This study examines the breakdown of professional and personal communication and relationship through the lens of cultural differences. The case is based on the experience of two female adult educators--an American and a Saudi--working within continuing education at a private women's college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Graduates of the same U.S.…

To develop a perspective that encourages Muslim women to see literacy as meaningful, both women and Islam need to be envisioned differently. Orthodox interpretations of Islam have obscured its most fundamental principle of the equality of all human beings. (SK)

Offers a feminist critique of civil society, especially as it is constituted in cyberspace. Uses the International Kurdish Women's Studies Network to illustrate how cyberspace reproduces the unequal divisions of power existing in "realspace." (SK)

Gender trainers must attend carefully to issues of power and resistance. Construing power as property does little to explain complex relations. A better approach is understanding power as action and resistance as a form of exercised power. (SK)

Transformative research should be (1) ethical--with attention to human rights and social justice; (2) emancipatory--contributing to reduction of oppression; (3) empowering--serving marginalized and disadvantaged groups; and (4) holistic--identifying relationships between parts and the whole, micro and macro contexts, local and global issues. (SK)

Discusses the politics of social science research and locates the development of transformative research within debates about postmodernism. Provides an example of a transformative research project highlighting the relationship between power and knowledge. (SK)

Reviews the interconnection of economic, political, and legal structures and their implications for adult education in a global context. Describes adult education's role in alleviating poverty and powerlessness and spurring social transformation by advocating equitable distribution of resources, equal educational opportunity, and peace. (SK)

Social construction of knowledge by the holders of power traditionally devalues women. Discussion of female identity and role is conducted in terms of male-female power relations. To change social reality, the lives of illiterate and semiliterate women must be transformed. (SK)

Minority women students (n=60) in Canadian universities participated in focus groups and a survey (30 responses) depicting their experiences with university culture, academic advising and mentoring, social life, and academic freedom. Education's role in reducing or eliminating power imbalances was stressed. (SK)

The colonial nature of relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people undermines effective adult education programs. A genuinely participatory mode of program development that enables Aboriginal communities to control their own education is essential. (SK)

The nature of villagers' involvement during community theater programs initiated and implemented by some Malawi nongovernmental organizations was analyzed. Findings indicate that, contrary to the purposes of community theater, the productions were planned and remotely controlled from outside the community. (Contains 22 references.) (JOW)

The issue of women and work is one of domination and traditionally ceded rights. Political, social, and cultural conditions in Latin America enable negotiation of these rights; and growing awareness through education gives the oppressed the tools to stop cooperating in their own oppression. (SK)

Contrasts the purposes and methods of government-sponsored literacy programs in Latin America, which seek to improve the lot of the poor by developing better skills, with those of popular education movements, which attempt to empower people to change social structures. (SK)

This essay explores the intersection of US Empire on HIV/AIDS policies and the politics of "gifting." It does so from an analysis of several key US initiatives: the Project for a New American Century, the US National Security Strategy, and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. History provides numerous examples where US…