Adult basic education (ABE) scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have long debated the purpose and outcomes of federal ABE policy. Although the current policy, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), became law in 2014, there is no comprehensive analysis of the diverging perspectives on WIOA implementation. This integrative…

During the early Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union used adult literacy education to wield influence in "Third World" countries. Frank C. Laubach, the "Apostle of Literacy," wrote prolifically about adult literacy and conducted and advised literacy campaigns in more than 100 countries, yet his work is understudied…

This article examines the conflicts and challenges that student leaders in adult basic education and literacy programs experience in balancing their leadership responsibilities with academic endeavours. Based upon a case study of an adult basic education student leadership council in New York City, the article shows that leadership activities can…

This article uses data from longitudinal, ethnographic research to examine how, six years after attending literacy classes, 12 adults in rural El Salvador used literacy, their perceptions of the temporary and longer-term psychosocial and economic benefits of literacy education, and their memories of literacy classes. The findings support prior…

Background/Context: In contrast to cultural constructs that equate education with cognitive development and formal schooling, the Latin American cultural model of educacion encompasses academic knowledge and social competence. Prior scholarship has mainly investigated parental notions of educacion vis-a-vis childrearing and schooling, primarily…

Background/Context: Educational researchers have long sought to understand the factors that enable or constrain persistence in non-formal family literacy and adult education programs. Scholars typically posit three sets of factors influencing persistence: situational (learners' life circumstances), institutional (programmatic factors), and…

Based on ethnographic, participatory research in two Salvadoran villages, this article analyzes how features of the sociocultural setting bred discord and mistrust among the participants in an adult literacy program and other community residents, thereby undermining the program's goal of equipping "campesinos" to work together to improve…

The experiences of men and women who participated in a Salvadoran adult literacy program belie the instrumentalist discourse of adult education, for they identified psychosocial benefits as the most meaningful aspects of the program. Attending literacy classes did not change their material situation as underemployed "campesinos/as," but…