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Project Plan Abstracts
Group 4 (2001-2003)
Project Titles
- Comparative study of the development of the psychopedagogical basis for learning as a prerequisite for elevating the quality of educational processes of youths and adults, Cecilia Amaluisa Fiallos, Ecuador
- Relevance of education for the prevention of violence by delinquents and violence due to gender: An urban community in the city of Santo Domingo prevents violence in its daily practice , Rita Maria Ceballos Diaz, The Dominican Republic.
- Exploring the contextual factors that promote informal learning in the workplace through the lenses of managers and employees, Andrea Ellinger, U.S.A.
- The political economy of globalization and the future of critical adult education, John Holst, U.S.A.
- Designing contextualised and technology-enhanced learning environments: A vision for online learning for rural adults, Rita Kizito, South Africa
- Cultural models of epistemology and reflection among Native American women, Vivan Mott, U.S.A.
- Educational relationships and possible selves in the adult undergraduate experience, Marsha Rossiter, U.S.A.
Cecilia Amalusia Fiallos
Ecuador
Comparative study of the development of the psychopedagogical basis for learning as a prerequisite for elevating the quality of educational processes of youths and adults
Some studies carried out by the Center of Education and Popular Promotion (CEPP), a non-governmental organization founded in 1979, demonstrate that the educational failure - drop-outs, repeating courses, lack of confidence in the school - among the youth and adult population is not only related to social and economic facotors, but fundamentally to flaws of a pedagogical nature. In 1998, the Project "SER" was designed. It is an experimental program of basic education and multivalent high school (semi-present modality) directed towards women and men, 15 years of age and older, who live in rural and marginally-urban zones and who wish to return to the educational system.
A pilot program of basic education (Valle Interoceanico-Quito) was initiated in May 2000 and it is anticipated to expand in 2001 to the protected forest "La Cascada" (Amazonia) and among women organized from marginally-urban neighborhoods in Quito. Approximately 120 students, 15 professors, and 10 field technicians will be involved.
The study will develop and compare three experiences and contribute reflections to influence the processes of national educational reform. The results will be disseminated through five events and a publication directed toward officials in the Ministry of Education, universities, and other institutions that work with adults.
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Rita Maria Ceballos Diaz
The Dominican Republic
Relevance of education for the prevention of violence by delinquents and violence due to gender: An urban community in the city of Santo Domingo prevents violence in its daily practice
In a society that is characterized by the promotion of inequality and exclusion, in addition to a notable lack of institutional control, violence becomes a daily phenomenon.
The purpose of this study is to know and analyze the socio-psychological, economic, and structural roots of violence and the reasons for its increase in the marginalized neighborhoods in the city of Santo Domingo in the decade of the 90s, as well as, to offer strategies for prevention and re-education, involving its principle protagonists: the community, the victims, and the victimizers.
For this study, two neighborhoods will be taken as the sample, promoting actions in one of the neighborhoods that range from becoming conscious to making decisions and taking actions for the prevention of violence and the re-education of the subjects involved.
The relevance of this project to the field of adult education is based on the realization of a diagnostic of the situation of violence, permitting the definition of necessary policies for its prevention and for the re-education of the population, and in the elaboration of an educational notebook on violence and in support of a culture of peace as support material for later implementation in the area of popular education.
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Exploring the contextual factors that promote informal learning in the workplace through the lenses of managers and employees
Although the majority of learning that occurs in the workplace is informal, little is known about how informal learning in the workplace is best supported, encouraged, facilitated, and developed.
The proposed study seeks to understand how the contextual factors within an organizational setting may shape informal learning and the facilitation of informal learning for a broad spectrum of employees at various levels within a learning oriented organization. A qualitative single site case study will be conducted using Bolman and Deal's (1997) organizational frames as a guide to better make sense of how aspects of the organization may shape informal learning as articulated by the Marsick and Watkins (1990,1997) model of informal and incidental learning.
The study has the potential to broaden our understanding of the interplay between informal learning, its facilitation, and the contextual factors of the workplace setting, and contribute greatly to our field's research base by providing a more holistic view of the factors that may shape informal learning and facilitation processes.
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The political economy of globalization and the future of critical adult education
The purpose of this study is to use Marxist political economy theory to investigate the empirical nature of globalization and correspondingly the objective conditions for fundamental social transformation through radical adult education praxis. I will be using Youngman's (2000) political economic framework. While political economy is my theoretical approach, methodologically this is a descriptive study.
The specific development within the field I intend to investigate is the emergence of "civil societarian" politics through an empirical analysis of its political economic counterpart of a strong globalization perspective. The driving question of this study is whether the political economic analysis of globalization (strong globalization) that forms the basis of civil societarian politics is accurate.
The broad questions surrounding globalization are: (a) to what extent can the nation-state control national economies; (b) to what extent can capital (productive, financial, and commerical) freely move across national borders; and (c) to what extent is the world economy global - organized at a global rather than national level. Point (a),
while important, is beyond the scope of this study. This study will address the later two points by answering more specific questions that can be categorized into questions dealing with trade, investment, and multinational corporations.
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Rita Kizito
South Africa
Designing contextualised and technology-enhanced learning environments: A vision for online learning for rural adults
By examining how the dynamics of an adult learning environment change when technology is introduced into the environment, this project will attempt to search for opportunities that could be used to influence the design of technology-enhanced learning environments in order to create meaningful learning experiences for adult learners. Both an analytic and a sytstemic approach will be used to study the learning environment as experienced by adult educators recently enrolled for a Masters of Education program at the University of South Africa.
Specifically, the study will attempt to address the following fundamental questions:
- What are the structural components that constitute a learning environment for this research?
- How do these components relate to each other?
- How do the relations change with the introduction of technology?
Hopefully, the results obtained will illuminate the configuration characterising technology-enhanced learning environments, particularly in a South African context. Findings from this inquiry will contribute to the field of adult education by heightening understanding of technology-enhanced learning environment design issues, particularly in terms of web-based training.
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Cultural models of epistemology and reflection among Native American women
The pupose of this research project is to explore the influence of culture on continuing professional education (CPE) among Native American women. This qualitative research will use a critical ethnographic methodology.
Specific questions include:
- How does culture influence women's learning experiences in Native American communities?
- What are Native American cultural models of work, knowing, and professional development?
- What are the distinctions, if any, between positivist knowing and indigenous epistemology, and how are these distinctions manifested in the work and learning of Native American women?
- How do Native American women negotiate the Western cultural bias that characterizes current models of continuing professional development?
- What is the relationship between indigenous epistemology and reflection?
The findings will contribute to the improvement of practice and benefit the participants through more culturally appropriate models of education and professional development, ultimately enabling women to more effectively mentor others in their communities.
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Educational relationships and possible selves in the adult undergraduate experience
This resaerch begins with the recognition that adult teaching and learning are relational activities -- an idea that is well established in our field. Teacher/learner relationships seem to play a particularly significant role in the experience of the adult undergraduate student in higher education. The construct of possible selves offers a useful, and heretofore untapped, framework for the exploration of how educational relationships influence adult learning.
The purpose of this research is to explore and describe educational helping relationships, as experienced by adult undergraduate students, that influence the student's repertoire of future oriented self representations. The central question to be addressed in this research is: What are the essential elements of the educational relationship that influences an adult undergraduate student's sense of what is possible for herself or himself in the future?
An existential phenomenological approach to this research will be used. The final operation of data analysis will involve the integration of data into the general description that names and describes the most essential qualities, along with elements of variation, of the educational helping relationship that influences the adult undergraduate student's repertoire of possible selves.
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