BA (Macq) BEc (Syd) Grad Dip Ed (Syd TC) MEd (UTS) PhD (UTS)
Senior Lecturer
Academic area: Centre for Popular Education
Dr Brown is a Senior Lecturer in Organisational Learning, a Research Fellow in the Centre for Popular Education at UTS, and coordinates the Faculty of Education’s postgraduate programs in Learning and Development. He has worked in the field of post-compulsory education for the past twenty-five years combining experience from the field, public administration and the academy. Between 1999 and 2001 he was Executive Director, Adult Learning Australia (ALA) where he was responsible for its management, policy development, and advocacy initiatives. He was responsible for leading a number of national programs including Adult Learners Week, Learning Circles Australia, and the online Directory of Adult Learning (DiAL). He was the editor of the quarterly Adult Learning Australia between 1999-2001 and regularly provided advice to government, national and adult education agencies, and the media. Earlier he was Senior Program Manager and Acting Assistant Director at the NSW Board of Adult and Community Education (BACE) and a Senior Policy Officer in the Skills Development and Workforce Policy Directorate in the NSW Department of Education and Training. At the Centre for Popular Education Tony developed and led a research agenda around Popular Education, Activism & Organising resulting in a series of public forums, Conference strands, the inaugural Community Organising School, and commissioned research projects with three national trade unions. He completed his doctorate in 2002 on Australian trade unions’ role in training reform and restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s, and since then has published widely in the field.
Teaching Areas:
Tony Brown’s teaching interests centre upon the theory and practice of adult education and learning especially as it applies in social movements including trade unions, advocacy and activist organisations. He coordinates the following subjects:
Masters programs
Understanding Adult Education & Training
Work & Learning
Adult Education: History, Policy, Context
Independent Study Project I & 2
Bachelors programs
Adult Education Policy in Context
Research Areas:
Tony’s research is part of the Faculty’s Changing Practices Research Cluster. His interests are in:
* the political economy of adult education and work
* labour and social movement education
* the practice and development of community based adult education
Recent and current projects include:
* developing community leadership activities in the western Sydney area of Mt Druitt and Blacktown, commissioned by the NSW Premiers Department
* working on the inaugural Community Organising School – http://www.cpe.uts.edu.au/courses/CommOS.html
* developing a research agenda around the education activities of the labour movement. This has included researching and evaluating the national education program of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), and researching the informal and formal learning of Lead Organisers in the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU)
* researching the experiences of casual academic staff at a metropolitan university, which has been reported on in ‘Getting the best of you for nothing’: casual voices in the Australian academy co-authored with UTS colleagues Dr James Goodman and Dr Keiko Yasukawa, and commissioned by the National Tertiary Education Union,
* the adaptive adult and community education (ACE) organization, commissioned by the NSW Board of Adult and Community Education (BACE)
Community and Professional Activities:
Professional memberships include: Adult Learning Australia (ALA) and the Industrial Relations Society of NSW. Tony is a Board member of the Sydney Community College, and is the NSW Assistant Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the UTS Branch Vice-President of the NTEU.
