This article concerns the problematic connection between Marxism and Andragogy. The former is generally regarded as an unpopular, discredited and, in some political circles, a dangerously revolutionary political doctrine, mainly of historical interest. The latter is a conventional, contemporary, and pragmatic approach to adult education that…

This article considers how neoliberalism has created a reductionist view of lifelong learning in the UK focused on upskilling workers for the labour market. This critical policy analysis uses Marx's theory of labour-power, as conceptualised by Glenn Rikowski, to examine the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, 2022 and to identify its ideological…

Purpose: Adult student identities within EAL (English as an Additional Language) classrooms have often been positioned as static, homogenised and exoticised within scholarly literature. Within such positioning, teachers have embraced pedagogical practices which classify students by country of origin and represent student identities within binaries…

The article is principally written for adult educators. It models an auto-ethnographic approach situating this within a critical pedagogic orientation. As an adult educator working in the Republic of Ireland, I draw from two instances in my own life that helped me to re-think my racialised identity. By reflecting on discomforts in terms of my own…

Critical theory and transformative learning are two seminal theories that have incited a deluge of literature, fueled many discussions, and triggered much debate. Their relevance is enduring, and they are undeniably a great asset to the scholarship of adult education, but the two theories are far from fully developed or explored. Our purpose in…

Critical pedagogy as an instructional approach to teaching and learning focuses on democracy, freedom, and the opportunity to challenge oppressive power structures founded upon hegemonic ideologies. This article presents a critical pedagogy approach to support the instruction of adult English language learners. Such an approach should adopt the…

World-renowned educational theorist Paulo Freire has a decades-long legacy reaching all corners of the world. In this reception study, we ask, is there a Nordic Freire, that is, have the Nordic educators and scholars recognized Paulo Freire's works in the past decades? Our reception study's purpose is not to go into depth to Freire's thinking but…

In this collaborative autoethnography, three immigrant adult education scholars examine diverse ways in which their experiences with racialization as immigrants in the United States have informed their scholarship and practice. The three authors originate from different parts of the world and use different theoretical frameworks--critical literary…

This handbook offers an expanded discourse on transformative learning by making the turn into new passageways to explore the phenomenon of transformation. It curates diverse discourses, knowledges and practices of transformation, in ways that both includes and departs from the adult learning mainstay of transformative learning and adult education.…

I draw theoretically on the works of critical pedagogues to unpack my instructor experiences developing and teaching critical disability studies (CDS) and Mad studies in university contexts. My intent is to insert CDS and Mad pedagogies into the literature in adult education, where such discourses have been and continue to be absent from critical…

In order to integrate into the host labour market, immigrants are often expected and indeed trained to minimize sociocultural differences. This paper problematizes the deficit/dismissive approach towards difference. It stresses instead that, in the context of globalization and immigration, encounters of difference have afforded a potentially…

Adult education scholarship has been racialized through the lens of Eurocentric theory and research. Theoretical paradigms such as Africentrism struggle to gain academic legitimacy as discourses of transformative learning, critical thinking and self-direction--all grounded in the European Enlightenment tradition of the individual pursuit of…

Contemporary scholarship has provided important research regarding the effectiveness and potential for Hip Hop pedagogy to facilitate liberation among Black American learners in formal learning settings. In contrast, there is little research on rap and Hip Hop as lifelong informal transformational learning as a mode of resistance to oppression and…

Theater processes can powerfully connect mind, body, and emotions, providing opportunities and spaces for transformation. Based in stories from the authors' disparate but complementary practices, they focus here on facilitators' ethical responsibilities when bringing theater activities to processes of critical deconstruction of oppressive…

While the anglophone academic literature has long engaged in analysis of the role of privilege in the work of educators in the Global North, this article represents an initial foray into such analysis in non-formal educational settings in the Global South. Through a cultural-textual document analysis of 12?months of personal journal entries…