This article explores informal adult education for change in Mexico through the conceptual lens of social movement learning and public pedagogy. It adopts a multiple case design featuring two advocacy networks, two civil society organisations, and two self-help authors. It analyses how they position themselves as change agents addressing issues of…

Adult educators and scholars have long recognized the Highlander Education and Research Center in Tennessee as a model for adult civic education that is transformative for individuals and society. In 2004, researchers at Harvard University identified Highlander as one of the most successful initiatives worldwide with long-term impact on societal…

The centring of Muslim women in Islam resides in an intertwining historico-politico-theological narrative of gender reform, first promulgated in a seventh century revelation of the Qur'an. Significantly, the gains derived by the women of Islam's first community, have become lost in the dominance of contemporary androcentric-patriarchal…

Transformative education exists in a complex, dynamic, and ambiguous state seeking structural definitions and relationships within an interdisciplinary arena often critiqued for its limitations as an individual--rather than social--practice. This type of education encompasses learning processes that may facilitate the development of civic-minded,…

This paper uses the personal histories of two men, born in the same decade and both involved in the field of adult education in Scotland, to illustrate contrasting responses to the social and political changes taking place in the early 20th century. In methodological terms, it draws on recent writing on the relationship between biography and…

Citizenship education played a crucial role in the 19th century transition from royal sovereignty to democracy in the Nordic region, with folk high schools (FHS) playing an important role. While established to empower the people ("folk") for active participation in society, the contemporary folk high schools have reoriented from their…

"Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: The Impact of Adult Learning across the UK" identifies a range of economic and social policy challenges confronting the four nations today and argues that adult learning can make an important contribution to addressing these and promoting a fairer and more inclusive society. Published in 2017, the report draws…

This article engages with debates about transformative learning and social change, exploring practitioner perspectives on non-formal education activities run by non-governmental organisations. The research looked at how global citizenship education practitioners met their organisation's goals of change for social justice through educational…

The American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) is dedicated to the belief that lifelong learning contributes to human fulfillment and positive social change. The mission of the AAACE is to provide leadership for the field of adult and continuing education by expanding opportunities for adult growth and development; unifying…

In the past, non-formal education in South Africa was committed to supporting the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) in opposition to apartheid. Such non-formal political education was concerned with education for democracy. Post 1994, South African adult education policy has exclusively concentrated on vocational training, shifting the focus away…

This article attempts a contrast to the contribution by Hugh Starkey. Rather than his account of the inexorable rise of human rights discourse, and of the implementation of human rights standards, human rights are here presented as always and necessarily scandalous and highly contested. First, I explain why the UK has lagged so far behind its…

This article analyzes the participation of civil society in the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education held in Belem do Para, Brazil, 1-4 December 2009. As a foundation, the discussion first illuminates the important role that civil society in general plays in democratic issues and the relation between the state and society followed by…

The current de-democratization process in which the world now apparently finds itself ". . .represents the longest continuous period of deterioration in the nearly 40-year history of Freedom House's annual assessment of the state of political and civil liberties in every country of the world". As Gilley (2010: 161) observes, ". . .the hottest…

Purpose: This paper aims to encourage "discourse concerning a 'sustainable societal system'", proposing S.E.E.D. (=Secure-base Earth Equilibrium Development). S.E.E.D. outlines a possible transition to a viable future civilisation, a realistic eco-social turnaround, a "taming" (i.e. a cultivation) of the market with regard to…

Feminist nonprofit organizations are sites of informal and nonformal learning where citizens learn advocacy, literacy, and the practices of social democracy. With the growing use of information and communication technologies in the nonprofit sector, there are questions as to how well organizations are able to make use of this technology to further…