Empowering learners and using powerful techniques are prominent elements in the discourse of adult and vocational education. But what constitutes the elements of what might be considered as powerful teaching? This paper begins by examining the way educators talk about power and then proposes four elements that lie at the heart of powerful…

Adult education scholarship has been racialized through the lens of Eurocentric theory and research. Theoretical paradigms such as Africentrism struggle to gain academic legitimacy as discourses of transformative learning, critical thinking and self-direction--all grounded in the European Enlightenment tradition of the individual pursuit of…

Critical theory is one of the most influential theoretical frameworks influencing scholarship within the field of adult and community education. This chapter outlines what constitute the chief elements of critical theory using Horkheimer's (1937/1995) classic essay as a touchstone for this analysis. It argues for a set of adult learning tasks that…

The U.S. government's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that in any given year, 14.8 million American adults (about 6.7 percent of the adult population) suffer from clinical depression or major depressive disorder, as it is sometimes called (NIMH, n.d.). In Canada, a recent study projected the estimate of sufferers much higher…

W. E. B. Du Bois, one of the brightest lights in African American history, wrote a sparkling critique of the American social and economic system originally planned as part of the Bronze Booklets series, edited and published by Alain Locke and the Associates in Negro Folk Education. The piece was never published and has, until now, been lost to the…

Nelson Mandela's autobiography "The Long Walk to Freedom" describes how an iconic political activist and freedom fighter reflected on, and sometimes modified, four core assumptions at the heart of his struggle to overturn the White supremacist, minority hegemony and create a free South Africa. Critical reflection's focus is on…

Discussion has long held an honored place in the pantheon of lionized adult education practices. One of the most frequently venerated aspects of discussion is opening up conversation to include the widest possible diversity of perspectives and intellectual traditions. This democratic attempt to be open and inclusive is held to represent what is…

This paper attempts to assess the extent to which Eduard Lindeman has created the framework of discourse and analysis predominant in adult education. Six contributions to the development of conceptual frameworks, philosophical imperatives, and substantive foci are identified. (Author/SSH)

Critical reflection illuminates power dynamics and assumptions underlying experience. Adult educators can model critical reflection by viewing what they do through four lenses: their autobiographies as adult learners, their students' viewpoint, their colleagues' viewpoint, and the lens of theory. (Contains 34 references.) (SK)

Describes how educators cam reawaken the awareness of the emotionally intense experience of being evaluated. Shows how they can check whether they are giving educative, helpful evaluations to learners. (JOW)

Summarizes the major findings of Allen Tough's adult education monographs and outlines some of the criticisms of his works. Discusses Tough's theories concerning self-teaching, learning projects and major learning efforts, and the planners of learning. (CT)

Examines two theoretical frameworks: (1) second-generation critical theory, in which African-Americans reframe criticality as awareness of the struggle against racism; and (2) Africentrism, which reconceptualizes criticality as an alternative discourse. Explores their compatibility, their challenge to the concept of criticality in adult education,…

Five themes emerged from critical reflection in journals, conversations, autobiographies of 311 adult educators: impostorship (unworthiness to participate in critical thought), cultural suicide (risk of exclusion), lost innocence (from certainty to multiplistic reasoning), roadrunning (incremental struggles with new modes of thought), and…

Finding that British researchers are believed to use qualitative methods while North Americans favor quantitative measurement in adult education enquiry, the author examines substantive research concerns and research publication in the United States, Britain, and Canada and concludes that there is some validity to the stereotype. (Availability:…

Although Herbert Marcuse did not write as an adult educator, his analysis of subjectivity, criticality, and inclusivity has implications for adult education. He demonstrated how apparently humanistic tolerance for diversity can be manipulated to reinforce dominant ideology, and he made a case for aesthetic education as a site for critical…