Dr Sue Shore

Sue Shore is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of South Australia

Prior to joining UniSA I worked as a community educator and adult literacy teacher. My teaching and research interests are influenced by questions about what it means to learn in an unequal world and the implications this has for policy, pedagogy and the education of teachers and trainers. Much of the work I have been involved in over the past 25 or so years uses everyday theory-practice experiences as the starting point for working through complex issues ‘in the flesh’. I have undertaken research projects exploring ideas about ‘inclusive curriculum practice’ and decision making in community education programs. Other projects explored TAFE managers' understandings of whiteness in relation to their decision making and management practices in post-compulsory education. I am interested in using the notion of whiteness (explored at some length in my doctoral studies) to understand how ‘practice’ (policy-making, teaching, meetings, curriculum planning, theory-building) is always racialised – as I also recognise that whiteness itself is a problematic entry point for these discussions.

My CV (see below) provides some examples of how I have worked these issues into my thinking about such diverse practices as RPL, course development and online teaching. Much of this work has been undertaken with colleagues nationally and internationally and I have benefited much from their willingness to continue the conversations. I am currently working on ways to communicate more clearly, the messy yet recurring themes and links across these conversations through a more coherent research agenda. If you are interested in what this might look like across vocational education and training, adult literacy policy and provision, online learning, practitioner research and working/lives, click on the Global Conversations Research Agenda below.

Selected publications
With links to various conference papers etc

Global/local conversations around work and life
A collaborative research venture drawing on 20 years and more of academic work and activism.

• The social and cultural politics of adult education
• Theory-practice debates
• Race, culture, whiteness and pedagogy
• Situated knowledges of practitioner researchers
• Adult literacy policy and provision

South Australian Council for Adult Literacy: Past President

Adult Literacy and Numeracy Australian Research Consortium (ALNARC)

• ALNARC - Past Chair, National Committee of Directors: 2001-2003
• ALNARC - Research Consortium: 1999-2002
• ALNARC - South Australian research: 1999-2002

Convergence: The quarterly journal of the International Council for Adult Education: Editorial Board

Literacy and Numeracy Studies: An International Journal in the Education and Training of Adults: Editorial Board

Adult Literacy Research Network (ALRN): 1996-1998

Bachelor of Science (University of Adelaide).

Graduate Diploma: Language and Literacy

Graduate Diploma: Adult and Further Education

Master of Education: (1991) A Teacher's Questions in an Adult Literacy Classroom: Possibilities for Dialogue. Adelaide: CRAEHD, University of South Australia.

Doctor of Philosophy: (2001) Unreliable Allies: mapping the effects of Whiteness in adult education. University of Newcastle.

• Research Interests
  • Sustaining practitioner research networks
  • The racialised nature of theory-building
  • The politics of adult literacy provision
  • Comparative studies of education drawing on interdisciplinary approaches to work and life

         

Shore, S. (forthcoming 2010). Adult literacy teaching in Australia: rethinking occupational knowledge. In T. Seddon, L. Henrikson & B. Niemeyer (Eds.), Learning and Work and the Politics of Working Life: global transformations and collective identities in teaching, nursing and social work. London and New York: Routledge, tba.

Shore, S. (2009). Playford literacies: Building literacy capacity in learning communities. Adult Literacy National Project: Innovative Projects Report prepared for DEEWR.

Shore, S. (2009). Literacy Surveys as Racial Projects: Contemporary Debates about Literacy and Skill Development. In M. Weil, L. Mjelde & L. Koski (Eds.), Knowing Work: the Social Relations of Working and Knowing. Bern: Peter Lang, 77-96.

Shore, S., and Groen, J. (2009). After the ink dries: doing collaborative international work in higher education. Studies in Higher Education. 34:5, 533 — 546.

Rowan, M., and Shore, S. (2009). Foucault’s ‘toolkit’: resources for thinking work in times of continual change. Australian Journal of Adult Learning 49(1 April), 57-74.

Shore, S. (2006) (Re)thinking equity: the spatial and racial dynamics of managing learning and learning to manage. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 58, 4: pp. 497-513.

Shore, S (2005) New policies, new possibilities?: Adult learners in the global economy. In Apple, M., Kenway, J. and Singh, M. (Eds). Globalising education: policies, pedagogies, politics, Peter Lang, New York: pp. 61-77.

Shore, S (2004) ‘Destabilising or recuperating Whiteness?(un)mapping ‘the self’ of agentic learning discourses’. In Moreton-Robinson, A (Ed) Whitening Race: Essays in social and cultural criticism, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra: pp. 89-103.

Kell, P., Shore, S. & Singh, M. (eds) (2004) Adult Education @ 21st Century, Peter Lang, New York.

Shore, S. (2004) Practitioner-Research as Learning: Exploring situated knowledges of adult literacy educators. Literacy and Numeracy Studies 13, 2: 5-22.

Shore, S (2004) Reflexive theory building “after” colonialism: challenges for adult education. In Adult Education @ 21st Century eds P. Kell, S. Shore & M. Singh, Peter Lang, New York: 107-120.

Singh, M., and Shore, S., (2004). Pedagogies of global/local hope: disobedience in the face of globalism. In P. Kell, M. Singh and S. Shore (Eds.), Adult Education @ 21st Century. (pp. 269-285). New York: Peter Lang.

Shore, S (2003) Adult literacy and numeracy. A stocktake of adult literacy in South Australia: selected aspects. Commissioned paper for the South Australian Skills for the Future Inquiry.

Shore, S. (2001). Talking about Whiteness: 'adult learning principles' and the invisible norm. In Making Space: Merging Theory and Practice in Adult Education. V. Sheared and P. Sissel (Eds). Westport CT: Bergin and Garvey: 42-56.

Shore, R. Trenerry and M. Coombe (Eds) Doing literacy, doing literacy research: Researching practice in adult literacy settings. Melbourne: Language Australia.

Shore, S., Black, A., Simpson, A. & Coombe, M. (1993). Positiviely different: Guidance on developing inclusive adult literacy langauge and numeracy curriculum. Canberra: Department of Employment, Education and Training.

I am able to provide media comment in the following areas of expertise:

Discipline: Education

• Adult Literacy
• Vocational Education and Training

• Aboriginal education and pedagogy


• 'Mutual obligation', sole parenting and training reform


• Knowledge and social practices of 'shop floor' workers


• Social justice in teacher education, and


• Discursive practices of 'othering' in Australian social and educational policy.


• Gender patterns in IT and Library training.

• Brian Crossman Are we being transformed yet?: Leadership and post-compulsory education.


• Jeannie Daniels Women in (con)text: Stories of life, learning and the VET experience.


• Daphne Lordly: Prior learning and dietetics training: A Canadian study.


• Nancy Macintosh Caring practices in a multi-racial and multi-socio-economic school.


• Molly Rowan Beyond cries of pain: Equity practice knowledge in contemporary TAFE.


• Ruth Trenerry Brilliant Careers. Tracing career trajectories in changing times.


• Barbara Kameniar (2005) Seeing invisibility: Whiteness in religion education.


• Jo Lucas (2006) Teacher education and social justice.


• Molly Rowan (2004 Honours) Words: Weapons of Mass Distraction.