Educators and Activists: Educating for Life Through Work in Work Integration Enterprises

Abstract

This paper explores the right to education
for people living in contexts of vulnera-
bility. The approach adopted is similar
and yet different to that of Escudero’s:
first, we targeted adults instead of young
people, many of them with a record of
school failure and all of whom had gone
through harsh life circumstances, close to
marginalization or exclusion. Second, we
approached educational practice out of
school, within the context of production,
focusing upon intentional and informal
learning in work integration enterprises.
Third, we took the view of educators, not
teachers, life and job coaches working in
work integration companies whose role
was to educate and promote their staff
as well as contributing to the company’s
production.
We drew upon three cases whose infor-
mation was gathered and analyzed quali-
tatively. We described them and discussed
their pedagogical role, how they planned
the itineraries and managed the process,
which competencies and knowledge
they focused upon and, finally, and hen-
ce the title of the article, to what extent
they understood their job as a life com-
mitment which could be their educational approach, without forgetting their working
conditions and the precariousness of cu-
rrent labour markets.