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Critical Theorist Carlos Alberto Torres offers a political sociology of adult learning and education, based on Critical Social Theory and the always inspiring work of Paulo Freire. Empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated, this new book follows the footsteps of his classic book published in the early nineties The Politics of Nonformal Education in Latin America. Torres book offers comparative and international sociological analyses of adult learning and education, an area in which there is an obsession with ‘practice’ and an aversion to theory, with some notable and laudable exceptions, but which has the potential to provide avenues for social justice education in ways that no other systems and policies can. This book revitalizes social theory in education, and provides ample evidence of the power of adult learning and education, examining a variety of policy documents connected with the various adult education congresses promoted by the UNESCO, which are thoroughly scrutinized for what they bring to or omit from the policy agenda. In the context of new developments in adult learning and education, particularly the impact of multiple globalizations, neoliberalism, and the new role of international organizations in reconceptualizing lifelong learning, new evidence-based research, new narratives, and the vibrancy of social movements striving for a new and possible world, it is clear that new theoretical designs were needed making this is a must-read book.
This book discusses the current state of the art in research on the education and learning of adults, and how such research has been transformed through contemporary policy and research practices. Gathering contributions from leading experts in the field, the book draws on previous research, as well as new findings in order to provide a map of this research field and its contemporary history. The chapters address a number of questions, including: What constitutes this research field? What theories and methodologies dominate within the field? What “invisible colleges” are active in shaping this academic field, in marking out its contours and in transforming its contemporary battle zones? Who is publishing in the field and who is deemed worth citing? What is the relationship between the shift in state policy on adult education and the research that is conducted on the education and learning of adults? How has the research field changed over time in various western countries? What do these meta-reflections of the field tell us about possible future research endeavours? Rather than speaking from within the field, this is a book about the research field. The diversity of the chapters provide a fascinating resource for anyone interested in research on the education and learning of adults.
This book re-imagines the essence and role of adult education at both the individual and societal levels. It provides arguments for understanding adult education as a process of agency and empowerment, which has not only instrumental but intrinsic and transformative roles to play. This book brings together ideas from the capability approach with insights from recognition theory; the embeddedness approach; the political economic perspective for understanding public and private goods and the common goods perspective. The analysis draws on data from large-scale international studies – alongside qualitative data - and adopts a wide-ranging European comparative perspective. The book develops original instruments for measuring different dimensions of adult education as a common good, and its realisation in different social contexts. It is aimed at academics, students, practitioners, and policy makers interested in adult and/or higher education and the social justice perspective to human life.
Leaders in the Sociology of Education: Intellectual Self-Portraits contains eighteen self-portraits written by some of the leading sociologists of education in the world. Representing the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong, the authors discuss a variety of factors that have affected their lifetime of scholarship, including their childhoods, their education and mentors, the state of the field during their “coming of age,” the institutions where they have worked, the major sociologists during their lifetimes, the political and economic conditions during their lifetimes, and the social and political movements during their lifetimes. These autobiographical essays reveal a great deal not only about their work and their influences, but also about themselves. Taken as a whole, the book provides sociology of knowledge about the creation of sociology of education research since the 1960s. It reveals a number of important themes central to all of the authors’ work, including educational inequality; the influence of the classical sociological theorists, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim; and the influence of more recent classical sociologists of education, Basil Bernstein, Pierre Bourdieu and James Coleman. The authors’ research represents a variety of theoretical and methodological orientations including functionalism, conflict and critical theory, interactionist theory and feminist theory, as well as quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods research. Finally, the editors discuss a number of lessons to be learned from the lives and works of these sociologists of education.
This book focuses at the margins of adult education, work and civil society. Rather than focusing on active participants and active participation, the objective is to scrutinize the whole adult population in terms of participation, and to pay special attention to those who are so easily left out of studies concerning adult education, learning at work or active participation in civil society. The aim of the book is to bring into the discussion the views of those who do not find attending adult education possible and who thus form a challenge for the promotion of active citizenship. In the collection of articles researchers from various disciplines and with cross-disciplinary interests in adult education and marginalisation meet and discuss with each other within and beyond their own disciplines.
This book presents and advocates for a framework of competing epistemologies and conceptions of ethics as a way of understanding modernist lifelong learning. These epistemologies are grounded in a recognition of the normative nature of knowledge that informs lifelong learning; each being framed by a different account of the sort of knowledge that is most valued and therefore foregrounded in lifelong learning policy, provision and engagement informed by the epistemology. Each epistemology is also characterised by its constituent conception of ethics. Four such epistemologies and conceptions of ethics are here recognised as having been important in the lifelong learning movement to date: disciplinary, developmental, emancipatory, and design. The authors argue that assumptions about knowledge and moral positions constitute a powerful but not well-understood feature of such arguments: awareness of these assumptions and positions could serve to powerfully advance the overall understanding of what is at stake in lifelong learning and adult education at all levels.
Beyond the undergraduate and graduate levels, education has traditionally ceased when students enter the workforce as professionals in their respective fields. However, recent trends in education have found that adult students beyond the traditional university age often benefit greatly from returning to further their education. Adult and Continuing Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications investigates some of the most promising trends in furthering education and professional development in a variety of settings and industries. With an extensive array of chapters on topics ranging from non-traditional students to online and distance education for adult learners, this multi-volume reference book will provide students, educators, and industry professionals with the tools necessary to make the most of their return to the classroom.
The worldwide appearance and expression of adult education and lifelong learning have changed significantly during the past 20 years. This book explores recent changes in their related national and international policies, how they intersect with developments in higher education and how they may contribute to debates on citizenship and democracy.
The book represents several contributions that guide the readers in the comprehension of the paradigmatic shift from adult/lifelong education, to adult/lifelong learning. At the same time it presents the contexts where adults learn: the organized contexts, such as the institutions and services, and the informal contexts. The book is one of a series dedicated to adult learning and education developed under the auspices of ESRALE (European Studies and Research in Adult Learning and Education) an EU supported project. Its companion books are Maria Slowey (ed.) Comparative Adult Education and Learning. Authors and Texts and Vanna Boffo, Paolo Federighi, Ekkehard Nuissl, Empirical Research Methodology in Adult Learning and Education. Authors and Texts.
Global Networks, Local Actions: Rethinking adult education policy in the 21st century examines public policy developments in adult education, exploring the policy framing of adult education practice in a range of socio-cultural contexts, and contributing to the development of policy research from global and comparative perspectives. Drawing from multidisciplinary fields such as adult education, comparative and international education, and sociology, chapters analyse empirically grounded studies from the US, Italy, Argentina and Brazil. Each study helps to identify how political agents interact at international, regional, national and local scales, and what the implications are for publically-funded interventions in adult education. While this book recognises the complexity of adult education policy, it argues for the need to deconstruct the false belief that what is global in adult education may be intrinsically distinct from the characteristics of geographical or social territories in which adult education occurs. Instead, it points to localised norms and ideas on Adult Basic and Secondary Education as ultimately contained in, and constituting, what is at times perceived as global, or abstracted from definite geographical or social territories. This book calls for a global sociology of adult education in response to global challenges, and makes an important contribution to our understanding of developments in public adult education policy. As such, it will be of key interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of adult education, comparative and international education, education policy and politics, sociology of education, and global studies.