Study of the history of adult education is worthwhile, despite perceived problems of studying history---ancient, modern, and postmodern. The ancient problems of historiography can best be summed up in the word "antiquarianism." Characteristics of modernity are as follows: the notion that history is progress, metanarratives, nationalist…

Conventional approaches to program evaluation have followed the experimental and psychometric traditions dominant in educational research. Their aim (unfulfilled) of achieving fully objective methods had led to studies that are artificial and restricted in scope. Illuminative evaluation is introduced as a total re-appraisal of the rationale and…

Nigerian anthropologist John Ogbu examines the academic failure of minority groups within the context of American society and draws comparisons to minority group education in five other cultures. (MKM)

This ethnographic study investigated why so few women become scientists or mathematicians. The study followed the lives of two groups of women, one black and one white, all with strong academic records, who were attending two southern U.S. universities, one predominantly black and the other predominantly white. The study was initiated in 1979 when…