Issue 27(1)
Global
Issues and Adult Education: Perspectives from Latin American,
Southern Africa , and the United States. (2006).
Sharan B. Meriiam, Bradley C. Courtenay&
Ronald M. Cervero (Eds). San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 560pp.
$48.00 (hardback). ISBN # 0-7879-7810-8.
Review
by: Heather T. Zeng
Career
Counselor
Miami,
Florida
Global
Issues and Adult Education: Perspectives from Latin American,
Southern Africa, and the United States
is a collection of writings
by thirty-eight Houle Scholars. Houle Scholars, sponsored by the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation, participated in a Global Issues:
The Roles and Responsibilities of Adult Education Seminar
in Salzburg Austria.
The Houle Scholars' research revealed the following topics as
most vital to the adult education discourse: globalization and
the market economy, marginalized populations, global issues of
the environment and health, community empowerment through adult
education and relationships between lifelong learning and educational
systems. This compendium of work is a thoughtful assessment
of the far reaching implications to adult education and theory.
One
of the most provocative chapters examines the role of adult education
within a global community driven by the free market system. Chapter
author Daniel V. Folkman's synthesis of research and practice
culminates in a visual depiction of a Critical Frame- Reflection
Inquiry figure (p. 84) that depicts the forces at work in globalization.
These forces include values, community and problem solving approaches
whereby adult learners combine growing and learning to initiate
action. Advisors reading this chapter will understand the role
of the human triangular process of thinking, feeling and behaving.
This section affirms the cognitive behavioral process where solutions
can arise, for example, from individuals or communities who think
differently about a solution and take steps for positive change.
A
brief but striking chapter by Doria Daniels discusses visual methods
as an educational medium for research endeavors where there are
language limitations on the part of the researcher. Daniels suggests
that when conducting an ethnography, instead of using typical
qualitative methodology, the researcher might consider providing
photographs of the community for participant reaction. This evokes
Susan Sontag's comments: "Photographed images do not seem to be
statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures
of reality that anyone can make or acquire" (Sontag, 2001). This
visual method can play an egalitarian role in learning and adult
pedagogy that perpetuates a dialogue while validating the stories
of individual's lives and communities (and often transforming
pain or strife into valuable perspective for others). This certainly
can entice the adult education instructor, advisor, or counselor
into using visual methodology not only in research but perhaps
when dealing with students for whom English is a second language
or with other newly enfranchised individuals in an educational
institution or classroom.
The
text is multilayered in its approach to issues as diverse as supporting
education and training in communities with HIV/Aids, to adult
literacy, gaining volunteer support for adult education, and how
adult education can contribute to solving environmental problems.
This eclectic gathering of ponderings, research, and approaches
offers an extensive menu of selections that will challenge educators'
paradigms.
This Meriiam, Courtenay
& Cervero text is appropriate reading for the adult education
teacher, counselor, or advisor who serves populations who have
experienced some of the challenges of incomplete or marginally
functioning adult programs. Here editors offer a battle cry for
critical self-reflection amongst educators while partnering to
resolve some of the problematic issues of marginalization through
dialogue and effective policy implementation in adult education.
