Leona English

St. Francis Xavier University · Department of Adult Education

This chapter focuses on the role of Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals in achieving the Agenda 2030. The text is supported by an analysis of existing literature on the SDGs, adult education, and migration. The authors point to the major critical world issues such as migration as calling for more robust adult education systems that can supp...

Lessons learned during the COVID‐19 pandemic, through trial and error and sharing stories of successes and failures, have resulted in progress in the quest to resume what we refer to as normal or regular college life for students, faculty, and staff. However, it is doubtful that we will ever get back to the exact same situation that we were in prio...

This article examines the experience of six participants in the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network (BTS) delegation program. Human rights education is central to this program that operates between Canada and Guatemala. Key findings from this research include participants’ rethinking of their own power and privilege upon returning to C...

Covid-19 poses a number of challenges to LLL. It has turned the day-to-day world of education on its head. Education alternatives offer certain educators a relatively safe adjustment to the changed scenario in stark contrast to other people for whom the current situation presents a choice: exposure or starvation. Precarious educators, including aca...

This chapter focuses on the work of one of Lifelong Education’s major proponents, former Head of UNESCO’s LLE Unit in Paris. The chapter authors provide consists primarily of an analytic review of Gelpi’s last work in Italian, published before his death in 2002. Gelpi takes a comparative approach to education and engages with education and work in...

This chapter views LLL from a gendered and intersectional perspective. It argues that configurations of social inequalities occur and take form within intersecting oppressions. Social issues have to be understood in terms of the way social actors are situated in specific historical and present power relations. The chapter also argues that because o...

Paulo Freire’s name is often referenced in debates around LLE and LLL. The chapter tackles this question: should Paulo Freire’s name and concepts be pulled into the current discourse on LLL in Europe as promoted by the EU? This chapter answers “No”, if the version of LLL is the hegemonic one reflecting the reductionist, economy-oriented discourse f...

This chapter traces the concept’s trajectory from an expansive notion as promoted by UNESCO, to the adoption of the term Lifelong Education, to its transmutation in the hands of the OECD and the EU, among others, to the reductive notion of Lifelong Learning where the primary emphasis is on personal rather than social responsibility and the main pre...

This chapter introduces the topic of Lifelong Learning/Education giving prominence to people and movements who advocated education and learning as a lifelong process. It is argued that although the concept of Lifelong Learning seems a harmless concept, this cannot be further from the truth. It has been twisted in such a way that it reduces learning...

The twenty-first century has seen massive migration of peoples escaping the degradation of the environment, effects of war, threats to security, and lack of opportunity in their countries of origin. Those who survive, some coming to terms with the trauma of losing loved ones along the way, enter as migrants, refugees, and temporary workers. This pa...

This chapter focuses on the LLL policy discourse in Malta, one of the EU’s smallest and newest member states. While creating a National LLL Strategy document, meant to spearhead educational reform, the Maltese case shows how the state bore in mind the Lisbon objectives, yet held fast to a broader understanding of education, one that appeals to the...

This book examines lifelong learning from different angles and follows the trajectory beginning with the expansive notion of lifelong education promoted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and its subsequent version intended to better suit the neoliberal framework and make EU countries more competitive...

This article discusses teaching and learning approaches that illustrate “groundtruthing,” a practice that brings us close to where people are living, working and being, as a way to promote transformational change.

This essay is a reflection of our five-year jouney at co-editors of Adult Education Quarterly. We identify some of our accomplishments and challenges, as well as critique some of our editing practices and role as editors. We also discuss our goal to strengthen AEQ’s position as a premier international research journal in adult education and learnin...

The 21st century, not yet two decades old, has already seen massive migration of peoples escaping the degradation of the environment, effects of war, threats to security and lack of opportunity in their countries of origin. Those who survive, some having to come to terms with the trauma of losing loved ones along the way, enter host countries as mi...

In contemporary times, undergraduate adult education programs have to respond to changing student profiles and needs, institutional requirements, marketplace and workplace demands, and emerging technologies. Students in these programs tend to be non-traditional learners who are usually older and employed. They come with an array of prior learning e...

This chapter proposes a spiritually relevant and social justice pedagogy that assists learners in making the transition to the workplace. Key elements of this spirituality include religion, cultural diversity, identity, health, and social class. Pedagogical strategies for infusing this spirituality in the curriculum are given.

This chapter develops the practice and theory of adult health learning, a unique and critical approach to informal learning about health in the community. The author takes the position that a collective analysis of power, ideology, and resistance is important to addressing inequities in health, and that the adult educator has a strategic role in fa...

The Activist Mothers of Xalapa is a group of women in the state of Veracruz, Mexico who provide support for each other in a political struggle with a patriarchal and corrupt government that has allowed their children to be taken from them in custody hearings where false charges are often trumped up against them (Facio, 2013b). This movement draws u...

A key area of work for feminists, both inside and outside of organizations, is to build broad-based support for women’s health, often with the help of multiple partners and with a vision of health that transcends clinics and doctors. And, at times, this support has to be built in visible and provocative ways. When Theresa Spence, chief of the Attaw...

In 1977, 14 women met to form the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to find out what had happened to their children who were disappearing in government raids and abductions during Argentina’s Dirty War. The women started marching peacefully in front of the presidential palace to draw attention to the disappeared and to demand the government answer for i...

Collaborative research has the potential to support the work of feminist social and political activism, providing an opportunity for grassroots organizations to come together and to gather the evidence they need to advocate for change. Networks of women’s organizations in Africa, for instance, demonstrate this documentation and mobilizing potential...

Of all the factors that affect women’s lives internationally, religious fundamentalism is one of the most serious in that it has implications for women’s well-being and health and for the population at large. Given the influence that religions, especially fundamentalist factions, have in the fabric of societies worldwide, it is important to examine...

Learning about women’s oppression and the path towards social justice leads to new ways of understanding the issues, as well as new ways of understanding and enacting the learning process itself. Feminist pedagogy draws strength from its engagement with feminism and vice versa.

The Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists provides a new model of leadership for African women. Rather than promote the single, independent, charismatic leader, it proposes in this Charter to promote collective leadership that inspires hope, builds on group strengths, and which works counter to patriarchy.

The Red Thread Women’s Development Organization was formed in Guyana in the mid-1980s by seven activists in response to the country’s political situation. Nurturing women to become politically engaged was, in their minds, a way to oppose factionalism and repression. Initially, the group of women worked in the community, providing basic education to...

The Raging Grannies defy all stereotypes of older women. Organized globally through local chapters, their members are feminists in “granny-like” costumes who sing protest songs about peace and environmental justice. Seemingly harmless “old women,” they create parodies of traditional songs and sing them in public at rallies and protests. Their chron...

The mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian revolution garnered global media attention. The stories that received less attention were the incidents of harassment and abuse endured by women participants. To draw attention to the violence women faced then, and on an ongoing basis, one young woman, Nihal Saad Zaghloul, began co...

Adult educator Darlene Clover (2006a, 2007a) brought to international attention an arts in education project that took place at a family services centre on Vancouver Island, Canada. Called Sexual Exploitation Has No Borders, it became a communal quilting project for women who were victims of abuse and social workers who worked with them.

This chapter critically examines financial literacy education, asking what its assumptions are and what adult educators need to ask of its curriculum, its bases, and the people being taught to be financially literate.

Research into continuing professional education (CPE) has been a constant for many professionals, including those pastors and clergy who work in religious organizations. Continuing education for lay ministers (non-ordained) in churches, however, generally has not been given this close scrutiny or attention. This article reports on research conducte...

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is a term that refers to a variety of technologies that facilitate communications and information sharing. Most often they are computer-mediated forms such as the Internet, including email and the World Wide Web (popularly called the net or web).

This article uses the lens of critical discourse analysis to examine the religious education efforts of the Newfoundland School Society (NSS), the main provider of religious education in Newfoundland in the 19th century. Although its focus was initially this colony, the NSS quickly broadened its reach to the whole British empire, making it one of t...

This article reports on interpretive research, influenced by a feminist theoretical framework, with 8 women, in their 20s to 60s, who work or volunteer in feminist nonprofit organizations. Particular emphasis is placed on their experience of transformative learning in these organizations; the linkages with the theory of transformative learning; the...

This paper focuses on the relationship between adult education and the State within the context of hegemonic globalization and the all pervasive neoliberal ideology. It draws from a variety of sources and provides an overview of discussions concerning the State giving pride of place to the Historical Materialist tradition in the area. Using a Grams...

This comprehensive introduction to the study and practice of health and adult education provides the missing link for those seeking to better integrate their efforts in these two areas. Bringing together a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners, the book speaks clearly to how teaching and learning insights can be used t...

Museums are not often included in the list of sites of adult education, though on close examination they do indeed serve a strong non-formal education function (Chadwick & Stannett, 1995, 2000; Taylor & Neill, 2008; Taylor & McKinley Par- rish, 2010). In this chapter, we will regard the museum as a site of cultural politics and public pedagogy and...

Adult educators and their work are contextualised within the nation states of the world, with many adult educators operating across national boundaries and focusing on issues that concern discussions of the nation state such as identity, politics, policy and mobility. Yet, the term "the state" is one of the most slippery concepts in social and poli...

Change and reform of the political and social order have often been key priorities for a number of adult educators, though certainly not all of them. Indeed, we often come across people who frequently see their role in the academy and in the community as educating and learning for change, or what many would associate, albeit romantically at times,...

Adult education is a broad and diversified field that can take on different forms. For instance, some forms of adult education are identical to “adult schooling.” Other forms are guided by a vision diametrically opposed to that espoused by traditional formal learning institutions. This latter vision has given rise to forms of adult education, often...

The discourse that highlights a "commercially and market-oriented" type of competences (Gadotti, 2008, p. 43), often measured through a positivist approach and according to outcomes, is among the most widespread in education, including adult education, today. It partly reflects a broader discourse that promotes entrepreneur- ship, competitiveness a...

Adult educators who are dedicated to their profession wonder a great deal about how to teach and how best to engage learners. In fact, good teachers generally critically reflect on their teaching and are constantly trying to implement new ideas and practices to improve their work. One of the areas that many are concerned about is whether men and wo...

Racism is a social practice and attitude that takes different forms in different contexts. It refers to the distrust, fear and stereotyping of alterity (the Other). It can also refer to the self perception that one’s own race is superior to others for equally dubious reasons. Race and racism are important because: Race plays a huge role in determin...

Many adult educators have roots in community development, both as an area of practice and as a research site for investigations into participation, citizen engagement, and adult education. As educators, they tend to see the intersection of community development with lifelong learning as pivotal to the regeneration and creation of "civil society," c...

Lifelong learning is arguably the most widespread term used throughout the entire discourse centring on education and training today. It seems to be the main concept for educational policy making in many parts of the world, not least Europe (Field, 2010), and particularly the European Union, and we will suggest throughout the chapter that there is...

As the foregoing chapters have made apparent, adult education is an amorphous field, comprising different traditions and different understandings of who is involved and what its purposes are. Definitions are bound to be exclusive, often deliberately so. We have seen how some types of adult education take the form of "adult schooling" and simply pro...

When residents of industrial and rural Cape Breton noticed that their cancer rates were higher than the national average, and that they were going to far too many funerals, they sat up straight and took action. They began organising in groups to address the immediate issue and to think about all the factors in their environment, beyond their genes,...

In this chapter, the theory of post-structuralism is introduced to help students and researchers think about how these theories might contribute to more fluid notions of subject, identity, power and discourse within adult education. Our focus here is on de-coding a complex set of ideas and relating them directly to the choices adult educators make...

When an impetuous student told Dr. Johnson, "I don't understand you," he replied, "Sir, I have found you an argument but I am not obliged to find you an understanding" (Boswell, 1952/1784). And so it goes with the environment and adult education. That we have a problem was established by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 and it is up to us to f...

Much has been written about the effect of neo-liberalism on university life and the changes it has brought about in this sector, rendering “competitivity,” “entrepreneurship” and “marketability” important key mantras (Bowl, 2010; Giroux & Searls Giroux, 2004). One area which has particularly been affected in this regard and which receives limited a...

It is virtually impossible to speak about adult education and not refer to the world of work. For some, adult education is synonymous with learning for work, though we take the position in this chapter that adult education is much broader in scope and mandate. Those of a critical bent consider adult education as encompassing learning about, for, du...

Citizenship is a contested terrain, very much linked to configurations of power, and often, as in the case of progressive literature, associated with contributions made by individuals and groups/movements to the democratic public sphere. This entails an engagement in the ongoing struggle to safeguard public spaces from the onslaught of privatisatio...

Along with post-structuralism, which was detailed in Chapter 5, post-colonialism has emerged as yet another hermeneutical lens with which to understand our practice and context. Helpfully, there is a burgeoning literature focusing on post- colonialism, much of it in its first years deriving from the study of literary texts. Other areas of enquiry e...

One area of adult education which has grown in importance over the last quarter of a century is that concerning the education of older adults. For this purpose, we follow the US Department of Labour definition as referring to the post-55 years, although, as always and with most aspects of life, there is no precise numerical cut off point here. The...

A colleague and one of us exchanges knowing glances when a student declares an interest in spirituality. It makes us a little uneasy although we are both church attached and appreciative of spirituality: We wonder what we will have to deal with? Is there an altar call or, worse yet, a smudging ceremony in the works? At issue for us, and we imagine...

This qualitative study examines the impact of “founders' syndrome” in ten feminist nonprofit organizations, giving attention to the ways in which original members and organizers (founders) retain control and set the agenda of these organizations beyond their official terms of office. In these community-based organizations, founders' syndrome provid...

Feminist nonprofit organizations are sites of informal and nonformal learning where citizens learn advocacy, literacy, and the practices of social democracy. With the growing use of information and communication technologies in the nonprofit sector, there are questions as to how well organizations are able to make use of this technology to further...

Although lifelong learning has become a catchphrase for government bureaucrats and policy makers in Canada and elsewhere (see Boshier 1998), their funding priorities continue to be restricted to institutions of higher education and ad hoc literacy programmes. The informal learning sphere has been both underfunded and neglected, despite the fact tha...

Using critically reflexive practice, the author offers an approach to interreligious dialogue that assumes a first step that precedes the meeting with persons of different faiths. This approach asks that religious education begin with a critical examination of current programs and practices in Religious Education (e.g., RCIA, lay ministry education...

This chapter arises from the authors' research interests in gender and adult learning in the community, with a special focus on how gender is enacted in communities of practice such as nonprofit women's organizations. These organizations play a key role in adult learning-nonformally through workshops and programs and informally through mentoring, c...

This chapter discusses four distinctive features of community development in Canada: focus on learning, use of media and the arts, international initiatives, and feminist leanings.

The authors speak broadly to how the preceding chapters contribute to a description of the Canadian mosaic of adult education. They point also to further reading, as well as remaining questions about the uniqueness of our nation's field.

This article reviews the literature on women and learning and how it has been applied in theological education settings. The author presents three practical cases studies, analyzing their use of pedagogical practices such as circles, voice, and subjectivity. The analysis, which is grounded in the poststructural theory of Foucault, points to dimensi...

This article develops a model of transformative peace education that incorporates dimensions of justice and transformation, as well as insights from existing models of transformative learning. The authors begin with a discussion of the literature then move to a description of three different models (University of Peace, Costa Rica; Pearson Peace Ce...

Using a critical discourse analysis, informed by poststructuralist theory, we explore the research phenomenon of coerced partnership. This lens allows us to pay attention to the social relations of power operating in knowledge generation processes, especially as they affect feminist researchers in adult education. We propose an alternative vision o...

This article provides a feminist poststructural analysis of the authors' academic labor during a State of the Field Literature Review of Gender and Adult Learning for a government-funded educational body. Drawing on Foucault and feminist theorists, the authors pay particular attention to how power seeps down through the system to our bodies in our...

The author takes an autobiographical look at her practice as an adult educator who is concerned with spirituality. She begins with a discussion of three sources of inspiration for the spiritual life. The first case is the leaders of the Antigonish Movement, who were inspired by the Gospel to work at a local level to improve the lives of fishers and...

We explore our academic labour on a State of the Field Review on Gender and Adult Learning for a government funded educational body. Using poststructuralism as our theoretical background, and a critically reflexive framework as our method, we examine the research process. This paper begins in our experience of creating a commissioned state of the f...

This chapter examines the myth of “women's learning” and suggests how to develop a teaching practice that is authentic, open to difference, and attentive to power.

A training project in a northern Canadian community provided an opportunity to examine participatory planning approaches and the meaning of work in First Nations communities. Focus groups conducted three years after the unsuccessful intervention of a community economic development (CED) project suggest that complex factors such as lack of support f...

This article reports on research with eight board members and eight directors of 10 feminist, nonprofit organizations. A Foucauldian poststructuralist reading of the data gives voice to undertheorized aspects of learning in feminist organizations and makes visible the power relationships. It explores women’s learned practices of resistance and offe...

This essay provides an analysis of the theme of power in the text of the mystic Mechtild of Magdeburg (1207?-1282), The Flowing Light of the Godhead (FLD). The author examines how this mediaeval woman learned to be an adroit shaper of power in her own life; how she understood the effects of corrupt clergy who persecuted her; how she directly faced...

A content analysis of the journal Religious Education: An Interfaith Journal of Spirituality, Growth and Transformation was conducted for a 10-year period between 1993–2002 (Volume 88, 1–Volume 97, 4). A total of 325 articles (277 authors) were analyzed into 3 primary research directions (theoretical, qualitative, and quantitative). Author institut...

The article explores the relationships of feminist organisers with government policy makers and within their own organisations. Based on a qualitative study of eight directors and eight board members of grassroots feminist organisations, this paper examines how the funder (State) and the women (executive directors and board members) interact and ex...

This article addresses twin purposes of adult education: education for social change and education for spiritual growth. In reviewing the historical roots for both purposes, as well as emergent contemporary interests, the author makes the case that renewed attention is being, and ought to be, given to these purposes both by academics and by practit...

This article addresses twin purposes of adult education: education for social change and education for spiritual growth. In reviewing the historical roots for both purposes, as well as emergent contemporary interests, the author makes the case that renewed attention is being, and ought to be, given to these purposes both by academics and by practit...

A comparison is made of the contents and contributors to the British Journal of Religious Education (UK) and Religious Education (North America). A content analysis of each journal was conducted for a 10-year period between 1992–2002. A total of 20 volumes were analyzed, with attention given to types of research published, composition of review boa...

This is a policy paper in which the author specifically addresses the transitional phase of the REA-APRRE merger. Based on a content analysis of the research directions of the journal Religious Education (English, D'Souza, and Chartrand 2003a6. English , L. M. , D'Souza , M. and Chartrand , L. A 10-year retrospective of the Religious Education J...

This article builds on qualitative research with 13 women (9 from Canada and 4 from Asia and Africa) doing international adult education in the Global South. The author examines the cases in light of the postcolonial literature of Bhabha, Spivak, and Khan, giving special attention to their theory of third space. The 13 participants are third-space...