SKP provoked new understandings of one's own skills. (Appendixes include 94 references and interview schedules.) (YLB)