Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education

Doing Migration in Adulthood

2022-09-19T16:45:21+00:00

Among the well-documented challenges faced by newcomers to Canada is the possession of Canadian experience (CE) as a prerequisite for successful entry into the labour market. Building on discussions that highlight the exclusionary functions of the CE discourse, this paper employs Dewey’s concept of active and passive experience and applies a doing migration framework in order to study how individuals interact with this discourse. Empirically, this paper draws on narrative interviews conducted with individuals with tertiary education who moved to Canada in adulthood. Using the documentary method, I identified three modes of engagement with CE discourse as replay and readjust, reset and move forward, and research and pro-act. Results illuminate the various forms of engagement, highlighting active, passive, and relational dimensions of doing migration. Concluding, I argue that such relational perspective has implications for adult education and the approaches taken to support individuals as they settle into life in Canada, as well as for theoretical perspectives on learning.

Parenting the Phoenix

2022-07-06T18:01:50+00:00

For many parents of transgender or non-binary children the experience is transformative learning (Mezirow, 1978). This life history study of 17 parents of children aged 6 to 29 comprised of 33 interviews, 10 participant journals, and an autoethnography. Findings from the data indicated parental learning was a holistic experience (Illeris, 2003), a balance of emotion, cognition, and sociality. When one domain of learning was overstimulated, learning could be disrupted. Parents restructured their conceptions of gender, working through understandings of gender from their past and new ideas of the present. Learning also occurred in two phases, a private phase of cognitive reframing and then a more public phase as parents learned to advocate for their child. Most parents were anchored by value of authenticity, and some mothers revisited the notion of “What makes a woman?” For some, working through discomfort was one part of the learning process.

The Place of Culture in French Curricula and Textbooks in Common Basic Education

2023-08-23T12:31:13+00:00

In recent years, the role of culture in education has garnered growing attention. An increasing number of researchers are exploring cultural mechanisms for classroom use and ways in which teachers can foster cultural awareness. Despite this, we found no research on the place of culture in liberal adult education and, more specifically, in common basic education. The following article speaks to the results of our research on the place of culture in the curricula and textbooks, where we examined the material presented and distributed at a liberal adult education center in the Laurentians to define the cultural notions in place and the importance granted to them.

Welcome Back

2023-05-31T11:26:13+00:00

Returning to education to complete Grade 12 or improve high school grades after a period away can be an overwhelming and or anxiety inducing event for many students. Upon their return to education, many factors contribute to student persistence relating to completion in Adult Basic Education (ABE). It is essential to understand these factors to ensure student success in these types of programs, particularly in rural areas. The current study samples 12 ABE students through attending a regional college in Southwest Saskatchewan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and reviewed through thematic analysis to identify barriers and supports in ABE programing. The study found that several supports—including flexibility, class size, and educators—were seen by students as contributing to persistence. Barriers to persistence with ABE centered around three themes: external factors, educational experiences, and personal experiences. The study finds that students in ABE programing are looking for positive relationships with educators and flexible program schedules to accommodate their adult life commitments.

A Case Study in Practice Architecture

2022-01-04T18:09:54+00:00

This paper investigates a trajectory of forty years of evolving practices in grassroots community development in southwestern Ontario. We present it as a case study that yields fresh perspectives in socially transformative ways of knowing and discovering. In doing so, we aim to elucidate traditions in adult education and social transformation that have ‘flown under the radar.’ Our analysis is based on hermeneutic analysis of written sources. Taking a practice theory perspective, we explore the practice architectures, i.e. the cultural-discursive arrangements, material-economic arrangements, as well as social-political arrangements that enable or constrain the learning of and participation in particular practices that contribute to social innovation. Our findings suggest that the application of a practice theory framework to the complex and often unarticulated work of community development aids in bringing to light the creative ways in which the associated practices emerge, get shaped and acquired. We will conclude by discussing implications for adult learning and community development.

Navigating Everyday Multiculturalism in the Culture Chats Writing Program

2021-07-15T17:20:28+00:00

Taking a grounded approach to multiculturalism and the lens of informal learning and community of practice, this study reports findings from a community-based collaborative research project that explored a group of immigrant women writers’ perceptions of and experiences with multiculturalism in a community writing workshop in Metro Vancouver, a highly multicultural and multilingual regional district in the Province of British Columbia. Drawing on observation, interviews, and written artifacts created by women writers regarding their experiences with and reflection on everyday multicultural encounters, we illustrate how learning possibilities and multilayered dimensions of multiculturalism unfolded within the quotidian intercultural setting of the writing workshop, and how the shared practices of writing and intercultural communication contributed to the construction of an ephemeral community of “hybrid knowing and knowledge.”

Women Pirates Learning Through Legitimate Peripheral Participation

2023-10-07T20:35:53+00:00

In this field note article, I discuss my in-progress historical novel about privateering in the 17^th century to demonstrate how adult education feminist theories of situated learning have influenced my fiction-based research. I introduce situated learning in gendered communities of practice, explain women’s experiences in (para)military organizations, and describe fiction-based research. I then compare theoretical concepts and quotations with excerpts from my fiction to explore feminist situated learning adult education theories, women in non-traditional roles, fiction-based research, and how women’s lives from the 17^th century connect to those in the 21^st. I conclude with a discussion of how adult educators can use fiction to engage with theory in their own teaching and research. In ways similar to Watson (2016), who argues that “fiction offers sociologists a medium for doing sociological work” (p. 434), in this article, I explore how fiction can offer adult educators a medium for doing pedagogical work.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

2020-12-17T11:39:22+00:00

This essay relates the learning journey that I have been on as a non-Indigenous post-secondary educator teaching college courses in an Indigenous community and engaging in learning and unlearning about Indigenous Peoples and their history and world views in Canada. What I wish I had known before teaching college courses on reserve includes (1) more about Indigenous Peoples and their history in Canada, and (2) the four Rs of my responsibility as a non-Indigenous post-secondary educator. My journey of learning and unlearning has just begun and will be ongoing as Indigenous history is long and complicated, and Indigenous knowledges embrace contextual knowledge and relationships emerging from a specific Indigenous epistemology.

Review of Educating for Action

2023-08-28T16:11:25+00:00

Review of The Costs of Completion: Student Success in Community College

2023-06-08T20:42:48+00:00