Canadian universities today assert their social relevance through highlighting processes such as community engagement, knowledge mobilization, and the promotion of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Much can be learned about such processes through examining an era in which Canadian universities asserted their social relevance through another…

This article narrates the rise and fall of a notable adult education programme at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada. The Centre for Adult Education and Community Development was established in 1951, replacing the External Service for Social Education. In the 1950s, the Centre gained an international reputation for excellence in adult…

Drawing on an autoethnographic approach, we offer a retrospective and current reflection on the Adult Education Professoriate within the Canadian university system. Through our autographic texts as professors within the field of adult education, as well as a review of relevant adult education literature, we consider the historical and current…

Adult education programs are often grounded in problematic assumptions about learners' inadequacies. The purpose of this article is to critique such assumptions through presenting a history of the manner in which representatives of Canadian governments conceptualized the education of Inuit adults from the 1940s through the 1980s. Using…

Adult education was an integral component of the colonisation of the Canadian Arctic. Between the 1960s and the 1990s, educational programmes were explicitly developed in order to shape Inuit adults in particular ways: from teaching them how to live in permanent houses, to teaching them how to work as administrators and tradespeople. Inuit did not…

The present document on the Sixty Years of CONFINTEA was inspired by the desire to register the long fecund history of a global movement which has spanned six decades. Official records and documents produced by and for the conferences, in particular the final reports, elaborated by UNESCO were used as an important source. This process of…

Since the 1970s, immigrant studies have taken a feminist turn. This paper takes stock of how Canadian adult educators have contributed to this field and vice versa. Through an ethnographic content analysis of [Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education] CASAE proceedings since 2000 and other related scholarly publications, the paper…

This article provides a critical sociological analysis of trends and perspectives pervasive during the emergence of North American adult education (1919-1970). In discussing transitions during the first 50 years of what is considered modern practice, it draws on Webster E. Cotton's (1986, "On Behalf of Adult Education: A Historical…

The Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE) of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) provides a forum for the discussion of international issues related to adult education in general, as well as adult education in various countries around the globe. These papers are from the CIAE 2020 Virtual International…

This paper examines Canadian federal and cross-provincial higher education policy from 1960 to 1990, a critical time when provisions for vocational and adult training came under the auspices of governmental concern, justified under both an economic rationale and as a way to address persistent forms of inequality. The problematisation of skill…

In this journal's Fall 2009 issue, the Forum section included an article by Gordon Selman and Mark Selman arguing that although Canadian adult education had existed as a social movement in the middle part of the 20th century, it is no longer a social movement. They also speculated about the causes of this change. In the Spring 2011 issue, Tom…

The curse of being the "new, new" thing was initially hung around the neck of the current incarnation of Quebec's "recognition of prior learning" program. However, this has changed as the program has evolved into a working service for Quebec residents. This article will examine the current public offering of the recognition of…

This report describes private colleges serving adults which since 1936 have been required to register with the provincial government of British Columbia, Canada or, since 1993, with a regulatory body created by the government. The sector has always included career colleges, but registration was expanded temporarily in the 1990s to include all…

Amidst calls for libraries to regain their socially progressive roots and connections to community, this study analyzes two interwoven cases of nonformal, community education in northeastern Nova Scotia, initiated by libraries that aimed to revive those links. Through a reading circle and a people's school, librarians used historical materials on…

Canada emerged as a nation through a confederation of provinces beginning in 1867. Since that time, responsibility for educational endeavors at all levels (elementary, secondary, and tertiary) has been assigned to the provincial governments, a responsibility they zealously guard. The federal government's role is to provide monies or transfer…