Critical events in Leonard Matlovich's life depict a reluctant activist for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/gender diverse, and queer+ (LGBTQ+) equality. He served in the US military and subsequently came to personify the broad social challenges to the military's homophobic culture and recruitment practices. Matlovich's experience of a series…

In 2020, more than 560,617 female marriage migrants (FMMs) live in Taiwan. For over three decades, they have been victims of social, gender, and cultural discrimination and have been considered as an inferior group of "desirable others" from "undeveloped countries." Until today, literature about FMMs has focused on the problems…

Implicit bias classes have become a common practice with the aim of creating more inclusive work and learning environments. Such classes are aimed at helping individuals identify unconscious habits of mind and behaviors around race, which can be a disorienting experience. By seeing such classes through the lens of transformative learning theory,…

Like other workplaces, bullying occurs in academia. Additionally, women report more frequent and severe forms of bullying than men. The purpose of this qualitative study was to unearth women academics' learning because of being bullied. We discuss the learning context and explore the learning that occurred. Understanding these factors can augment…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the super-vision of dissertations, from the perspective of the supervisor and two supervisees who did dissertations that had an evocative autoethnographic component. We argue that autoethnography in context of scholarly writing encourages both an inner looking, and an outward looking that results in a…

This paper reflects on Freire's discourse on liberating education and adult educators' educational roles with community groups in transforming communities. Mineral-rich communities in Ghana are in danger of losing water bodies, rich arable lands, and forest vegetation cover through "galamsey," which refers to the gathering of rich…

Community college classrooms afford students from a variety of backgrounds the possibility to engage and inform one another with respect to their unique perspectives and life experiences. Unfortunately, in many of these situations, students find themselves self-critical, and their internal comparisons with others may impede the potential of a…

This article will examine specific films that portray events or phenomena of adult learning and development, and how adult learning and development can be explored by studying the lives of the fictional characters in film. It will demonstrate how the use of contemporary film by adult educators and adult learners can enhance insights about people,…

This study explored the use of critical reflection blogs to integrate civic-mindedness into an executive education program at a large public university in the south Atlantic region of the United States. Although there is a robust literature on the use of blogs for critical reflection in degree programs, far less attention has been given to…

Dr. Dorothy, "Dot," Ettling was a contemplative practitioner, a spiritual leader, a scholar, and a mentor. She had the phenomenal ability to see the talents of others and enlist their aid in serving marginalized people, whether women walking miles for water in Africa or local mothers needing shelter and job skills. This learning leader…

Traci L. Hodges is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program at the University of Missouri St. Louis. Her research interests are comparative adult education, African American adult education, and critical education. Having witnessed freedom protests in Madrid, Spain, and Ferguson, Missouri, she shares her…

Transformational learning, narrative learning, and spiritual learning frame adult experiences in new and exciting ways. These types of learning can involve a simple transformation of belief or opinion or a radical transformation involving one's total perspective; learning may occur abruptly or incrementally. Education should liberate students from…

The difficult times in which we live require innovative, creative, and hopeful pedagogies of adult education. This article describes a nontraditional experiential, "empathy-invoking" approach to the teaching of a graduate course on the theory and research of adult learning. The approach begins with the building of a safe learning…

An understanding of learning theories can help adult educators become more effective practitioners and meet the needs of the learners they serve. Adult educators who understand how individuals learn can be better prepared to use effective strategies during the learning process. This article addresses the use of concept maps as a strategy to engage…

The purpose of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for mentoring as an added component of a learning organization in the context of adult learning and development theories. Mentoring is traditionally a process in which an experienced person (the mentor) guides another person (the mentee or protégé) in the development of her or his…