The quality of student learning and achievement in public schools has become a matter of public discourse and policy, thus led to the establishment of charter school concept. However, there are controversial reports on the academic performances of charter schools, inadequate information on their instructional practices, and the learning…

Too often, educators, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of adult education and human resource development rely on traditional curricular materials and an academic body of knowledge for teaching, evaluating, and training adults. This assumes a coherent body of prior knowledge, assumptions, worldviews, and experiences in their students…

Examining media artifacts as a learning method has received little attention in human resource development (HRD) despite it being a predominate form of information and influence in popular culture. As Giroux (2002) opines, media functions as a form of public pedagogy by offering situations and contexts through which viewers can vicariously…

This paper dives into the messy work of writing (our) sexualities into our qualitative research. We suggest that even though queering research methods opens up new ways of conducting research and sharing a queer identity with research participants there are some limitations to both notions. One such limitation is that queer identities and…

This study explored the perceptions of Mexican senior government agency officials with regard to the impact of NAFTA on training and development practices in Mexico. This study was conducted using a phenomenological tradition within qualitative research. The major findings of the study indicate that Mexican senior government agency officials…

Scotland has a strong learner-centred system of adult literacy and numeracy education. Examination of the Scottish system can usefully highlight the issues associated with application of this approach in adult education more generally. Two important aspects are the need for highly skilled educators and the difficulty of evaluating such systems.…

In a bid to curb violence incurred via the abuse of teacher authority, some educators appear to denounce all forms of imposition. The author of this paper refers to this aversion to imposition and the romantic practices it promotes as "educational niceness". This essay is written to furnish a theoretical justification for educational imposition.…

Changes in the career landscape require commensurate revisions in career development (CD) to ensure it meets the needs of both employees and employers in this era of multidimensional career paths. Drawing on a model from the past, we propose building a strong career culture based on the relational approach to CD. Implementing a relational strategy…

In this article Ian Broinowski explores creative and interesting ways to incorporate text messaging (SMS) into his teaching practices. Using a computer he is able to send messages related to classroom activities and share ideas and resources with students. He also examines some of the protocols associated with the use of mobile phones and draws…

Human resource development (HRD) as a scholarly endeavor and as a practice is often criticized in the adult education (AE) literature and by AE scholars as manipulative and oppressive and, through training and other interventions, controlling workers for strictly economic ends (Baptiste, 2001; Cunningham, 2004; Schied, 2001; Welton, 1995). The…

Building on the framework of Peters and Armstrong's (1998) three Types of Teaching/Learning, this article explores the use of dialogue to foster a collaborative and democratic learning experience. There are three conditions under which dialogue can be facilitated as a part of the collaborative learning experience: (a) intent, (b) a dialogical…