This article focuses on the intersection of three areas of Peter Jarvis's work that have profoundly influenced the field of adult education generally and the authors own research trajectories, in particular: (a) learning from everyday life and in social context, (b) incidental and tacit learning in consumer societies in a globalised world (i.e.…

The authors examine the modernist underpinnings of traditional adult learning and development theories and evaluate elements of those theories through more contemporary lenses. Drawing on recent literature focused on "public pedagogy," the authors argue that much learning takes place outside of formal educational institutions. They look beyond…

Too often, educators, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of adult education and human resource development rely on traditional curricular materials and an academic body of knowledge for teaching, evaluating, and training adults. This assumes a coherent body of prior knowledge, assumptions, worldviews, and experiences in their students…

This chapter critically examines six political television narratives: The Weather Channel, The Fox News Channel, "24," "The Rachel Maddow Show," "The Daily Show," and "Torchwood." The implications of those television narratives, their impact on adult learners, and suggestions for classroom practice are discussed.

In this article, we examine adult education literature as it relates to all aspects of popular culture. After an extensive literature review we found that, increasingly, adult educators are investigating popular culture's connection with adult education and learning; however, we argue that much more work needs to be done in this area, specifically…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of popular culture, especially prime-time television, on women viewers' identity development. More specifically, this study explores one television show, the 1962-1964 Cathy Gale episodes of "The Avengers," as a portal to adult learning. We explored how television, as a form of public…

This chapter explains how the show "The Avengers," a popular British television program with an unusual female lead role, captured the imagination of women viewers in England from 1962 to 1964. After describing the show and then the research project investigating viewers' responses to it, this chapter explores the experience of watching…