The purpose of this article is to enhance understanding of how Black female working class adult scholars cultivated support and advancement in the academy with the goal of entering the professoriate. In this critical ethnography, the authors elaborate on the concept of empowerment agent to detail how professionals within the academy created…

This literature review demonstrates that many working-class adult-learners continue to face challenges during their quest for new meaning in their lives. Many adults in workplace settings find themselves in environments with very little support. Consequently, adult learners rely on the academic community as their main source of emotional and…

As the economy became the driving force behind education policy in recent decades, postsecondary education planners and policymakers turned their attention to older adults. In Tennessee, the state launched its "Drive to 55" campaign to increase the number of residents earning postsecondary degrees. Along with these changes came the call…

The Program for Adult College Education (PACE) at the University of Missouri at Kansas City offers a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree. PACE faculty believe in writing as a learning tool. One course in the program is "Culture of the Working Class," which uses a variety of sources to examine how working people have lived from the turn of…

Examined the gendered experiences of 18 working-class participants in higher education through the analysis of interviews related to schooling, later learning, students' views of higher education, and attitudes toward being working class. Findings emphasize the construction of masculine and feminine identities and the mediating effects of gender…