This article explores informal adult education for change in Mexico through the conceptual lens of social movement learning and public pedagogy. It adopts a multiple case design featuring two advocacy networks, two civil society organisations, and two self-help authors. It analyses how they position themselves as change agents addressing issues of…

This article reports an empirical case study of a community self-help group (chama) in Western Kenya, utilising the study circle model promoted by a Swedish non-governmental organisation. Methodologically, it is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and participant observation for data collection. The results show that the study…

In this article, we explore the relationship between adult education and socioeconomic precariousness, through extending existing scholarship regarding the concept of the hidden curriculum. We analyze transcripts of 134 qualitative interviews undertaken to explore the learning experiences associated with reading self-help books in the domains of…

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…

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…

The self-help University of the Third Age (U3A) is an adult education approach for older people in which all the teaching and administration is carried out by unpaid volunteers. The purpose of this study was to reveal some of the successful ageing characteristics of the 205 independent U3As in Australia and the 60 independent U3As in New Zealand…

A study at the University of Alabama/Birmingham (UAB) compared adult asthma patients receiving a self-care workbook with those receiving only asthma pamphlets. Outcomes were assessed in five areas: (1) health care utilization, (2) functional status, (3) knowledge, (4) adherence, and (5) psychological reactions. (Author/CH)

The case study examines the work of a coalition between certain women's groups in India and a nongovernmental charitable trust. The mission of the coalition is to empower Indian women, who generally possess neither land nor power, to care for their livestock. (CH)

Twenty essays are provided from an educational scientific symposium organized within the frame of the Festival for Dutch Culture in Hungary. Titles and authors include "Environmental Movement and Environmental Information" J. C. Th. Alles); "Principal Educational and Self-Educational Problems of Independent Activity and Autonomy in…

The study circle concept, now almost a century old, is by far the most popular form of adult education in Sweden. Swedish study circles are sponsored by 10 national educational associations that receive substantial annual subsidies from the national government. Together with 140 folk high schools (residential adult programs), university short…

Evaluation of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program as an antipoverty strategy was undertaken in 1977 by examining activities of paraprofessional Nutrition Education Assistants (NEA's) in the Ozark Foothills area of Missouri to determine how they helped their clientele families become self-sufficient and integrated into the mainstream…

This report is the outcome of the first attempt to research self-help groups (SHGs) systematically on a large enough scale to represent the whole of those in Great Britain. Chapter 1 explains and defines what SHGs are and how they relate, qualitatively and quantitatively, to the universe of all voluntary organizations of which they are a part.…

This working paper lays groundwork for a Network for New Approaches to Lifelong Learning study on informal learning by people displaced from the labor market or chronically unemployed, in the context of community organizations. Section 1 examines the context and two particularly significant features--wider changes in the nature of work and related…

Institutional success of an instructional model that featured peer instruction, a strict performance orientation, and an insistence on mastery of specific skills led developers to believe the same model could be used by communities to disseminate skills and information at low cost and with efficiency. The system was utilized in setting up an…

Education has long been a development priority in Africa. The failure and limitations of formal education have led to the emergence of nonformal alternatives of various types. They include extension education, training programs, multipurpose educational programs (for middle-level professionals), cooperative self-help programs (community…