Change, power and adult learning in an accelerating world
Professor John Field
In recent years the notion of power has taken a back seat in debates about adult learning. Although adult education has long been understood both as a means of promoting emancipation and citizenship on the one hand, and as enabling adaptation to the demands of employers and state on the other, these broad purposes are often discussed in terms that avoid the question of power, or do so in minimal ways. Explicit attention to relations of power and domination are addressed much more rarely. I want to restate the idea of power as a central dimension of our understanding of adult learning and the context in which it functions. Of course, this requires us to consider why it is that power has ceased to be visible in our analyses of adult learning.
But this also poses a tricky question: if our role as researchers demands that we ‘speak truth to power’, what will we actually say? And if we are not speaking truth to power, then what on earth is our research for?
click here for full abstract
Paulo Freire and the Politics of Literacy: The Struggle for a Revolutionary Praxis of Adult Education
Professor Antonia Darder
True to Paulo Freire’s recognition of literacy as a question of consciousness, this presentation seeks to embody and put forth a revolutionary vision of adult education. This discussion encompasses unapologetically a critical view of literacy grounded upon Paulo Freire’s axiom of literacy as a political process of reading the word and the world. Accordingly, it expresses an unwavering faith in the capacity of people to experience and make meaning of their world. It is these values that most must inform our praxis as adult educators, as well as our political ideas of education for liberation. At the very core of the thesis that informs this discussion lies a profound experiential understanding of literacy as a means by which human beings come to reflect and express an understanding of their lives and, through this process, discover the power within themselves and each other to rewrite the world.
click here for full abstract
On the edge of creativity – what’s in it for adult education?
Professor Lene Tanggaard.
The 21st century presents a different set of challenges than earlier and a new work environment for people entering the job market and for adult educators. The rapid changes have emphasized the ability to learn, to adapt, to interact, and to create new opportunities and education is seen as a driver for facilitating the growth of these competences. In this key-note, recent insights from research on creativity will be presented and related to challenges within adult education. Two major questions stand out as vital points of focus in the presentation.
The first major question, to be addressed in the key-note, is if the pressing demands on employees in the late-modern workplace to be more creative and innovative will also effect adult education, and how it will or should be organized The second major question addressed in the key-note is if the focus on experimentation and exploratory learning in creative learning studies can fuel new ideas on how to improve adult education so that more participants learn more and even better? How might adult education draw on insights from this developing field?
click here for full abstract