Adult Learning, Literacy and Social Change – Serie

This book is based on an in-depth ethnographic study of the National Adult Literacy Programme (NALP) in Malawi. It highlights the significance of exploring power and identity in literacy studies. Employing the concept of ‘figured worlds’ to study literacy as a social practice, the book focuses on understanding power relationships and identities in literacy practices. It illustrates how literacy identities and power relationships of some local community members continuously vary from one context to another and, in some cases, even within the same context. Using notions such as agency, artefact, resistance, shame and positioning, the book demonstrates the potential of the concept of figured worlds to address some of the questions raised within the New Literacy Studies – especially those concerning power and identity. The book also illustrates the value of an ethnographic approach in adult literacy studies, by exploring the challenges faced by the researcher in gaining access to community members’ activities, and the opportunity to experience first-hand what instructors go through in facilitating adult literacy lessons.

Based on an extended period of ethnographic research and observation of migrant workers’ educational programmes, this book presents a theoretical exploration of social and educational issues in an industrialised area in south China. It highlights the tensions existing between the traditional ideology stressing collectivism, selfless devotion and teacher-centred teaching, and the new social practices promoting commercialization, personal development and interactive teaching. The author provides first-hand descriptions and analyses of rural-urban migrant workers’ lives, work and education. He develops the ethnographic approach by analysing the tensions and contradictions in the implementation processes of educational policies in the region.The book argues that the educational programmes, which focused on elite workers to support the development of industrialization and urbanization projects, assisted migrant workers as students in promoting their aspirations. However, this also stratified migrant workers, thus increasing gaps in socioeconomic status and professional development. Education policy design and implementation are observed as a dynamic process, thus contributing to a nuanced understanding of adult education and migration at a micro level.

Adult education offers the potential to enhance the individual’s sense of agency to direct and improve their future; this is especially important in times of significant societal unrest. It may lead to social change and even social justice. This book begins with a new consideration of historical perspectives of radical adult education in the UK and how these might inform planning for future adult education which is both relevant and emancipatory. The volume aims to capture some of the ‘messiness’ of adult education through analysis of a wide range of its many forms and a focus on the learners themselves, the different kinds of providers and the wider community around them. Individual chapters offer insights into an environmental community gardening scheme, provision for refugees and asylum seekers, the radical role of volunteers, the impact of discussion groups for older people and the National Community Service scheme for young adults.The book considers the significance of the Sustainable Development Goals, each of which includes targets linked with adult training, awareness-raising or education. Considering the factors for effective adult education programmes for social change, this volume questions the extent to which it can be argued that positive social change results from adult education. Active learning, group learning and education which is practical, flexible and individualised may provide the best routes ahead. The wide-ranging case studies demonstrate the importance of recognising and valuing adult learners’ prior knowledge, and the need for alternative approaches to assessment.

Adult education offers the potential to enhance the individual’s sense of agency to direct and improve their future; this is especially important in times of significant societal unrest. It may lead to social change and even social justice. This book begins with a new consideration of historical perspectives of radical adult education in the UK and how these might inform planning for future adult education which is both relevant and emancipatory. The volume aims to capture some of the ‘messiness’ of adult education through analysis of a wide range of its many forms and a focus on the learners themselves, the different kinds of providers and the wider community around them. Individual chapters offer insights into an environmental community gardening scheme, provision for refugees and asylum seekers, the radical role of volunteers, the impact of discussion groups for older people and the National Community Service scheme for young adults.The book considers the significance of the Sustainable Development Goals, each of which includes targets linked with adult training, awareness-raising or education. Considering the factors for effective adult education programmes for social change, this volume questions the extent to which it can be argued that positive social change results from adult education. Active learning, group learning and education which is practical, flexible and individualised may provide the best routes ahead. The wide-ranging case studies demonstrate the importance of recognising and valuing adult learners’ prior knowledge, and the need for alternative approaches to assessment.

Based on an extended period of ethnographic research and observation of migrant workers’ educational programmes, this book presents a theoretical exploration of social and educational issues in an industrialised area in south China. It highlights the tensions existing between the traditional ideology stressing collectivism, selfless devotion and teacher-centred teaching, and the new social practices promoting commercialization, personal development and interactive teaching. The author provides first-hand descriptions and analyses of rural-urban migrant workers’ lives, work and education. He develops the ethnographic approach by analysing the tensions and contradictions in the implementation processes of educational policies in the region.The book argues that the educational programmes, which focused on elite workers to support the development of industrialization and urbanization projects, assisted migrant workers as students in promoting their aspirations. However, this also stratified migrant workers, thus increasing gaps in socioeconomic status and professional development. Education policy design and implementation are observed as a dynamic process, thus contributing to a nuanced understanding of adult education and migration at a micro level.

This book is based on an in-depth ethnographic study of the National Adult Literacy Programme (NALP) in Malawi. It highlights the significance of exploring power and identity in literacy studies. Employing the concept of ‘figured worlds’ to study literacy as a social practice, the book focuses on understanding power relationships and identities in literacy practices. It illustrates how literacy identities and power relationships of some local community members continuously vary from one context to another and, in some cases, even within the same context. Using notions such as agency, artefact, resistance, shame and positioning, the book demonstrates the potential of the concept of figured worlds to address some of the questions raised within the New Literacy Studies – especially those concerning power and identity. The book also illustrates the value of an ethnographic approach in adult literacy studies, by exploring the challenges faced by the researcher in gaining access to community members’ activities, and the opportunity to experience first-hand what instructors go through in facilitating adult literacy lessons.

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this book explores the learning and literacy dimensions of local volunteering for social change in the Philippines. It tells the story of youth and adult volunteers who experience vulnerabilities yet play central roles in local development efforts in housing and sexual health. Why do people who themselves experience vulnerability volunteer to help others? And what are their learning experiences in the process? In its unique application of a literacy lens to the study of volunteering, the book unravels how marginalised groups, often seen as ‘thankful receivers’, (re)use texts, words and labels to (re)define their roles in shaping social change and for whose benefit. Chris Millora provides an in-depth look into the volunteers’ everyday activities such as delivering community health classes, filling out donor forms and applying for government approvals. In doing so, this book reveals how volunteers’ voices and agency were constrained to fit a certain bureaucratic way of working. It offers powerful case studies on how global development agendas such as value-for-money, upskilling and professionalisation – through bureaucratic literacies – impact the experiences of volunteers at the grassroots level. Arguing that literacy and volunteering could enhance inequalities within groups, this book calls for a renewed focus on the role that power and identities play both in adult/youth literacy and volunteering research.

Adopting a ‘social practice’ approach to literacy research based on ethnographic methods, this book provides a strong critique of dominant understandings of the role of literacy in the lives of adults in Australia. It explores how groups of working-class adults can manage the literacy practices of their everyday lives by drawing on social networks of support. It is based on research conducted by the author over a forty-year career in adult literacy education, featuring the voices of varied adult groups, including: prisoners, the long-term unemployed, local council workers, manufacturing workers, adult literacy students, marginalised young people, vocational students, and patients living with a chronic illness (type 2 diabetes).Each chapter explains how dominant society views these adult groups in relation to literacy, and provides a qualitative examination at the local level of how members of these groups manage the literacy practices of their everyday lives.

Adopting a ‘social practice’ approach to literacy research based on ethnographic methods, this book provides a strong critique of dominant understandings of the role of literacy in the lives of adults in Australia. It explores how groups of working-class adults can manage the literacy practices of their everyday lives by drawing on social networks of support. It is based on research conducted by the author over a forty-year career in adult literacy education, featuring the voices of varied adult groups, including: prisoners, the long-term unemployed, local council workers, manufacturing workers, adult literacy students, marginalised young people, vocational students, and patients living with a chronic illness (type 2 diabetes).Each chapter explains how dominant society views these adult groups in relation to literacy, and provides a qualitative examination at the local level of how members of these groups manage the literacy practices of their everyday lives.

Offering new theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives on adult literacy, lifelong learning and social change, this book challenges traditional debates on adult literacy and development. The volume brings together debates and research from the Global South and Global North and is original in moving beyond descriptive accounts of adult literacy programmes, classrooms and a focus on best practice. It provides both a historical perspective on this field as well as looking forward to future research and pedagogical directions.By broadening from an international development to a social change perspective, this book offers an alternative starting point. Unlike development, social transformation does not set a specific agenda, nor assume a certain endpoint. The authors set out to investigate the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the assumed connections between adult learning, literacy and social change, contributing a deeper understanding into the complex – and often unpredictable - processes involved.As well as focusing on literacy learning in classrooms and educational programmes, the book explores literacy practices and adult learning in everyday spaces, including social movements, religious poetry and community initiatives. Case studies from different cultural contexts introduce alternative theoretical lenses, like the concept of the enacted body to explore a woman’s experience of learning and social change in Nepal; or investigating how religious poetry shared between generations in Iran could be working against social change.