Mahatma Gandhi is famously known as the "Father of the Indian Nation." People closely associated with him also lovingly call him "Bapu," which means father. His contribution to the Indian freedom movement has been immense and noteworthy. His educational views were transformative and provided the first blueprint on which modern…

Positive priming encourages adult immigrant students to become more involved in their learning activities and increases their chances of success in their host society. The use of priming effects in teaching adult immigrants, however, is not sufficiently explored in the educational literature. This article therefore fills this gap by presenting a…

Mahatma Gandhi famously said that serving others without expecting anything in return is the most meaningful approach to find one's own self. As I volunteered as an ELI (English Language Instruction) teaching assistant and learned more about the distinctive culture of the non-profit interfaith and refugee center community, this remark struck a…

This article breaks new ground in exploring servant leadership with two practitioners, a Montessori team leader and a physics professor. Looking at their reflections through the eyes of adult education, all three authors ascertained that the two practitioners were natural servant-leaders. As they considered what servant leadership meant for their…

Three doctoral students, Chih-Wei, Patrice, and Sarah, at varying levels in the doctoral programs, share reflections and experiences from the 2019 Adult Education Research Conference (AERC) in Buffalo, NY. These experiences are both individual and collective. While our individual experiences vary, we value AERC as a community of practice for…

Originally from Japan, Dr. Mitsunori Misawa is a professor of the Higher and Adult Education program in the Department of Leadership at the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, at the University of Memphis in the United States. This paper introduces what led Dr. Misawa to study and work in the United States, how he came to pursue an…

Scholar, mentor, and humanist, Patricia Cranton touched the lives of numerous scholars and students, and leaves a formidable legacy to the field of education. Her passing in early 2016 left a significant gap in many lives and an important legacy in the adult education literature. This article provides an account of Patricia Cranton's influential…

Susan Imel is retired from Ohio State University. From December 1981 until December 2003, she was the Adult Education Specialist at the ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education and Director from 1987 through 2003. This essay begins with a brief overview of the ERIC system including goals for the clearinghouses, followed by a…

After 20 years I was back in school faced with an assignment to research an adult education scholar, leader, or practitioner. After a quick review of the list we were provided I was drawn to Dr. Johnson-Bailey as the focus of my paper primarily because our lives paralleled in so many ways. She was on staff at my Alma Mater, The University of…

Social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter have become integrated into sociocultural practices for millions of people around the world, and are having an enduring impact on the field of adult education. As essentially free, virtually non-hierarchical tools that facilitate user-generated knowledge, these online spaces may be powerful…

This paper provides a resource on the impact of social media on adult learners' construction of knowledge, particularly as it pertains to adult education's role in fostering a robust democratic society. There has been an increase in the literature in recent years that explores the various aspects of social media use, such as the incivility of…

An ecomap is a social work data collection tool that is used to gather data about a participant's environment. Derived from Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory, the ecomap can be used in adult education and human resource development to record information of in-and-out-of-work and learning experiences and show how these interactions support…

A debate that has engaged the attention of educators and scores of intellectuals is the longstanding issue of pedagogy versus andragogy. The nature of the debate, given the interdisciplinary theoretical assumptions that underpin the issue, has had a polarizing effect on these scholars; as a result, there has been the emergence of competing…

The one constant for all dissertations, and for all research for that matter, is the need to state the problem of the study based on the scholarly literature. Doctoral programs commonly require that students take a sequence of research courses that usually focus on how to carry-out a study. That is, the design, the methodology, and the…

The implementation of e-learning as a strategy has risen exponentially over the last 20 years as more adults use this medium to enhance their skills and acquire knowledge. The utilization of technology offers significant advantages to both learners and organizations in terms of cost, time and rich learning content. E-learning has been widely…