Australian Journal of Adult Learning - Volume 56 - Number 1 - April 2016 - Opening the learning process - the potential role of feature film in teaching employment relations

Oct 15, 2026

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George Lafferty’s paper investigates how feature films may support more open, inclusive and participatory learning in the field of employment relations. Using evaluations from a single postgraduate course conducted annually across 2009 to 2013, the study tracks how students’ initial perspectives on key employment relations topics evolved through seminar participation, debates and case analysis. The analysis highlights pluralism, expanded participation opportunities, and deeper, multidimensional learning stimulated by fictional film situations and associated identification and empathy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Film and learning in employment relations

Course design and student cohort context

Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 56, Number 1, April 2016 Opening the learning process: the potential role of feature film in teaching employment relations George Lafferty Western Sydney University This paper explores the potential offeature film to encourage more inclusive, participatory and open learning in the area of employment relations. Evaluations of student responses in a single postgraduate course over a five-year period revealed how feature film could encourage participatory learning processes in which students reexamined their initial perspectives on a series of employment relations topics and debates. Over time, the course became increasingly characterised by a pluralism in which all participants became more open to a range of different views, including those of students from diverse political, cultural and religious backgrounds. Of particular note was how the fictional situations depicted in feature films could expand the opportunities for participation and more complex, multidimensional approaches to learning. Following on from a discussion of how more open learning processes require a reconfigured conceptual framework, the paper concludes with some open-ended questions on the use offilm in learning processes. Opening the learning process: the potential role of feature film in teaching employment relations 9 Keywords: Feature film, employment relations, openness, learning process. Introduction The use of film in teaching and learning has attracted considerable attention for many years, across a wide and growing range of topics and subject areas – for example, medical sociology (Pescosolido, 1990), race relations (Loewen, 1991), ethnographic methods (Leblanc, 1998), sociology and social policy (Kennedy, Senses and Ayan 2011), politics (Chang and Cryer, 2009) and health education (Persson and Persson, 2008). This paper investigates the ways in which film, specifically feature film, might assist in achieving more open, inclusive and participatory learning processes in employment relations, which includes the sociology of work, industrial relations and human resource management. In doing so, it necessarily leads on to the potential roles of film,(to which TV and online audio-visual material could reasonably be added) in developing more complex intellectual and emotional responses that are irreducible to ‘knowledge’. The paper assesses the contributions of film to student learning in a single postgraduate course on strategic employment relations, taught over a ten-week period annually, between 2009 and 2013. The course had been re-designed to open up and evaluate different perspectiveson employment relations issues, particularly through participation in seminar discussions, debates and case study analysis. The composition of each student cohort (between fifteen and thirty students) over the period was diverse, with a range of disciplinary backgrounds (encompassing arts, social sciences, business and law), nationalities (twenty countries represented overall), ages (a median of 32-36), with slightly more female than male students in each cohort (a ratio of approximately 55:45). The highest qualification for the great majority of students was a Bachelor’s degree. Almost all the international students (around 40 per cent of each cohort) had no or very little work experience, while most of the local (Sydney) students had considerable work experience, with a sizeable sprinkling of middle managers. Popular culture, including feature film, can play an important role in 10 George Laffery how adult learners view themselves in relation to the world, providing informal learning experiences against which they can reposition themselves, reassessing their own views (Armstrong, 2008; Hall, 2001; Guy, 2007; Jarvis, 1999; Malcolm, Hodkinson and Colley, 2003; Tisdelland Thompson, 2007). Similarly, within the formal learning process, the situations depicted in feature films can enable students to draw o

FAQs

What is the main focus of the paper?

The paper examines how feature films could encourage more inclusive, participatory and open learning processes in employment relations.

How was the course evaluated in the study?

The author used evaluations of student responses from a single postgraduate course over a five-year period, incorporating seminar discussions, debates and case study analysis.

What learning effects does the paper associate with feature films?

Feature films are linked to deeper participation, expanded opportunities for engagement, and multidimensional learning through fictional situations that prompt identification and empathy.

Oct 15, 2026

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