Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education

A New French Translation of Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Eluza Maria Gomes — 2023-08-27

Adult Education and Inclusion Issues in the College Sector

Jean-Pierre Mercier — 2023-08-27

College Continuing Education

Jonathan Martel — 2023-08-27

Based on a systematic literature review, we demonstrate that college continuing education in Quebec is poorly represented in colleges’ specialized publications and generally absent from the field of educational research, despite its importance in the field of professional and technical training. We first describe the context of adult college education and training in Quebec and demonstrate its significance as a distinct training sector. We then present findings from our exhaustive literature review. Using these results, we show that despite its role in adult education, college continuing education in Quebec remains an unexplored research area. To conclude, we present hypotheses that may explain this lack of visibility and suggest potential research avenues on a subject that merits greater consideration.

Adult Education in Quebec CEGEPs and Public Policy

Pierre Doray — 2023-08-27

The authors examine the development of adult education in Quebec’s cégeps from 1960 to 2022. Situated within a sociology of public action framework, they reflect on the effects of political cycles on adult education in these institutions. They use documents from government and civil authorities and analyze the evolution of adult student populations to understand their position in the college milieu and identify social inequalities affecting access to education. This analysis describes three periods of development in adult education in Quebec that correspond to three public policy regimes: providentialist education policy, the professionalization of adult education, and lifelong learning policies. Descriptions of each period illustrate these ongoing processes and shed light on the significance of policy conversion between periods. The third period intensified the potential effects of the COVID-19 crisis.

Balancing Family Life and College Studies

Jean-Pierre Mercier — 2023-09-05

Education-family-work balance presents significant challenges for student parents, especially student mothers. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated interactions between these life spheres by eroding the borders between them. This study explores the education-family-work needs of student mothers at a Quebec cégep, as well as institutional strategies implemented by the cégep to meet these needs. The college component of this field research was conducted during the second wave of COVID-19 in Quebec. This study also sheds light on education-family-work balance during unprecedented circumstances. Understanding student mothers’ needs and institutional strategies that address education-family-work balance is important to eliminate obstacles, particularly institutional obstacles, that prevent these women from accessing education. This study adopts an inclusive approach to adult education attentive to the specificity of their needs.

Perspectives on learners Transitioning from Adult General Education to CÉGEP

Marie (Aurélie) Thériault — 2023-08-31

This article examines the transition of learners in adult general education (“formation générale des adultes”, or “FGA”) who decide, after obtaining their high school diploma in this educational framework, to register in college programs. The ethnographic inquiry approach used for this research relies on Long's theoretical model (1989) and Bélanger's lifelong learning model (2011). On this rarely addressed subject, pedagogical expertise in the field is engaged in a co-construction process from an adult education perspective. The psychological, pedagogical, and andragogical issues at play show the significant commitment adult learners must make and the reconstructive path they have chosen to facilitate social integration. The need to create a bridge between FGA and the college environment is presented as a way to support the educational emancipation of adults in Quebec society.

Inclusive College Education

Nathalie Trépanier — 2023-09-05

Based on an independent study carried out in 2016-2017, our text presents and questions specific results that challenge college teachers to make success accessible to as many of their students as possible by adapting their teaching with or without training, support, or specific benchmarks. Questions are raised about the effective implementation of these practices and their potential impact on students most vulnerable to failure or dropping out, whether identified as students with disabilities (SD) or not, a group to which adult general education (AGE) students are likely to belong. Questions are also raised about issues in teacher training and its repercussions on the success of teachers’ most vulnerable students.

Experiences and Learnings in a Reading Group of Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Laurence Bergeron Michaud — 2023-08-27

During the winter and spring of 2022, we participated in a reading group that read Paulo Freire’s La pédagogie des opprimé.es (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (Freire, 2021), recently published by Les Éditions de la rue Dorion. Throughout our participation, we took notes, sometimes for ourselves, sometimes for the group at large. Each time, the notes were written with the intention of documenting the participatory experience and learning from them. A few months after participating in the group, we reread our notes, which had most often been written a few days after the group had met. With the help of these notes and the memories they evoked, we reconstituted our experience of the meetings and the lessons that resulted. In the category of field notes, the goal of this article is to present these experiences and learnings.