The Politics of Adult Education

Abstract

This chapter reviews a broad range of literature relevant to this study and explores three knowledge domains of education. The chapter commences by outlining scholarly approaches to popular education, radical adult education and transformative learning, and explores the foundations of these epistemologies and their contribution to the literature on education, activism, and social change. The chapter goes on to examine the knowledge domain of social learning, which includes literature on “informal learning,” “workplace learning,” and “communities of practice.” The next domain of knowledge is embodiment and learning, which explores mind, body, and emotions in the development of knowledge and considers the role that identity plays in “learning to become an activist.” The review concludes with a summary of the major propositions outlined in the literature.