Welcome to the publications page of our website.  Please find details and links below to a selection of  book publications from staff in the Department of Adult and Community Education.  A more extensive list and range of publications from department staff can be found at 'our people' page at: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/adult-and-community-education/our-people
 
This also includes books from MACE press, MACE (Maynooth Adult and Community Education) which is the department's publication house which specialises in Radical Research Practice & Theory in Adult and Community Education and books are available through the university shop https://shop.maynoothuniversity.ie/index.php?app=ecom&ns=catshow&ref=105 or on individual links below.
 

Cover view Title and Description
Critical Perspectives in Further Education and Training 
Camilla Fitzsimons and Jerry O'Neill (editors) 2024 , Anthem Press

This book is essential reading for educators, student teachers, policymakers, and anyone with an interest in critical viewpoints on adult, community, and further education. It offers a variety of outlooks that include educator identity, critical pedagogy, assessing learning, community education, global citizenship education, professional precarity, and more.

 

Repealed - Ireland's Unfinished Fight for Reproductive Rights (2021)

Camilla Fitzsimons (2021), Pluto Press. 

A celebration and analysis of a 35-year long grassroots movement that successfully overturned the ban on abortion in Ireland.

 
Doing Critical and Creative Research in Adult Education.(2020)
Case Studies in Methodology and Theory

Grummell, B. and Finnegan, F. (Eds.). (2020), Brill | Sense.

 
 This book brings together both leading and emerging scholars in adult education research in order to capture the vitality and complexity of contemporary adult education research.

  Power and Possibility: Adult Education in a Diverse and Complex World (2019)

Finnegan, F. and B. Grummell (Eds.). (2019)Brill | Sense

 
This book explores the topic of power and possibility theoretically, historically and practically through a range of perspectives and in relation to varied areas of interest within contemporary adult education. 

Funding, Power and Community Development. (2019)

McCrea and Finnegan, F. (Eds). (2019), Policy Press

International contributions from activists, practitioners and academics consider the evolution of funding in community development and how changes in policy and practice can be understood in relation to the politics of neoliberalism and contemporary efforts to build global democracy from the ‘bottom up’. 

European Perspectives on Transformation Theory (2019)

Fleming, T., Kokkos, A., and Finnegan, F. (Eds.). (2019), Palgrave Macmillan

This book offers a concise and comprehensive exploration of the theory of transformative learning by European researchers. Exploring Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning as a ‘living theory’, the editors and contributors ask whether there a uniquely European perspective on this theory that reflects Europe’s traditions and contexts. 

 
Reflexivity and Critical Pedagogy (2018)

Ryan, A., & Walsh, T. (Eds.). (2018), Brill | Sense
Foreword by Peter Mayo

Reflexivity and Critical Pedagogy highlights the essential nature of reflexivity in creating sites for transformative possibilities in education. The book argues that seemingly intractable epistemological inequalities are embedded within educational structures and processes.

DACE_Fitzsimons_Community_Education_and_Neoliberalism
Community Education and Neoliberalism Philosophies, Practices and Policies in Ireland (2017)

Author: Camilla Fitzsimons. (2017). Palgrave Macmillan 

This book explores community education in Ireland and argues that neoliberalism has had a profound effect on community education. Rather than retain its foundational characteristics of collective, equality-led principles and practices, community education has lost much of its independence and has been reshaped into spaces characterised by labour-market activation, vocationalisation and marketisation. These changes have often, though not always, run contrary to the wishes of those involved in community education creating enormous tensions for practitioners, course providers and participants.
 

Access and Non-Traditional Students in Higher Education (2017)

Finnegan, F., Loxley, A. and T. Fleming (Eds). (2017), Palgrave Macmillan

This book explores the access and participation issues present within Higher Education in Ireland. It examines policy, pedagogy and practices in relation to widening participation and documents the progress and challenges encountered in furthering the ‘access agenda’ over the past two decades.

 
Writing your thesis - A guide for postgraduate students 2015)

Editors: Anne Ryan and Tony Walsh. (2015), MACE Press

Writing a thesis can appear very daunting particularly if you’ve been away from formal learning for many years.
This book is specifically designed for students returning to learning at postgraduate level in the arts and social sciences. It demystifies thesis construction and explains how to research and write a thesis.

Further Education and Training: History, Politics, Practice (2014)
Editors:  Michael Murray, Bernie Grummell, Anne Ryan. (2014), MACE Press

This book provides an easily accessible overview of the history, politics and practices that inform the evolution and current provision of Further Education and Training (FET) in Ireland. The book is very clearly and unequivocally located within a Freirean ‘practice of freedom’ perspective that encourages a radical FET agenda; an agenda that favours education to promote global citizenship and sustainable communities based on human rights, equality and social justice.
 

Building a Better Future (2012)

Contributions by the Irish Defence Forces
Editors: Anne Ryan and Tony Walsh. (2012), MACE Press

 

 
New Managerialism in Education: Commercialization, Carelessness and Genderew Managerialism in Education (2012)

Lynch, K., Grummell, B., and D. Devine. (2012), Palgrave Macmillan

This book examines the impact of neo-liberal reform on the traditional caring ethos of public services such as education, exploring how these reforms influence the appointment and experiences of senior management in education.
 

 

 
Radical Learning for Liberation 2 (2007)

Editors:  Bríd Connolly, Ted Fleming, David McCormack, and Anne Ryan. (2007), MACE Press

 
Unsettling the horses: Interrogating adult education perspectives (2004)

Editors: Anne Ryan and Tony Walsh. (2004), MACE Press