The concept of identity has become prominent in the study of Canadian education. We further the understanding of identity by examining the ways through which adults present themselves as subjects in learning processes. We recruited 134 adults who had recently read self-help books pertaining to health, careers, or relationships, and conducted…

Objective: To address a critical gap in health education scholarship by exploring the contexts in which self-help reading takes place, the motivations of self-help readers and the processes through which such readers engage with books on mental health. Design: Structured, in-depth interviews conducted with participants recruited through online…

Numerous scholars have documented and critiqued the predominance of neoliberal policies and rationalities shaping adult and continuing education around the world. Contemporary sociologists have argued that neoliberal citizens are characterized by hyperindividuality and a strong sense of personal autonomy. Self-help reading is widely viewed as one…

In recent years, the concept of public pedagogy has increasingly influenced the study of continuing education, drawing attention to ways in which adults access resources from popular culture and learn without the involvement of educational institutions. Reading relationship self-help books has become a prominent component of popular culture. There…

Self-help literature has become an important domain of adult learning in North America. Self-help books offer readers advice on how to take charge of their lives and achieve goals such as prosperity, love, happiness, wellness, and self-actualization. Despite the popularity of self-help books, there has been little research about them from scholars…

Objective: Between September 2002 and February 2003, the authors assessed the effectiveness of a new, age-tailored, self-help smoking-cessation program for college students. Participants: College student smokers (N = 216) from 6 Ontario universities participated. Methods: The researchers used a randomized controlled trial with a 3-month telephone…

Mental health consumer-run organizations are alternatives to mainstream mental health services, and they have the dual focus of supporting members and creating systems change. The existing literature suggests that these organizations have beneficial impacts on social support, community integration, personal empowerment, subjective quality of life,…

The purpose of this article is to report on the system-level findings of a longitudinal study of four mental health consumer-run self-help organizations. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed that staff and members of the four Consumer/Survivor Initiatives (CSIs) participated actively in system-level activities, including community planning,…

To evaluate the impacts of participation in mental health Consumer/Survivor Initiatives (CSIs), we used a nonequivalent control group design to compare new, active participants in CSIs ( n = 61) with nonactive participants ( n = 57) at baseline, 9-month, and 18-month follow-up intervals. The two groups were comparable at baseline on a wide range…

This article examines the outcomes of participation in mental health Consumer/Survivor Initiatives (CSIs) and identifies helpful qualities of CSIs through a longitudinal, qualitative study that involved in-depth interviews of people who experienced severe mental health challenges in Ontario, Canada. We used a nonequivalent control group design in…