What counts as knowledge and truth in an African context is deeply embedded in the community and is a product of age and experience, in contrast to "the western strategy of convincing with arguments. From the African point of view, arguments are a sign of weakness, of lack of power and vitality. A good, forceful truth does not need arguments.…

Adult educators are committed to learning that encourages adults to see themselves and the world around them in more complex ways. They have therefore focused their practice on teaching with development in mind (Taylor, 2000; Lamoreaux, 2005). Recently, however, a colleague (Johnson, 2003) pointed the authors to a body of research that examines…

Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the particular challenges and possibilities of teaching adult learners, we may still be overlooking--or forgetting--some of the most fundamental aspects of what makes an effective educator of adults. This paper addresses this oversight by reminding adult educators of the imperative of being…

In this article, the author talks about Bakhtin's ethical concerns on the teaching of novels. In his writings on ethics, Bakhtin outlined numerous ways in which thinkers can avoid engaging with the world. They can live "representatively" by allowing the ideology or religion to which they subscribe make their moral decisions for them. Intellectual…

This chapter focuses on "learning processes" in the workplace from concepts emerging in the field of adult education, without straying into pedagogies and programs that can enhance learning. It discusses four topics on learning processes that seem to be particularly important for addressing key purposes and issues of workplace learning from an…

Human resource development (HRD) professionals have an obligation to provide programs/products with the highest probability of success. The exclusion of workers' perspectives, from "their" standpoint, would seem to produce suboptimal results. Therefore, consulting workers' literature, labor and working class histories, management histories, and…

Learning in workplaces is always mediated through talk. It is tempting for management to seek to utilise everyday talk as part of learning and therefore enhance productivity. This paper examines the responses of workers to interventions that aim to formalise informal conversations at work as part of an explicit workplace learning strategy. It…

According to an influential view, empathy has, and should have, a role in ethics, but it is by no means clear what is meant by "empathy", and why exactly it is supposed to be morally good. Recently, Peter Goldie has challenged that view. He shows how problematic empathy is, and argues that taking an external perspective is morally…

This article provides evidence that it is worthwhile to reconsider the traditional research circle method as a means of involving people in the third age in fulfilling their needs to participate in learning activities and make their voices heard. The findings are based on three cases of research circles consistently driven by the interests of the…

This paper argues that psychology has an important role for practicing teachers. Firstly, it is important that they keep their knowledge of best teaching and learning practices updated; psychology is a continually evolving field of research and whilst some traditional aspects may remain compelling even today, others are no longer seen as valid,…

This paper outlines a behavior-analysis approach to the field of narratology, the study of the narrative or story, with emphasis on nonfiction stories and the processes by which such stories distort the world they describe. Stories are described in terms of (a) a behavior-analysis adaptation of Todorov's (1977) analysis of the plots of stories in…

Learning organisations face new challenges in the 21st century. Increased flow of trade in commodities, manufactured goods and information as well as mobility of people have led to increased global interdependence, interconnectedness and cultural diversity. People and teams within learning organisations have become globally distributed with the…

Culture is a complex process. Many authors show the importance of the concept of culture in organizations. The question which arises is how to approach the cultural problematic of organizations. The paper proposes that the traditional ways--based on the Cartesian epistemology--do not match with the cultural complexity, since it simplifies too much…

In this paper, we discuss a reflexive teaching approach, which may make the field of Organisation Studies more permeable to alternative views and thus more responsive to the complexities of processes unfolding in organisations in the context of a rapidly changing world. We contend that reflection on lived experience complements perspectives that…

Perspective-taking judgments among young adults, middle-aged, and elderly people were examined. In 1 condition, participants were instructed to judge the likelihood of acceptance of a painkiller as a function of 3 cues: severity of the condition, potential side effects, and level of trust in the health care provider. In the other condition,…