This thesis is a qualitative case study of adult literacy initial assessment interviews conducted under the Australian Government's Literacy and Numeracy Training (LANT) programme. The aim of the study is to understand the practices and articulated beliefs of the prospective students and assessors, in the initial assessment interview process. To achieve this, the assessment interview is examined in context; the micro context of the interview itself is analysed as are the broader macrocontextualising imperatives. The complex inter-relationship between the political, economic, social, cultural and moral impacts of what are often called 'new times' (Hall 1996) impact on how these interviews can be enacted in early twenty-first century Australia.
Under LANT, and its successor, the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Programme (LLNP), the choice to attend class is no longer with the prospective student. Those who are identified as in need of literacy assistance are obligated to attend an assessment interview and, if deemed appropriate, must attend an adult literacy class to fulfil their Mutual Obligation requirements. If they do not comply with this they may lose some of their unemployment benefits.
The investigation employs an evaluative case study design, with the initial assessment interview being the case. Data was by observation or tape recording of seventeen initial assessment interviews followed by semi-structured interviews with seventeen prospective students, ten assessors and three verifiers. The scope of this study encompassed private and Tertiary and Further Education (TAFE) providers in five locations across two states, Queensland and Victoria. Three different methods were used to analyse the data: a coding analysis (Strauss and Corbin 1990); an ethnographic analysis based on the work of Spradley (1979, 1980); and, for the documents, critical discourse analysis of pertinent documents (Fairclough 1989, 1992a, 1992b, 1995).
The outcomes of the study show the initial assessment interview within the Mutual Obligation programme is driven by performative measures. While it is an increasingly stressful experience for both prospective students and assessors, the interview does not elicit anything more about prospective students' literacy practices, strengths and networks than informal interviews have done in the past. The discourse of Mutual Obligation, with its focus on compliance and accountability, puts pressure on the interview process and is at odds with beliefs expressed by assessors that the assessment interview should be low key and student focused instead of what has now become a high stakes and inevitably partial assessment. Choices for prospective students have been eroded and literacy, as it is conceptualised in the interviews, is a narrow and impoverished concept, having little relevance to the stated goal of the interview which is to enhance jobseekers' employability
