The limits of learning: homelessness and educating the employable self

Across national contexts, in the attempt to develop and buttress ‘knowledge economies’, increasing pressure is placed on the need for flexible lifelong learners capable of constant knowledge and skills renewal. In this paper, I explore the impact of this broader sociopolitical context on the policy approach to poverty and, in particular, homelessness in Australia. Examining the ways in which education and learning for adults are increasingly at the centre of public policies, I trace the uses of education and learning in homelessness policy. Contextualising this within a consideration of recent shift towards a ‘skills agenda’ in the adult education sector, I argue that the purported power of education in homelessness policy must be understood in light of structural inequalities in the labour market and in the society more broadly.