Overview
MAIS 650: Canadian and International Labour Education is about learning in, and for, the labour movement. It showcases the efforts that unions and other organizations have made to educate workers about their role in society and about the opportunities they have had to improve their working conditions and lives through collective action throughout the 20th century. It further shows that learning about labour actually starts in the workplace and how this on-the-job learning impacts educational activities organized by the labour movement. Eventually, it deals with the question of what labour educators can learn from the educational activities undertaken by other social movements, such as feminism and civil rights movements. Related to this is the question of what labour educators can learn from fellow educators in other countries. The course also allows you to move beyond learning about labour and to design the labour educational you always wanted to see but could never find.
Learning outcomes
After completing this course, you should be able to
- define labour education and explain how it is different from other forms of education,
- outline the history of labour education in Canada and its relations to changing socioeconomic and political contexts,
- use different theories to understand how workers learn in the workplace and how this learning might be advanced by labour education,
- understand what labour educators might learn from the educational activities in other social movements, and
- design your own labour educational.
Evaluation
To receive credit for this course, students must successfully complete the assignments and achieve a final mark of at least 60 percent. Students should be familiar with the Master of Arts—Interdisciplinary Studies grading system. Please note that it is students’ responsibility to maintain their program status. Any student who receives a grade of “F” in one course, or a grade of “C” in more than one course, may be required to withdraw from the program.
The following table summarizes the evaluation activities and the credit weights associated with them.
| Activity | Weight |
| Assignment 1 | 5% |
| Assignment 2 | 20% |
| Assignment 3 | 20% |
| Assignment 4 | 30% |
| Assignment 5 | 20% |
| Assignment 6 | 5% |
| Total | 100% |
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Taylor, J. (2001). Union learning: Canadian labour education in the twentieth century. Thompson Educational Publishing.
Physical course materials
The following course materials are included in a course package that will be shipped to your home prior to your course’s start date:
Choudry, A. (2015). Learning activism: The intellectual life of contemporary social movements. University of Toronto Press.
Hanson, C., Paavo, A., & Sisters in Labour Education. (2019). Cracking labour’s glass ceiling: Transforming lives through women’s union education. Fernwood Publishing.
Worthen, H. (2014). What did you learn at work today? The forbidden lessons of labor education. Hard Ball Press.
In addition to these print textbooks, several online readings will be assigned, all of which are available in the course’s Digital Reading Room.
Athabasca University Online Materials
All other materials for the course, including a Course Information, a Study Guide, information about the assignments, as well as access to the Digital Reading Room, are found on the course home page.