Radicalizing Learning: Adult Education for a Just World

by Stephen D. Brookfield, John D. Holst

Radicalizing Learning calls for a total rethinking of what the field of adult education stands for and how adult educators should assess their effectiveness. Arguing that major changes in society are needed to create a more just world, the authors set out to show how educators can help learners envision and enact this radical transformation.

Specifically, the book explores the areas of adult learning, training, teaching, facilitation, program development, and research. Each chapter provides a guide to the different paradigms and perspectives that prevail across the field of theory and practice. The authors then tie all of the themes into how adult learning for participatory democracy works in a diverse society.

Genres: Education

373 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 26, 2010

Reviews

[CTEP]

For January book club, I read Radicalizing Learning: Adult Education for a Just World by Stephen Brookfield and John Holst. Both authors are from St. Thomas University and have backgrounds rooted in adult education. The book includes some interesting Twin Cities historical examples for discussion including information on the closed down Saint Paul Ford plant. The authors set out in this work to explore the significance of adult education as it relates to democratic socialism, the idea that decisions should be shared and made by those who are most affected by them. Brookfield and Holst explore how adult education in different forms can equip people and communities to understand their situations and take control of them. Within this as well, they evaluate and revise what goals of adult education are and should be, breaking apart carelessly used words such as “training.” The authors place a very strong emphasis on education in the liberal arts tradition, emphasizing the growing importance of problem solving and independent thinking vs. strictly academic or vocational skills. They address issues of the growing instability of the labor market as relating to globalization and technological development.

I came to this book originally because it was suggested to me by our center director, Francisco, and I didn’t have much more context than that, but I quickly found it was exactly what I had been looking for. Especially in this second year of CTEP, I’ve become very interested in the larger issues that result in the circumstances so many of my students find themselves in. Though the adult education discussed in the book is generally far beyond what is approached in my lab at Waite House, I found that I instinctively sought to teach my students in a way Brookfield and Holst might agree with, but their discussions show how much farther adult education can go as a contributor towards empowerment. It’s a thick read, more academic than anything I’ve picked up in quite a while, but also one I’d recommend to any CTEP who has growing interest in these same questions that have piqued my attention.

[Doni · Rating 1 out of 5]

Propaganda.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Dr. Brookfield's best.