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Project Plan Abstracts
Group 1 (1998-2000)
Project Titles
- A case study examining the extent to which urban and semi-rural learning centres
are used as support systems for distance education learners, Irene Chadibe, South Africa - Incarcerated women and the construction of the self, Carolyn Clark, U.S.A.
- The adult participation component in a formal education program in secondary lyceums in Chile: The case of the Montegrande project, Javier Corvalan, Chile
- Learning and context: Connections in continuing professional education, Barbara Daley, U.S.A.
- Researching adult education policy in the context of an emerging global political economy: The case of South Africa, Zelda Groener, South Africa
- Tendencies toward the adult educator profession in Latin America: An exploratory, comparative, and participatory study, Juan Madrigal, Mexico
- Adult education and the "New Work Order": An examination of learning and the management of knowledge in the workplace , Fred Schied, U.S.A.
- Welfare reform, work, and literacy: Issues of gender, class, and race, Vanessa Sheared, U.S.A.
- When "accommodation" is resistance: Towards a critical discourse on the politics of adult education, Peggy Sissel, U.S.A.
Irene Chadibe
South Africa
A case study examining the extent to which urban and semi-rural learning centres are used as support systems for distance education learners
The reason for this project emanates from the need to give adults a second chance to education as they have been deprived of formal education by the past South African policies. The problem under investigation is a comparative study to examine the extent to which UNISA centres and community satellite centres are used as support services for UNISA undergraduate learners. The research project aims at testing the different contexts in which distance learners learn, taking into consideration their different needs. A case study of samples of two existing UNISA Provincial Urban Learning Centres and two rural satellite centres will be conducted. The case studies would shed light on the two types of learning centres and satellite centres currently existing and ascertain their effectiveness in the different contexts. Information recorded will be disseminated first, to the distance education institutions, learning centres and satellite centres staff involved, in a form of a research report with recommendations for improvement. The findings and the recommendation coming out of the study will broadly assist Adult and Distance Education providers in South Africa to plan and improve resources and access for learners.
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Carolyn Clark
U.S.A.
Incarcerated women and the construction of the self
The focus of this study is on the process of identity development among women who are at the margins of society. It began with incarcerated women. Working with 24 inmates within the Texas prison system, I conducted extensive life-history interviews, then met with the group weekly for a year to develop together an educational process focusing on personal growth and development. Most of these women grew up in poverty, were raised in dysfunctional and often violent families, were exposed to illegal drugs and to crime at an early age, and have learned to live with limited resources of all kinds, including the power to change the social and material conditions of their lives. Most have less than a high school education. The majority are African American or Hispanic. I completed this phase of data collection in August of 1998. This year I am doing an in-depth analysis of those narratives, and I am collecting life histories of other marginalized women, particularly rural women and the working poor. I am situating the study within the current literature on women's development, as well as the theoretical literature on women's subjectivity. I am using a narrative model of development as my framework. In working with these marginalized women, my overall focus is on how they have constructed their sense of themselves (an issue of identity development) and how that construction can undergo revision and expansion (an issue of learning). I am particularly interested in theorizing this transformational process in terms of narrative, in contrast to Mezirow's largely cognitive model.
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Javier Corvalan
Chile
The adult participation component in a formal education program in secondary lyceums in Chile: The case of the Montegrande project
Since 1990, Chile has been carrying out a formal educational reform. Although the main objective of the reform is to improve the quality of the formal school experience, this reform process has also created a series of innovative educational experiences for adults. The research question this project proposes to answer is how are the planning and practice of adult education endeavors conducted and what interpretations and effects has such an emphasis on adult education process had on the Chilean people? The investigation will focus on three programs of the educational reform 1) 900 Schools Program, 2) Exception Lyceum Program or Montegrande, and 3) the MECE-Rural Program. My working hypothesis is that through the training of adults that influence or work directly in the educational system, it is possible to have an impact on the quality of education for children. This project is about the study of the discourse, interpretation, use and effects of adult education endeavors. This project intends to study the issue of participation in adult education. This theme has been recurrent in the history of adult education training and what is intended here is to find out how it plays out in reality and its medium- and long-term effects. Participation is an inseparable aspect of adult education. Hence, it is important to generate knowledge about its interpretation, use, and effects.
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Barbara Daley
U.S.A.
Learning and context: Connections in continuing professional education
The value of continuing professional education (CPE) and its application has been studied from a variety of perspectives. However, many studies have tended to isolate and analyze the individual learner, rather than evaluating that learner within a particular context. The missing element in understanding CPE is a comprehensive, holistic assessment of the interrelationships between the learner, the knowledge generated within the educational program, the components of professional practice that generate new knowledge, and the context of organizations in which professional are employed. This study will use an interpretivist framework to analyze how knowledge is constructed in the context of professional practice. Professionals representing three different professions (social work, adult education, and law) will be interviewed 9-12 months following their attendance at a continuing education program. Interviews will probe the specifics of learning from the continuing education activity attended, the context of the work environment and the nature of the professional practice. Data will be analyzed using concept maps, and through a constant comparative method of analysis which includes the creation of data codes and categories. Subsequent to the analysis of individual groups of professionals, a meta-analysis across professional groups will be conducted. It is anticipated that by researching the linkages between context, professional practice and learning that new understandings that inform adult education practice can be developed.
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Zelda Groener
South Africa
Researching adult education policy in the context of an emerging global political economy: The case of South Africa
It is generally argued that adult education policy can facilitate social transformation. The relationship between adult education policy and social transformation constitutes the central theoretical concern of this research project. The major aim of this project is to develop new theoretical perspectives on the relationship between adult education policy and social transformation. Currently, there is a growing awareness that global political and economic forces are shaping the broader policy context in which adult education policy is made. During recent years, international agencies, in particular, have become centrally involved in shaping the policy context and influencing national education policies in several countries around the world. As events show, this is an emerging trend in South Africa. Based on these developments, it is my assertion that international agencies, through their influence, shape the transformational space in which adult education policy is made. More specifically, however, international agencies are also influencing the nature of adult education policies per se. This is evident in the current White Paper on Education and Training, published in March 1995, in which the government committed itself to a process of examining international human rights conventions with the view to ratification. Investigating the ways in which international agencies impact the relationship between adult education policy and social transformation, constitutes the central thrust of this research project. More specifically, this research project will identify, uncover and illuminate the possibilities, constraints, difficulties, dilemmas and contradictions which the influences of international agencies bring to bear on the relationship between adult education policy and social transformation.
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Juan Madrigal
Mexico
Tendencies toward the adult educator profession in Latin America: An exploratory, comparative, and participatory study
The purpose of this study is to establish academic dialogue with Latin American and Mexican adult educators to confront issues of training and professionalization in the field. Professionalization allows adult educators to find new theoretical frameworks and to reshape practice based on new methodological instruments that would permit adult educators to respond in a specialized manner to new demands rooted in globalization. This project will facilitate the finding of collective concerns and the development of common notions that will aid in the search for alternative solutions to training and professionalization in Latin American universities. Three meetings will be held with Mexican adult educators and researchers and some visits to several Latin American universities will be conducted.
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Fred Schied
U.S.A.
Adult education and the "New World Order": An examination of learning and the management of knowledge in the workplace
As numerous commentators have pointed out, "a new work order" is being created in which learning is seen as central to solving current problems of economic and social dislocation. This project seeks to examine the impact of current workplace restructuring efforts on workers and workplace educators. Thematically, the project's overarching goals are to: 1) explore the ways in which workers experience the restructuring of work and, concurrently, how knowledge is produced on the shop floor or in the office; 2) examine how management systems shape learning (nonformal and informal), legitimizing some forms of knowledge and delegitmizing others; and 3) examine what role labor unions, as a potential mediating force, play in knowledge production. This project addresses these questions through a careful analysis of the specific historical and cultural contexts in which they occur. This project builds on an on-going investigation (now in its fourth year) which suggests that new managerial and human resource development discursive practices are used as disciplinary techniques to control workers .The study will examine how this managerial practice has evolved and what counter-discursive (if any) practices have emerged among front-line workers. Central to the project is to find ways in which a historically deep-seated and long standing sense of labor solidarity can be translated to the new work reality.
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Vanessa Sheared
U.S.A.
Welfare reform, work, and literacy: Issues of gender, class and race
The issue of welfare reform and its implications for adult basic literacy education has received little if any attention in the past 20 years. From 1980 until 1997 several federal or state legislated welfare reform initiatives have been enacted. These measures have focused on the reduction or elimination of individuals' ability to receive public assistance because of what some have characterized as either generational welfare, or an abusive use of welfare assistance by individuals who should not be receiving it. The intent of this project is to conduct a two-year comparative analysis that will focus on the ways in which either state or federal policies impact funding and programming within adult literacy programs. First a legislative trail of both the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the National Adult Literacy Act of 1993 will be conducted. Secondly, a comparative analysis of state initiatives, adult literacy programs and funding allocation will be conducted. Finally, a process for discussion and dissemination of data results will be explored and conducted.
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When "accommodation" is resistance: Towards a critical discourse on the politics of adult education
"Nontraditional" adult students are now the new majority on many campuses, yet little evidence exists which indicates that a great number of colleges and universities are holistically transforming themselves into institutions which are responsive to adults' needs. Rather, the policies, programs, language, and structures of colleges and universities continue to neglect these students. This study explores the neglect of adult students in higher education as being transmitted through historical and contemporary aspects of higher education culture. A series of three studies will be undertaken which critically investigates structural factors which may contribute to the neglect of adult students on college and university campuses in the U.S. The first two studies will focus on the way in which meanings about adult students are communicated through the Chronicle of Higher Education and through graduate programs which prepare professionals in higher education. The third study will explore how a culture which keeps adult students at the margin is negotiated at the institutional level by staff who provide programming and advocacy for adults on campuses. From this series of studies a sociopolitical framework will be developed from which discourse on the politics of accommodation, resistance, and adult learner needs can take place. This project has political implications for the broad field of adult education, for as it posits that the accommodation of adults' needs is an act of resistance against dominant, hegemonic frameworks it provides explanatory power for the marginalized status of adult education within Colleges of Education, the academy, and society.
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