Representative of a wide range of adult education and lifelong learning frameworks and experiences, this book gives voice to emerging perspectives and offers thought-provoking critiques of established practices and accepted theories. Those in the adult education academy, as well as other voices often excluded from the discourse in adult education, offer critiques of the social, political, economic, and historical forms of hegemony in the discipline. They analyze the ways in which these hegemonic norms and practices have affected adult learning environments and the participation rates of varying groups and shed light on how adult education as a field of practice can marginalize individuals based on their ethnicity, race, gender, class, language, age, or sexual orientation. These critiques provide a powerful statement about silence, invisibility, and the marginalization of the other, and suggest that adult educators may complicitly, if not implicitly, marginalize adult learners. This book will provide professors and students, adult literacy teachers, corporate trainers, community-based organizers, and others with alternative ways to think about adult education practice, adult learners, and the multiple, intersecting realities that influence the teaching/learning transaction. In so doing, this book provides practitioners and academicians with a forum to dialog about emerging theories and practices, and through the discourse they can begin to merge theories and practices through language that is accessible and inclusive.

Table of Contents:
Foreword: The Beginning: A Response by Phyllis Cunningham Deconstructing Exclusion and Inclusion in AE Opening the Gates: Reflections on Power: Hegemony, Language, and the Status Quo by Peggy A. Sissel and Vanessa Sheared Incorporating Postmodernist Perspectives into Adult Education by David F. Hemphill Challenging Adult Learning: A Feminist Perspective by Daniele D. Flannery and Elizabeth Hayes Talking about Whiteness: Adult Learning Principles and the Invisible Norm by Sue Shore An Invisible Presence, Silenced Voices: African-Americans in the Adult Education Professoriate by Sherwood E. Smith and Scipio A.J. Colin III History Revisited and Claimed African-American Market Woman: Her Past, Our Future by Cheryl Smith Creating an Intellectual Basis for Friendship: Practice and Politics in a White, Women's Study Group by Jane M. Hugo Northern Philanthropy's Idealogical Influence on African-American Adult Education in the Rural South by Bernadine S. Chapman Struggling to Learn, Learning to Struggle: Workers, Workplace Learning, and the Emergence of Human Resource Development by Fred Schied The Role of Adult Education in Workplace Ageism by Su-fen Liu and Frances Rees Classrooms and/or Communities: Contexts, Questions, and Critiques Communities in the Classroom: Critical Reflections on Adult Education in an Appalachian Community by Mary Beth Bingman and Connie White, with Amelia R.B. Kirby Education, Incarceration, and the Marginalization of Women by Irene C. Baird Adult Basic Education: Equipped for the Future or for Failure? by Donna Amstutz Teaching as Political Practice by Ruth Bounous Cultural Infusion: Reflections on Identity and Practice African-American Women of Inspiration by Angela Humphrey Brown Through the Eyes of a Latina: Professional Women in Adult Education by Rosita Lopez Marcano By My Own Eyes: A Story of Learning and Culture by Lynette Harper and "Mira" Using Queer Cultural Studies to Transgress Adult Educational Space by AndRE P. Grace Feminist Perspectives on Adult Education: Constantly Shifting Identities in Constantly Changing Times by Elizabeth J. Tisdell Reconstructing the Field: Our Personal and Collective Identities Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Confronting Who 'We' Are by Merilyn Childs Technologies of Learning at Work: Disciplining the Self by John Garrick and Nicky Solomon The Political Economy of Adult Education Implications for Practice by Jorge Jeria What Does Research, Resistance, and Inclusion Mean for Adult Education Practice? A Reflective Response by Vanessa Sheared and Peggy A. Sissel