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This article pushes towards the integration of the history of Black Adult Education (AE) into the broader history of AE literature and it contributes a critique of the field's general omissions and misrepresentations of Black history. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to critique the white-dominated history of AE texts and (2) to provide a historiographical essay that highlights works focused on the Black history of AE. In doing so, we offer a historical counternarrative rooted in the secondary historical literature that addresses the history of Black education. Ultimately, this paper critiques historiographical essays focused on AE, situates our discussion within debates on approaches to race in AE, and revisits works of Black AE from within the field as well as key works by educational historians that address issues related to Black AE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the increased need for broadening participation in computing, there must be a focus not just on providing culturally relevant content but also on building accessible and inclusive computational tools. Most efforts to design culturally responsive computational tools redesign surface features, often through making nominal changes to add cultural meaning, yet the deeper structural design remains largely intact. We take a critical perspective towards novice programming environments to elucidate how the underlying structure privileges particular epistemologies and cultures. In this paper, we examine how the cultural practice of storytelling is supported and/or inhibited within novice programming tools. We draw upon the experiences of 38 Native American youth, who worked in teams to create place‐based, interactive stories and games for their community. Findings offer insights to the embedded cultural biases that exist in the structures of computational tools. We discuss insights for how to address cultural biases and promote deeper integration of cultural practices in future designs of culturally responsive computational tools. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic? Culturally responsive computing connects computing content heritage and vernacular cultural practices."Black boxing," or lack of transparency in how it works, in computational tools makes it difficult for novices to enter computing cultures.Design tools are embedded with particular ways of being, knowing, valuing and doing.What this paper adds? Thirty‐eight novice learners' computational designs were shaped by the ways in which a computational tool privileged particular knowledge systems.Storytelling, as a critical cultural practice, especially in Indigenous cultures, is heavily constrained by the design structure of computational tools.Computational tools are cultural artifacts with deeply embedded epistemological, ontological and axiological biases, which directly frame what learners can do with these tools.Implications for practice Collaborative, community‐based design processes could mitigate the cultural biases that persist in computational tools.Transparency in computation tools in critical to broadening participation in computing cultures.Culturally responsive design of computational tools at the structural level is required to build inclusive computing cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, adult and workforce education (AE) seems to be located, simultaneously, both everywhere and nowhere in particular. Ongoing shifts in national economic demands and changes in requirements for training and education have brought learning in the adult years into the federal public policy arena. Sometimes referred to as lifelong learning, AE has proven to be a somewhat vague concept as a basis for federal policy formulation, but its existence signals an important federal locus of responsibility for learning in adulthood. This historical examination of the AE policy domain offers a review of the formulation, and more specifically how AE policy has been framed, where AE policy originated, and its progression over time. Primary U.S. legislative documents, federal agency reports, and federal white papers spanning the years 1862 to 2014 were reviewed to present a survey of the AE policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use a heutagogical approach to determine whether students enrolled in blended courses achieve higher grades relative to those enrolled in completely online courses, in addition to identifying demographic predictors of academic success in college courses involving Web-based modes of instruction.Design/methodology/approach Mixed models regression evaluated predictors of grade in terms of age, gender, instruction mode, graduate vs undergraduate status and full-time vs part-time load across 2,174 students (M = 27.6, SD = 9.54 years) enrolled in Web-based courses for a single term at a mid-sized public university in the northeastern USA.Findings In accordance with expectations, a significant main effect indicated higher grades among students enrolled in blended relative to completely online courses. Other predictors of academic success in Web-based courses included older age, female gender, graduate student status and part-time academic load. An interaction between age and gender on grade indicated the difference in performance between men and women diminished among older compared to younger students. Another interaction between age and instruction mode on successful course completion indicated a higher probability of success in blended courses among older students relative to their younger counterparts.Research limitations/implications This study is limited by its cross-sectional design of large scope, which is incapable of addressing differences in online instructional styles and student motivation factors.Originality/value The current study offers newfound evidence that students enrolled in Web-based college courses may benefit from a blended instructional format, a finding that may be particularly evident among older students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of planning in transfer of learning to adult learners in the U.S. Accordingly, the paper discussed the meaning of transfer of learning, and why is it important to thoughtfully plan for transfer of learning. It also examines on whether there are barriers influencing transfer of learning, and whether there are facilitators influencing transfer of learning. The paper then presents thoughtful transfer plans which are very important to adult educators in order to have an effective transfer of learning to adult learners.

The article presents a study on how a non-profit, community based organization in the U.S. help disadvantaged women become professionals. Accordingly, the paper discussed the three key ideas that were identified in the study. The paper concluded that the three key ideas demonstrate that there is no easy solution in helping women overcome workplace barriers and become professionals, but with the support of community programs such as the Professional Women's Group, the goal of helping disadvantaged women become professionals can be achieved.

The article presents information on the various papers published in the 2006 issue of the periodical "Studies in the Education of Adults." In one of the papers the author presents information on how academics participating in the Research Assessment Exercise in Great Britain have been much exercised by the possible use of metrics, including citations and journal ranking, as a proxy for the objective measure of the quality of research. Another paper explores critically a number of popular discourses of pedagogy in adult education theory and practice. A papers presents information on a recent email survey of professors of education in the United States and in Great Britain. A paper reports on a research with archaeologists working in the Yucatan in Mexico to try and create an archaeology that is less damaging to local environments, cultural resources and local communities than many archaeological projects. A paper presents information on activity theory and situated learning perspectives in education.

Globalization and the revolution in technological communications are major forces of change in higher education. This environment, when coupled with the needs of adult learners and the rising costs of tuition at traditional colleges and universities, has stimulated the emergence of for-profit, degree-granting higher education in the United States. This paper examines the growth of for-profit higher education, provides a cost/profit analysis, and gives examples of for-profit universities that are increasing international in scope. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these developments for traditional colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies with a focus on the interrelationships among health information seeking behavior (HISB), and health status or use of preventive health measures for U.S. adults both with and without a high school diploma. Key results of ordinal and binary logistic regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for demographic factors, (1) adults with a high school diploma use more text-based health information sources while adults without a high school diploma use more oral sources, (2) using the Internet as a source of health information is more strongly related to reporting excellent/very good health status than having a high school diploma, (3) those without a high school diploma who use the Internet report the largest increase in health status over any other health information source, and (4) for those with learning disability or vision problem, a high facility in reading English is an important predictor of whether the Internet is used as a health information source. The Internet appears to play a key role in both enhancing health status and enabling use of preventive measures for those with and without a high school diploma; although, individuals without a high school diploma who use the Internet for health information derive substantial benefit in health status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge production in US academic adult education (1945-70) altered significantly in the light of apparently pervasive and permanent post-war economic and cultural change forces that transformed both the individual and the social. This paper explores this in relation to a post-war knowledge explosion that equated knowledge with productivity in a way that raised serious questions around which knowledge was of most worth. It reflects critically on the cultural politics of field knowledge production, which equated building a techno-scientific knowledge base with building collateral to leverage dominant cultural space and place. From this perspective, the paper considers the status of social education. It examines the location of liberal education, the locations of history and philosophy as foundational knowledges, and the status of US adult educational research during the techno-scientific turn. It concludes with a postscript suggesting the cultural space and place of US academic adult education in 1970. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reanalyzed research previously conducted with Spanish-speaking childcare providers who participated in an educational literacy program. The women in the program were generally framed as the deficient other – illiterate, immigrant women. The authors used a critical framework and Chicana/Latina feminist methodologies, namely pláticas y encuentros (talks and encounters), to investigate, reanalyze, and reinterpret the data. Through the process, the authors not only revealed the inner flame of the participants in the study, but through the collision of their own worldviews, they also exposed more deeply the assumptions buried within their epistemologies, methodologies, and positionalities. The results speak to the importance of critical examinations of power and discourses in education that often reside unexamined, or perhaps examined but largely unpublished, in our research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stories matter, and the stories we tell ourselves matter most. Truth has many layers and narrative helps us makes senses of our multilayered reality. We live a personal narrative that is grounded in our past experience, but embodied present. As such, it filters what we see and how we interpret events. Attachment theorists tell us our early experiences with caregivers flavor interactions with others; we engage, avoid, become overanxious, or behave inconsistently based on the story formed in childhood interactions. In other words, we can become stuck in a childhood story that no longer serves a survival purpose. Narrative psychologists report we can grow into a secure adult attachment mode by bringing new meaning to the old story. Thus, how we interpret those stories through retelling can help to heal the past. Adult learners bring their life stories into the classroom and the nature of those stories either enhance or impede learning. The purpose of this article is to share current research and practice in narrative psychology and critical theory, as applied to adult learners, and to suggest ways to bring healing through story retelling and story-editing processes within personal narrative papers. Adult learners bring new meaning to their life stories by (a) recognizing other stories as alternatives to the stuck story, (b) addressing the magic question, and (c) practicing multiple perspective taking. The facts do not change, but how learners view the facts makes a difference in how they embrace new learning challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there are increasing efforts to address the problem of domestic violence and trauma in the justice, health care, and social service systems, the adult education system still lags behind. The inattention to this issue in adult education is particularly troubling because these programs often play a significant role in the lives of women who experience multiple levels of victimization rooted in language, race, gender, and educational level, among other factors. In order to address this issue, we need to know the extent to which domestic trauma affects women in adult education programs; few, if any, existing studies include this data. This paper begins to fill that gap by reporting on a preliminary, practitioner-led study with 187 Hispanic women enrolled in El Paso Community College-- Community Education Program (EPCC--CEP) on the United States--Mexico border. The results of this preliminary study show the prevalence of domestic trauma among female students in one adult education program, and support the development of efforts to address this problem in a comprehensive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminisation of migration is absent in policy and programmatic discourses on adult education in the USA and England. This paper uses an intersectional framework and feminist transnational methodology to probe this concept and its implications for women migrants and their education and advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article recommends that adult educators in the U.S. must use storytelling as an integral teaching and learning strategy. Accordingly, the paper introduces why and how to use storytelling as a strategy that may lead to life changes for learners. It discusses the implications of using storytelling in adult education settings. It also highlights the importance of storytelling in delivering power that can motivate learners at any stage of development. Moreover, the six recursive processes where storytelling strategy progresses are presented and discussed.

ABSTRACT This essay analyzes a major policy paper of the Connecticut Department of Education linking adult basic education with the need to equip potential employees with an increasingly complex set of "basic skills" in order to assure the state a well-qualified work force in a postindustrial economy. This essay calls for a broadened adult basic education curriculum linking instrumental knowledge with autobiographical insight and meaningful sociocultural knowledge through a collaborative methodology where students learn from each other as well as from the instructor. This essay begins with a brief historical overview of functional literacy since the 1930s, and is a case study of more pervasive tensions between policy formulations and the research perspectives of the New Literacy Studies.The Workforce 2000 report indicates that 35 million Americans will have to improve their abilities if we are to meet the labor needs of the year 2000. The 15 to 20 million people, or more, who have severe basic skills problems are those who must improve their abilities the most. Unless we take steps to upgrade their (emphasis added) skills in the very near future, all of us will be worse off. Our rate of economic growth will stagnate, welfare costs will escalate, foreign competition will make more rapid inroads, and our national standard of living will fall (or at least it will not keep pace with increased standards of living elsewhere in the world). (Chisman, 1989, pp. 8-9)The concept of functional literacy should be laid to rest. The concept is flawed: Its definition is arbitrary, its measurement is problematic, and the phenomenon of "functioning in life" cannot readily be equated with literacy. Adults with limited literacy skills should be credited with the skills and knowledge that they do have. Educators should start to build on and extend this knowledge and skill, based on the needs, desires, and interests of adult learners, rather than dwelling on measuring how "functio... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes a multi-dimensional, ongoing approach to evaluation in a sex therapy training program. The Yale Sex Therapy Training program set out to train psychotherapists working in public agencies throughout Connecticut who would meet or surpass pre-determined standards for sex therapists. Because sex therapy is a new discipline, it was deemed essential that program evaluation be developed and carried out from the very beginnings of the program and throughout its course. Evaluative findings proved essential to monitoring the quality of teaching and supervisory efforts, in assessing change in knowledge and professional activity of trainees, and in measuring impact upon the communities served. Continuous feedback led to changes in program content and format through identification of needs and problem. The experience in the Yale program confirms the recommendations of others regarding the conduct of a continuing education program. These findings strongly imply that multi-dimensional, ongoing evaluation should be an integral component in any continuing education program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) has initiated efforts to address the future directions of the field. Several projects, as part of that initiative, are briefly discussed. The Futures Committee explores trends and opportunities for collaborative work. A webpage and listserve for interested parties was created, A call for research papers to be presented at the annual AAACE conference is included. The author solicits reader contributions and involvement in the program.