Disciplinary pressures within academia often produce specialised and one-sided accounts of complex social processes. Convincing accounts of popular education regularly acknowledge the importance of social movements but without theorising them adequately -- and vice versa. This one-sidedness is compounded by a widespread tendency to generalise from…

This article looks at how social movements in francophone Belgium shaped the institutional contours of adult education 'from below'. It focuses on the integral role played by progressive social movements in the creation of a regional state-based system of adult education in 1976, known as the "Service de l'Éducation Permanente" (SdEP).…

The article begins with the broad context of youth and adult education (YAE) in Colombia, and then discusses the place that educational demands occupy in the political plans of popular feminisms. The article ends with an analysis of the experiences of two community projects, which address YAE for women from the perspective of gender, feminisms,…

When the Australian Association of Adult Education (AAAE) was established in 1960, Australia was locked into a global conflict between capitalism and communism, known as the Cold War. With anticommunism at fever pitch, AAAE's founders who were fighting to retain some influence with Australian universities and with government funding authorities…

Popular education has a long history in Sweden, dating back to the mid-1800s and having developed in close relationship with the state. This relationship has been sustained over the years by the way popular education is spoken of as being "unique"--as being complementary to formal education. In this article, we focus on how the…

This article presents the results of a descriptive case study of the Union School of the Chilean nongovernmental organization (NGO) Alejandro Lipschutz Institute of Science (ICAL-Spanish acronym). The study contributes to the field of adult education by providing a contemporary example of what Gramscian pedagogy can look like. Theoretically, this…

This special issue of the Australian Journal of Adult Learning is a great opportunity to bridge two areas of scholarship that are in close proximity to one another, but have generally failed to establish systematic dialogues and exchanges. These domains, of course, are comprised of educational scholarship devoted to the study of 'adult' and…

This case study explored a pedagogical reinvention and extension of Paulo Freire's popular education approach. To do so, the author drew on interview data with program participants and reflections of his own experiences as one of two adult educators in a yearlong Fellowship program for high school graduates. Relationships, relevance, revolution,…

Using a framework of care to design experiences in formal or informal learning does two things. It acknowledges intentions of reflective learning through open communication and meets expectations of scholars seeking knowledge within a learning community. This proposed framework was developed from programs involving popular education, community…

In this article, we direct our focus on some of the recent activities undertaken by popular education institutions in Sweden in relation to the refugee challenge in 2015. The aim is to analyse how these popular education activities are shaped as specific communities of practice, through the ways they are described by those who organised these, and…

Non-formal, non-vocational adult education (NFNVAE) is a low-cost, low-threshold learning activity that generates many benefits for individuals and society, and it should play a more central role in educational policy. NFNVAE's challenge is that it lacks clear concepts and definitions and is, therefore, less systematically covered in statistics,…

Adult education in art galleries sits on a fault line, at once an apparatus upholding the affirmative aspects of museum culture cultivated by global elites, a propellant in the whirring of an increasingly dislocated set of events on trendy and consumable political themes, and a site for 'allyship' and other kinds of radical and socially…

Discourses on adult learning and education (ALE) and in particular the GRALE Report generally have limited coverage of popular education as part of its ecology. Given both the long history of popular education globally as a necessary approach towards affecting transformation and the socio-economic-ecological transformations that are needed, we…

Previous studies have documented the personal transformation that many low literate adults undergo when they engage in literacy campaigns. In particular, research has captured how improved literacy leads to a greater willingness and capacity to speak out, or what is often referred to as voice. This paper focusses on the impact of an adult…

An interdisciplinary liberal arts program can prompt innovative ideas and self-discovery when fired in a kiln of social and economic justice fueled by high-impact practices. Developing learning communities, internships, group projects, local-to-global learning, community-based service learning, and capstone projects can enhance education and…