Race and Gender in Adult Education - Annotated Bibliography Example

Race and Gender in Adult Education September 2001 EDU 6680 Dr. Glenn Annotated Bibliography International Perspectives on Adult Education Abbott-Chapman, J. (2011). Making the most of the mosaic: facilitating post-school transitions to higher education of disadvantaged students. Australian Educational Researcher, 38(1), 57-71. doi:10.1007/s13384-010-0001-9 This article by Abbott-Chapman was designed to understand the needs disadvantage children as they transition from high school to higher education. One of the biggest issues in this article was the fact that students need someone to help them in their transition because most students do not move along a pathway that moves in a straight line from high school to college. This also means that some students (e.g. students who live in rural areas) may not have an understanding of careers that are outside the area in which they live. The author suggests that teachers and others have the responsibility to teach resilience in students and to teach them how to improve their study skills. This article was very interesting because it gave insight into different types of students. Although everyone talks about how we should help all students, sometimes there are students who fall behind not because they are not intelligent, but because of issues in their environments. Because of this, the author suggests ways in which students can find assistance. I believe that this is important for teachers to know so they can help in the guidance of their students. Ausburn, L. J. (2004). Course design elements most valued by adult learners in blended online education environments: An American perspective. Educational Media International, 41(4), 327-337. doi:10.1080/0952398042000314820 Asburn (2004) reports on e-learning and its value to adult learners who are working and who are engaged in live-long learning; these are usually students who are over the age of 26 and they have become the largest population of students taking online learning. This author challenges the academic community to look more closely at the needs of these new learners and realize that they are more motivated than younger students and they have an urgency to their learning. In a sense, these students are also redefining the classroom and asking that face to face classes and the Internet should be woven together for enhanced learning where possible. Boshier, R., & Yan, H. (2009). Madame Li Li: Communist revolutionary, adult educator, lifelong learner. Studies in Continuing Education, 31(1), 45-59. doi:10.1080/01580370902741886 The article was about a remarkable adult educator, Madame Li Li. This woman worked from the age of 14 as an activist for adult learning. She worked in Shanghai amongst the communist empire and was from a wealthy family. Although she suffered greatly because her family was wealthy, this treatment did not stop her from achieving what she wanted to achieve in adult education. The article presented a study about Madame Li Li and gave information about how teachers of architecture could learn from what she did. The article was informative and provided information about an extraordinary educator. The major aspects of the article were to describe who she was, what she did, and how she contributed to pedagogy within the constructs of adult education. Much of her learning was as self-taught because at the time it was impossible for her to receive the education from a university. This was inspiring because she did this within adverse conditions. There are many issues she had to deal with during the course of her teaching and she dealt with them in a way that brought people together. Desjardins, R., Rubenson, K., Milana, M., & United Nations Educational, S. g. (2006). Unequal chances to participate in adult learning: International perspectives. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 83. International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) UNESCO, Retrieved from EBSCOhost. This article was actually a booklet that was done by the authors to help people understand that there are differences in the way that students participate in adult learning. The booklet points out that all adults should continue learning after they leave school. The challenge is that some countries have better opportunities for this than others. The booklet is comprehensive in scope and provides many issues to think about when designing and adult education program. They also provide definitions of each individual learning opportunity. This booklet was one in a series of booklets that spoke about adult education. It was informative and of value because it gave a different perspective into why some students come to the United States to study. This information was more inferred than it was said, but because many students do not have the opportunity to learn throughout their lifetime in a formal way, they miss some of the opportunities that those students who have the opportunity are able to produce. UNESCO also developed an idea of what adult learning is and how it can be enhanced. This seems to be a very important aspect of adult education. A question that came to mind was, “How can we insure that everyone who wants education, across the world, receives it?” Eskay, M. (2011). Harmonizing educational differences from an international perspective. Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, 6(1), 30-36. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. This article is about quality education throughout the world. The author is suggesting that there are many different ways to see education and that there needs to be some way that people can come together with an idea of what this would mean across the world. The author gives many suggestions. As an example, he talks about collaborating across cultures and across countries in order to come together in harmony about education. There is some information about how this could happen across cultures. This was an interesting article because it gave information about how we as people could find ways to bridge the gap between one culture’s education and another. Some of the reason I think this would be important is because many international students who go to the United States must start over gain if they have earned degrees in their country of origin because the United States does not accept other people’s degrees. If everyone could come together with certain standards that would fit for all, there would be more opportunity for people to move between countries and show their expertise. Henschke, J. A. (2005). Perspectives on international adult education. Adult Learning, 16(1/2), 4-5. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Henschke’s article is a summary of several articles that provide information on adult education around the world. The article describes other articles in this series that are important because they talk about adult education in several countries. This article is more a teaser to the other articles instead of placing them in this particular issue of the journal. In reading this article, I was interested in the articles that they did not include in this summary. I am not certain how to find these other articles but they may be important to adult education in some way. I was not certain why this article was included in the peer reviewed articles but it would have been better to include all the articles; this would have helped the reader. Imel, S., & ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, C. H. (2000). International perspectives on adult education. Trends and Issues Alert No. 14. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. The authors and the clearinghouse discussed several perspectives regarding adult education that came from a conference on adult education from a variety of sources. They found that there were several trends to these perspectives. Each country saw life-long learning as important and they saw that ecology that would develop “sustainable economic development” was a concern for all countries (p. 2). The trend towards globalization as it concerns “social, cultural, environmental and political arenas” (p. 2). The article also provided several articles that discussed these trends. This article was informative and created an understanding for the reader that there is more to adult education that was previously understood. There are a variety of issues that when teaching adult education are important to make sure that students understand. The article had several other articles that may have been interesting but they were all very old articles that may not reflect the importance of these issues today. Kumi-Yeboah, A., & James, W. B. (2011). the relevance of multicultural education for adult learners in higher education. International Forum of Teaching & Studies, 7(1), 10-15. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Kumi-Yeboah and James state that there is a need for college students to have a multicultural education. The reason for this is because of all the immigration from other countries that happens regularly. One of the challenges for college students is that they do not know about other cultures except for what they read or hear in the news. These authors suggest that teachers must help students understand cultures as well as global identifications around the world. This information will help them understand how to work with different types of people later in their lives. The authors give several factors that should be involved in this type of education. I agree with the authors because I think that having a variety of people in a classroom lends itself to very interesting discussions. As an example, when the unrest happened in Libya, it was interesting to hear from a Libyan student’s perspective what the fighting was all about. This opportunity helped us as students understand better what was happening from a different perspective. This also allowed us to critically think about what we would do in this type of situation. Ollis, T. (2010). The pedagogy of activism: Learning to change the world. International Journal of Learning, 17(8), 239-249. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. The author related activism to adult education and studied the relationship between activism and life experiences of the activists. The study took place in Australia and interviews were conducted in order to understand how two types of activists interacted with their activism. Circumstantial activists were those people who had come to activism because of their own life experiences. These activists did not always support a cause, but they protested out of their need to protest. Life-long activists were those who had participated continually in some sort of activism throughout their life and who would protest for community issues and/or social movements (p. 239). The article gave an understanding of how adults learn not only on a mental level but also on the physical level but also on an “emotional and corporal level” (p. 241). The article was interesting and informative about the way in which activists are formed. They showed an understanding of the topic and how it applied to adult education. They presented several ideas as to why activism was important to adult education and the various types of thinking that happen because of activism. As an example, the fact that activists are involved in their communities and have contact with various city officials helps them understand their communities better and become a more integral part of them. They also talked about how the body comes into play when activists are working. The article was informative and very interesting because of the depth of information that was provided. Rogers, A., Hunter, J., & Uddin, A. (2007). Adult learning and literacy learning for livelihoods: some international perspectives. Development in Practice, 17(1), 137-146. doi:10.1080/09614520601092048 This article presents a series of case studies that are built around programs that promote literacy for livelihoods. They explain that people always have some type of livelihood rather they like it or not. They studied cases from around the world and realized that they all had some things in common. They found that in some cases, literacy was not as important in some countries as it was in others. As an example, a case study in Bangledesh showed that one woman found that it was more important to have a livelihood (a way of making money) than it was for her to be literate. She had daily responsibilities to take care of a disabled spouse and had to take care of the house, her children, and provide for her husband’s needs. This article was an eye opener for me because I think we all assume that there is nothing more important than to be literate. In the United States, this would be unheard of because of the emphasis on literacy. However, it was an interesting article because as adults, everyone makes choices about their lives and about what is important. Although this particular woman was offered literacy classes, she only went a couple days because she felt that it was something that she did not need. Although this may have given her a better job so that she did not work as hard, her feeling was that literacy was not a priority. Schrader, J. (2009). Governance in adult and further education. European Education, 41(4), 41. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Schrader’s article states that continued education for adults is necessary in Germany. Because of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has become more important for adults to have some type of adjustment to the way they are taught. This suggests that there needs to be some sort of governance that would lead the struggle to create a better adult education system. Although this article seemed to be unrelated to adult education, it does give a good idea of what another country struggles with in this area. The United States has several bodies of governance on the state, federal and county levels that decides how education should be done at all levels. The fact that Germany does not have such a process was interesting and was difficult to imagine. There seemed to be an attitude that adult education was not important in this country because there were other issues that were more pressing. The article also gave a suggestion by the author of a type of governance that may work in the German educational system. References Abbott-Chapman, J. (2011). Making the most of the mosaic: facilitating post-school transitions to higher education of disadvantaged students. Australian Educational Researcher, 38(1), 57-71. doi:10.1007/s13384-010-0001-9 Ausburn, L. J. (2004). Course design elements most valued by adult learners in blended online education environments: An American perspective. Educational Media International, 41(4), 327-337. doi:10.1080/0952398042000314820 Boshier, R., & Yan, H. (2009). Madame Li Li: Communist revolutionary, adult educator, lifelong learner. Studies in Continuing Education, 31(1), 45-59. doi:10.1080/01580370902741886 Desjardins, R., Rubenson, K., Milana, M., & United Nations Educational, S. g. (2006). Unequal chances to participate in adult learning: International perspectives. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 83. International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) UNESCO, Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Eskay, M. (2011). Harmonizing educational differences from an international perspective. Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, 6(1), 30-36. Retrieved from EBSCOhost Henschke, J. A. (2005). Perspectives on international adult education. Adult Learning, 16(1/2), 4-5. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Imel, S., & ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, C. H. (2000). International perspectives on adult education. Trends and Issues Alert No. 14. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Kumi-Yeboah, A., & James, W. B. (2011). the relevance of multicultural education for adult learners in higher education. International Forum of Teaching & Studies, 7(1), 10-15. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Ollis, T. (2010). The pedagogy of activism: Learning to change the world. International Journal of Learning, 17(8), 239-249. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Rogers, A., Hunter, J., & Uddin, A. (2007). Adult learning and literacy learning for livelihoods: some international perspectives. Development in Practice, 17(1), 137-146. doi:10.1080/09614520601092048 Schrader, J. (2009). Governance in adult and further education. European Education, 41(4), 41. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Read More