Changes in higher education (HE) in Sweden, from elite to mass education, with an increased number of students and institutions, has raised questions about the role of HE in society. Relating to conflicts between discourses of employability, democracy, traditional academic norms and experiences of non-traditional students, the aim of this article…

In this paper I explore the relationships between lifelong learning and emancipation. On the one hand I raise critical questions about the idea of lifelong learning, particularly highlighting the tendency to turn social and political problems into learning problems and thus into issues that need to be resolved by individuals and their learning,…

This article will explore lifelong learning and community participation for older women. In doing so, it will draw on empirical work undertaken with the National Federation of Women's Institutes in England and Wales in the UK; and the Sydney Older Women's Network in Australia. The article will briefly outline something of the policies and…

In critical and feminist educational circles there has been a lively debate between those who call for more emphasis on contextualisation and concrete practices and those who defend a more generalised view of critical pedagogy. The unceasing march of corporate globalisation and neoliberalism make it absolutely urgent that educators and organisers…

This article has three primary goals centring on a re-examination of the research frameworks we use for understanding the politics of social movements. First, I detail the ideological and methodological deficiencies of the old social movement/new social movement framework. Second, I highlight the positive contributions of research that favoured or…

The article is based on activist research working in an anti-deportation social movement, and on sixteen interviews with both experienced and less experienced activists between 2009 and 2011. The anti deportation social movement made up of a range of organisations, is identified as a left social movement situated in an historic producer…

Uses postmodern and poststructuralist theory to critique ideologies of emancipation and the push for university/business partnerships. Argues for a shift from transmission of a body of knowledge to an interrogation of how knowledge is transmitted. (SK)

Guy Henson, first director of the Adult Education Division for Nova Scotia (1946-56), was instrumental in forming a regional library system. His focus on adult education for a revitalized postwar democracy involved citizen education and increasing political awareness. (SK)

Continuing education has traditionally defined its purpose within the socialist context in Europe. This ethic is being challenged in a postmodern era. New definitions of radical social purpose are needed to reassert the values of equity and social justice in adult continuing education. (SK)

Neoconservative marketplace rhetoric commodifies knowledge, learning, and culture for economic ends. The liberal-humanist tradition of adult and higher education is threatened by the consumerist mentality. (SK)

A three-year series of interviews with Canadian university extension staff (n=35) found that advocacy is all but extinct because of the "entrepreneurial" values of the university and the professionalization of adult education. As social justice values increase in importance, extension educators should resume an advocacy role. (SK)

Adult continuing education's response to European unemployment is characterized as a move from marginality to expansion (1980-85) and from expansion to encapsualization or institutionalization (1985-91). The rapidly changing context may mark the future as a search for collective action. (SK)

Explicates the concept of praxis in Marx's dialectical analysis of capitalism and relates it to radical education: issues of access to educational opportunities, the challenge to the status quo through curriculum change, the role of the intellectual, and the relationship between knowledge and action. (SK)

Examines the role of education, access to it, lack of participation, and education as a means of social control and culture transmission. Argues that work and leisure are interdependent and explores implications for adult education curriculum. (SK)

Argues that economic restructuring is a myth that masks capitalist reorganization. Demonstrates how adult education is implicated in the processes of capitalist domination and reorganization. (SK)