Community workers are often described as unsung heroes who work for, with and alongside others in order to make qualitative differences to the communities they serve. This paper reports on the story of a community-based arts educator, Morgan Jai-Morincome, winner of the ACT Adult Learners Week Award for an outstanding program in 2007. This…

The Utah Master Naturalist Program trains citizens who provide education, outreach, and service to promote citizen stewardship of natural resources within their communities. In 2007-2008, the Watersheds module of the program was evaluated for program success, and participant knowledge was assessed. Assessment and evaluation results indicated that…

This article suggests that thinking about the nature of intimacy, especially sexual intimacy, is a good way of deepening our understanding of how deep-seated psychic vulnerabilities play an important role in adult education contexts. Drawing on psychoanalytic accounts of human development, the paper outlines how the capacity for ethical action in…

Health and health care in Canada is a story of high ideals, complex policy agreements, moments of raging public controversy, and the creation of a national health system that is the envy of many other nations. Despite its many health care achievements, evidence is mounting that good health is far from being universally accessible to all Canadians.…

Policy makers at the state and national level would like local school boards to be active participants in creating schools where all students have high-quality learning opportunities. While numerous groups endeavor to make schools a better place for kids, adult leaders rarely seek input on how to do this from their most important stakeholders and…

The Baha'i Faith, which was founded in 1863, holds as its purpose the awakening of humanity to invisible possibilities, providing humankind with conscious direction and hope vis-a-vis the challenges and perplexities of time (Rosen, 2010). The Baha'i writings explain that spiritual forces are the foundation of reality and that the Word of God is…

This dissertation explores the notion of participatory community mapping (PCM) for Indigenous knowledge production. Three major questions were posed in the study. First, how can PCM foster Indigenous knowledge production and documentation? Second, how can PCM be used to include local voice and input in mapping projects, and third, how can adult…

It's true that adults learn differently than children. They have real-life experiences, strong preferences, time constraints, competing priorities, and varied objectives. But, they also share some similarities. Training the adults who work directly with children is the best way to make a positive impact on the children. In this article, the…

In recent years adult educators have been working to develop an important body of literature on neo-liberalism, capitalism, and imperialism. Many of these analyses draw on various strands of Marxist theorizing. With the exception of Jane Thompson's work as an early socialist feminist, a Marxist-Feminist framework has yet to be articulated for…

The integration policies in some Northern European countries display relatively poor outcomes of passed exam rates for immigrant language training, and several groups of immigrants have very low employment rates. These measures, in many countries, are strong incentives for host-country language acquisition in addition to the obligation to document…

Malcolm S. Knowles stands as a giant catalyst at the juncture--past, present, and future--of andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn) within the field of Adult Education and Human Resource Development. For more than 50 years until his death in 1997, Malcolm devoted his personal and professional life to exemplifying the theory and…

This paper explores a "critical incident" in relation to a Further Education Funding Council inspection during 1995. The FEFC's short lived and under-researched "project" is discussed against the background of the Major Government's "Back-to-Basics" policy. The FEFC, through its inspection regime and the ways in which…

Environmental groups seek to educate and change people, yet there is little discussion and debate about the various theories and practices they use. One has only to think about the big, national environment groups like Australian Conservation Foundation, Wilderness Society, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and World Wildlife Foundation to note…

The potential of practitioner-led action research (PLAR) to contribute to professional development in adult literacies work is considered from two perspectives. First, a recent initiative in Scotland is examined to illustrate PLAR implemented as professional development. The structural factors needing to be addressed for PLAR to contribute to…

The purpose of this article is to analyze interpersonal problems among adult learners in three family literacy programs and to identify how these tensions were connected to place or distinctive community contexts. Drawing on the critical geography literature, the article argues that interpersonal problems must be understood in light of…