Adult Education at the Crossroads: Learning our way out (Global Perspectives on Adult Education and Training) - Softcover

Finger, Matthias; Asun, Jose Manuel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1856497518 ISBN 13: 9781856497510

Publisher: Zed Books, 2001

Synopsis

This assessment the state of adult education--its traditions, current problems, and possible futures--is written from a social action perspective. The authors demonstrate how adult education's commitment to deliver social change ran into difficulties in the 1980s and 1990s. The book identifies four possible scenarios for the future and on this basis defines the challenges confronting an adult education still committed to social change. The authors outline the key features of an adult education that can contribute to "learning our way out of" the dead end of relentless industrial development, mounting inequality, mass immiseration, and alienation.

About this title

About the Author:

Matthias Finger teaches at the Graduate Institute of Public Administration, Lausanne.

Jose Manuel Asun teaches at the University of Barcelona.

Review:

'Education for adulthood finally comes of age at the hands of Finger and Asun. A brilliantly incisive critique of adult education's fall from grace and an inspiring practical plan for its re-enchantment. They return adult educators to their original moral taks and agenda of democratic political action, collective creativity and critical social change. These are uncompromising scholars who refuse to let adult education compromise itself.' John Broughton, Columbia University 'In Learning Our Way Out, Finger and Asun cogently analyze the important role that adult education has to play in building a sustainable human community, which is increasingly threatened by turbocapitalism, the decay of politics, postmodernism, and the ecological crisis. Their call to link learning with issues of power and organization needs to be on the agenda of all adult educators.' Ron Cervero, University of Georgia 'Finger and Asun bring a critical and multi-disciplinary eye to the challenge of deepening our theory at a time of globalization.' Budd L. Hall, Vice-President of the International Council for Adult Education 'This book captured my interest, not because I agree entirely with Finger and Asun's analysis, but because I appreciate the breadth and direction of their writing. They propose a social learning and structural change theory that challenges the hegemony of psychological explanations while navigating between rationality and postmodern standpoints.It is more than a text; it is a must read for any serious adult educator.' Phyllis Cunningham, Northern Illinois University

About this edition

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1856497518
• ISBN 13: 9781856497510
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224