Adult Education Quarterly

This article explores literacy education, especially the kinds practiced and promoted by organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as a form of neocolonialism. Although researchers in other educational contexts have examined how schooling and education operate as a form of neocolonialism, little research has been conducted exploring this connection within adult literacy education. Using postcolonial theory and Thomas and Postlethwaite's framework for analyzing neocolonialism in educational systems, the authors present findings from a qualitative textual analysis of UNESCO- and World Bank—sponsored publicity and policy documents in which they examined two dimensions of literacy programs sponsored by UNESCO and the World Bank: (a) the purposes of literacy and (b) the funding of programs. Despite progressive shifts in how literacy is defined and practiced from colonialist Western control to local governance, for these shifts to continue, financial structures must be reorganized.

In 1996, the United States Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, placing emphasis on individuals to take responsibility for separating themselves from governmental dependence by becoming economically self-sufficient through employment. Using a qualitative approach, this study explored the experiences of 15 African American women as they transitioned from welfare to determine the extent to which they were developing economic sufficiency as a result of their labor force participation. It also sought the perspectives of employers on the work-first approach to economic development among former recipients and their chances of becoming self-sufficient through employment. The study found three systems of barriers to impede the participants' economic progress: the “work-first” philosophy, labor market conditions and employment practices, and personal history and individual responsibility. These findings suggest that a more integrative approach is necessary, one that addresses both the personal and structural dimensions of women's economic development.

This article presents empirical research exploring adult students' transition to higher education (HE) through a program designed to enable that transition. Wenger's Communities of Practice theory has been applied to informal adult learning by Merriam, Courtenay, and Baumgartner (2003), who suggested its potential for understanding formal education. Using this theoretical framework, adults' transition to HE is explored in terms of learning, participation in practices, and identity. Students were interviewed, and qualitative data analysis revealed that although they perceived themselves to be peripheral participants in the community, university regulations, and academic procedures sometimes undermined their feelings of legitimacy. Their experiences of the community's practices were mediated by individual, shifting identities and a sense of belonging. Their experiences are discussed in terms of the power of practice to include or exclude, and the concomitant identity shifts which may lead to fuller participation. Implications for the design of transitional programs are also discussed.

From the 1920s until 1949, foreign adult educators (mostly women) in the Shanghai YWCA worked to foster labor unrest and build a better world. Many started out as liberal Christians but ended up supporting Chairman Mao. They used street theater, mass singing, games, pageants, structured exercises, and “bible classes,” where learners read Communist literature. Their extraordinary efforts are largely unrecognized because many self-identified as homosexual and Communist. This study involved interviews and a close reading of English- and Chinese-language materials. Its purpose was to document revolutionary adult education (mostly for young women) in the Shanghai silk filatures (1920 to 1949) and to create an understanding of the work of foreigners such as Rewi Alley and Maud Russell and visiting luminaries such as John Dewey and R. H. Tawney. In China, there is a tendency to ignore the past. Yet 21st century adult education could be improved by understanding adult education in 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s Shanghai.