Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

From Adult Education to Learning and Skills

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Seeking Wisdom in Adult Teaching and Learning

  • 388 Accesses

Abstract

The term ‘adult education’ is highly contested, but I shall urge reclamation of its radical potential, and explore ways in which that potential might be differently perceived and articulated, particularly in relation to movements for social and environmental justice. I am not concerned with workplace learning per se; my interest lies in the recent shifts away from the kinds of drivers that characterised adult education as a place where ‘learning for its own sake’ and for social justice were paramount towards its appropriation by the strictures and demands of the marketplace. The chapter concludes with an appeal for a re-visioning of education’s role and purpose, the better to envisage an alternative to the meagre and, ultimately, life-denying diet with which we are currently served.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abbs, P. (1994). The Educational Imperative: A Defence of Socratic and Aesthetic Learning. London/Washington, DC: The Falmer Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, K. (2006). The Great Transformation. London: Atlantic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, P., Miller, N., & Zukas, M. (Eds.). (1997). Crossing Borders Breaking Boundaries—Research in the Education of Adults. Proceedings of the 27th Annual SCUTREA Conference. London: Birkbeck College, University of London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnold, M. (1869/1971). Culture and Anarchy. An Essay in Political and Social Criticism. Indianapolis/New York: The Boobs-Merrill Company, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ball, S. J. (2003). The Teacher’s Soul and the Terrors of Performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ball, S. J. (2007). Education plc. Understanding Private Sector Participation in Public Sector Education. London/New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group).

    Google Scholar 

  • Barr, J. (1999). Liberating Knowledge. Research, Feminism and Adult Education. Leicester: NIACE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Z. (2012). On Education. Conversations with Riccardo Mazzeo. Cambridge/Malden: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good Education in an Age of Measurement: Ethics, Politics, Democracy. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biesta, G. J. J. (2011). Learning Democracy in School and Society. Education, Lifelong Learning, and the Politics of Citizenship. Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bron, A., Kurantowicz, E., Olesen, H. S., & West, L. (Eds.). (2005). ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Worlds of Adult Learning. Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Dolnośląskiej Szkoly Wyzszej edukacji TWP re Wroclawiu.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. 1: The Cognitive Domaine. London: Longmans, Green and Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crowther, J., Edwards, V., Galloway, V., Shaw, M., & Tett, L. (Eds.). (2008). Whither Adult Education in the Learning Paradigm? SCUTREA Conference Proceedings. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Rathunde, K. (1990). The Psychology of Wisdom: An Evolutionary Interpretation. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.) (1990, 2003), op.cit. (pp. 25–51).

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, I., Murphy, P., & Piette, B., (Eds.). (2003). Speaking in Tongues: Languages of Lifelong Learning. Proceedings of the 33rd annual conference of SCUTREA: Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults. Bangor: University of Wales.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis-Floyd, R., & Arvidson, P. (1997). Intuition: The Inside Story. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Sousa Santos, B. (2007). Beyond Abyssal Thinking. From Global Lines to Ecologies of Knowledges. http://www.eurozine.com/artciles/2007-06-29-santos-en.html. Accessed 24 Oct 2011.

  • Dennis, N., & Halsey, A. H. (1988). English Ethical Socialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dirkx, J. (2001). The Power of Feeling: Emotion, Imagination, and the Construction of Meaning in Adult Learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 89, 63–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Ecclesiastes, Book of

  • Edmondson, R. (2005). Wisdom in Later Life: Ethnographic Approaches. Ageing and Society, 25, 339–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, R. (1997). Changing Places. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Elster, J. (Ed.). (1998). Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Field, J. (2000). Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Field, J. (2003). Researching Lifelong Learning: Trends and Prospects in the English-Speaking World. http://www.ioe.stir.ac.uk/staff/docs/field-researchinglifelong.pdf. Accessed 3 June 2011

  • Fieldhouse, R. (1996). A History of Modern British Adult Education. Leicester: NIACE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, W. (1995b). Learning from Experience. Empowerment or Incorporation? Leicester: NIACE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, W. (2009, 2011). In Search of Sophia: Wisdom and Adult Learning. Unpublished Conference Presentations. Canterbury: Canterbury Christ Church University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, W. (2015). ‘Moments of being’ and the search for meaning: epistemological and methodological challenges for the autoethnographic researcher. In H. Reid & L. West (Eds.), op.cit. (pp. 25–36).

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, W., & Hyland-Russell, T. (2009). In Search of Sophia. Wisdom and Knowledge in Researching and Learning Lives: Diversity, Difference and Commonalities. ESREA Life History and Biographical Research Network, Milan 12th to 15th March.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, W., & West, L. (2008). Auto/Biography, Learning and Education: The Critical and Reflexive Imperative. In J. Crowther et al. (Eds.), op.cit. (pp. 216–223).

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, L. (1995). Dons and Workers. Oxford and Adult Education Since 1850. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grace, A. P. (2000). Canadian and US Adult Learning (1945–1970) and the Cultural Politics and Place of Lifelong Learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 19, 141–158.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grayling, A. C. (2003). What Is Good? London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grayling, A. C. (2016, July 8). Referendums, Elections and Democracy. Article published by the New College of the Humanities. http://www.nchlondon.ac.uk . Accessed 15 Sept 2016.

  • Gregor, I. (1971). Introduction to Culture and Anarchy. In M. Arnold op.cit. (pp. xiii–xxxviii).

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J. (2012/2013). The Righteous Mind. Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harari, Y. N. (2016). Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. London: Harvill Secker/Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, G. H., & Kesson, K. R. (2004). Curriculum Wisdom. Educational Decisions in Democratic Societies. New Jersey: Pearson. Merrill Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, S. (2015). A Trip to the Dark Side? A Sociomaterial Analysis of the Spaces of Holocaust Pedagogies at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. PhD thesis, University of the West of Scotland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoggart, R. (1957/1965). The Uses of Literacy. Middlesex/Victoria: Penguin Books in Association with Chatto and Windus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacques, M. (2016, August 21). The Death of Neoliberalism and the Crisis in Western Politics. The Observer.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, K. (2001). Prescriptions for Learning. Leicester: NIACE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knowles, M. S. (1980). The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. Chicago: Follet Pub, Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marquand, D. (2004). Decline of the Public: The Hollowing—Out of Citizenship. Cambridge: Policy Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, I. (2008). Whither Adult Education in the Learning Paradigm? Some Personal Reflections. In Whither Adult Education in the Learning Paradigm? SCUTREA 38th Annual Conference, University of Edinburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mayne, M. (2001). Learning to Dance. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merrill, B., & Armstrong, P. (Eds.). (2010). Looking Back, Looking Forward: Learning, Teaching and Research in Adult Education Past, Present and Future. Proceedings of 40th Annual Conference. The University of Warwick, Coventry, 6–8th July. Brighton: Centre for Continuing Education, University of Sussex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, K. (2016, July). Pedagogy and Place: What Can a Place Responsive Approach Contribute to Pedagogical Practice in Higher Education? In N. James (Ed.), Adult Education in Austere Times: SCUTREA Conference Proceedings 2016 (pp. 204–211). Leicester: Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Leicester.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nixon, J. (2015, February 25). Hannah Arendt: Thinking Versus Evil. Times Higher Education.

    Google Scholar 

Proverbs, Book of

  • Renold, E., & Ivinson, G. (2014). Horse-Girl Assemblages: Towards a Posthuman Cartography of Girls’ Desire in an Ex-mining Valleys Community. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 35(3), 361–363.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, S. K. (Ed.). (2003). A Ministry of Enthusiasm. Centenary Essays on the Workers’ Educational Association. London/Sterling: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, J. (2001/2002). The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. New Haven/London: Yale Nota Bene, Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Usher, R. (2006). Lyotard’s Performance. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 25, 279–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • West, L. (2010). A Contrasting World: Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, History and Life History in the Study of Adult Learning. In Looking Back, Looking Forward: Learning, Teaching and Research in Adult Education Past, Present and Future. Proceedings of 40th Annual Conference (Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults). University of Warwick.

    Google Scholar 

  • West, L. (2016). Distress in the City. Racism, Fundamentalism and a Democratic Education. London: UCL Institute of Education Press, University College, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • West, L., Miller, N., O’Reilly, D., & Allen, R. (Eds.). (2001). Travellers’ Tales: from Adult Education to Lifelong Learning…and Beyond. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of SCUTREA. London: University of East London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, R. (1958/1989). Culture Is Ordinary. In R. Gable (Ed.), Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (pp. 3–14). London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK

    Wilma Fraser

Authors
  1. Wilma Fraser
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Fraser, W. (2018). From Adult Education to Learning and Skills. In: Seeking Wisdom in Adult Teaching and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56295-1_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56295-1_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-56294-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56295-1

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation