Adult Education in the 1990's: A New Generation

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Adult Education in the 1990's: A New Generation

Vincent L. Stults

Ball State University

Introduction

The cutting satire of the Simpsons was still fresh over the airways, the internet was in its infancy, but growing at an exponential rate and influence. Nelson Mandela went from being in prison as a rebel because of the color of his skin to president of South Africa. The early years of the 1990's revealed sweeping change in technology, and in societies around the globe. The globe was changing: reunification of Germany; the collapse of the Soviet Union; and the end of the cold war.  The global change was even coming into our homes with the dawning of the dot-com revolution and the launch of the new media bringing the world closer. As a nation, the U.S. experienced unprecedented growth and prosperity, and faced death and destruction. The LA riots after the Rodney King decision, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Unabomber, and the shooting in Columbine revealed a dark side to our inner turmoil. This global world too was a smaller place and not all of it was good: the Gulf War; the 93 Trade Center Bombing; and genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda.

Yet this global realization was not all bad news, as Bhopal, (1998 p. 493-494) described it:

The positive side of globalism contributed to human solidarity, as peoples from all places on all continents began to feel a shared responsibility for the future of the human race. There was a heightened sense of urgency about healing the Earth and saving all the Earth’s creatures and their environments. Peoples agitated and acted for participative democracy, affirmative action on behalf of those culturally and historically oppressed, and the inclusion of all those that had been excluded. Human solidarity, peace on earth, harmony with nature, and sustainable development become important values. For citizenship in this global world, education became a necessity. Adult education acquired centrality.

Social Background

Globalization (Education for All)

In many ways this movement could be a chicken or the egg kind of global factor.  Yet it is clearly representational of many of the trends to unfold.  Perhaps the greatest theme for Adult Education in the 90's was rooted in the Education for all Commitment, by the World Conference on Education for All that took place in 1990  created by UNESCO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank (Haddad, 1990). It formed a backdrop behind the stage of adult education on a global level, and characterized many of the major debates that dominated adult educational theory in the 1990', spilling over into today. 

An aggressive goal to implement the programs and accomplish goals started the decade off with great enthusiasm. But by the year 2000 it was clear that efforts had failed. A new initiative in Dakar, 2000 recommitted to a refined understanding of the original goal and spelled out a plan to accomplish that goal by 2015. What is astounding about all of this is the redefinition of the key focus of the educational efforts. In conference after conference over the decade of the 1990's the six goals of education were further clarified and plans of implementation adjusted. Three out of the six goals clearly included the role of adult education even beyond basic adult education. They were (italics in bullets points mine):

• Goal 3 - Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes
• Goal 4 - Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults.
• Goal 5 - Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality.
• Goal 6- Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

But in almost every major decision the hope for adult education was pushed to the side or redefined to make the financial, organizational, time, and/or labor efforts more manageable. So primary education won out, while continuing to redefine adult education in terms of  basic adult education only, and even diminishing that as a priority against the greater priority of primary education for children and youth (Bhola 1998) and  (Toress, 2000).

Governmental Emphasis of Vocational Training

Starting in the late 80's and culminating in the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, the US  government moved towards a renewed interest and commitment to vocational training for adults in the 1990's.  Ruberson (2011, p. 4)  says it plainly, "The resurgent interest in lifelong learning has been largely informed by the need to ensure the competitiveness of national economies in the global market, employ-ability of the workforce, the integration of immigrants, demographic change, and the graying of populations in postindustrial societies."

The Internet and the New Media

It is clear that the internet played a key role in almost every trend in adult education.  Its relevance to distance learning, and lifelong learning are the clearest. As Maehl (2004, p. 13) gathered stats on the advance of online learning in the 90's the numbers are nothing short of amazing, considering the  decade started out with zero: "... distance learning courses and degrees... on two-year and four-year institutions from 2000–2001 is illustrative. These institutions offered an estimated 118,100 different distance learning credit courses during the reporting period, mostly at the undergraduate level," all applying the new technologies of the internet.

Technologies relationship to the other factors of the day for adult education is less obvious.  Merriam et al (2012, p. 44)  draw on a few sources to  demonstrate this factor: 

...knowledge has become an important business commodity that is readily marketed, due, in part, to the explosion of the Internet and other information technologies. Finger (2005b) and others (Cunningham, 2000; Schied, Mulenga, & Baptiste, 2005) believe that adult education is in danger of losing its social action orientation as it focuses on helping individuals cope with the overwhelming economic and other challenges that threaten their identities and survival. Learning in a global community can be empowering but it "can also serve as a mechanism for exclusion and control. The move to a knowledge-based economy means that those who have the lowest level of skills and the weakest capacity for constant updating are less likely to find sustainable employment (Schied, Mulenga, & Baptiste, 2005, p. 396).

Highlights

So what did Adult Education look like in the 90's? What are the main themes or ideas that can help us understand this time?

The Advent of Distance Learning

Maehl (2004:12) examines three trends in the 1990's that impacted the rapid advancement of distance learning:

• an emphasis on occupational preparation or human capital development
•  growth of for-profit providers with an acute sense of emerging market potential and the need to maintain high standards of service.
•  advanced technology in distance learning to an extent that outstripped earlier technology-based programs.

McGee and Green (2008),  discuss the connection of online learning to the idea of lifelong learning systems, and share several key Learning Content Management Systems that were launched in the 1990's.

• Angel™ – Conceptualized by Ali Jafari at Indiana UniversityPurdue
• University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and offered as OnCourse, as an institutional CMS, and then it was released by the newly formed CyberLearning Labs, Inc. in July 2000 and subsequently renamed ANGEL Learning.
• Blackboard™ – Founded in 1997, it offered its first software package to Cornell University in 1998. The company began by producing consulting services to the IMS Global Learning Consortium.
•  Educator™ – Conceptualized by Ed Mansouri at Florida State University, Educator™ was first released in 1999.
• Moodle™ – Designed by Martin Dougiamas while he was at Curtain University, it was first released in 2002 and supported through an active users and designer group who are committed to improving this open source system.
• WebCT™ – Conceptualized in the mid1990s by Murray W. Goldberg at the University of British Columbia from which the company was formed and the system released in 19961997.

Re-emergence of the Idea of Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning, Hake (1999, p.80) argued was one of the "hottest" focuses  in public dialogue concerning training for adults in the 21st century.  He also adds that , "Japan set the pace in 1990 with the establishment of the Promotion of Lifelong Learning Law and a National Lifelong Learning Council." Then he references "the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1996 starting programs on lifelong learning as "a reality for all. UNESCO even established a medium-term plan for 1995- 98 focusing on "sustainable human development, lifelong learning and peace. The idea of lifelong learning was also often a part of the idea behind many of the distance education efforts.

A Return to Critical Theory

Possibly as a result of adult education being, as Wilson and Kiely (2002) say, "epistemologically and theoretically stuck  in the history of Mezirow's transformational theory," there was a buzz of debate about reclaiming the role of the greater critical theory of Habermas that occurring in the 90's. Even more they emphasized that this shift was happening  by citing the rise and fall in popularity of dissertations "offering mostly confirmations of the existence of transformational  learning and incremental refinements to theory itself." This rise and fall, coupled with the need they saw for a framework that could help adult educators be better equipped to deal with the complexities of managing power in their role to help learners construct meaning from their experiences, and for their social lives was the driving force behind this call for a return to Critical Theory.

A Shift in Research Emphasize from Quantitative to Qualitative Research

Brookfield , 1995 argues that for a better understanding of the role of critical reflection in facilitating adult learning from their experience, there needed to be a move from the psychological quantitative approach to the use of ethnography and qualitative analysis, in order to move away from many of the ethnocentric biases inherent in this process. Wright (2003) reviews more than half a dozen authors of peer reviewed articles (from the 90's) discussing the disadvantage that the marginalized have in receiving the benefits of a truly facilitative learning experience, which she uses as the basis of her need to employee qualitative methods to her "investigation of linkages among local settings of everyday life, organizations, and translocal processes of administration," through an institutional ethnography.

Influential Factors

Leaders

Although many others could be listed as adult education influencers of the 1990's, and these representatives span multiple decades, their impact in this decade is unique. Mezirow and Horton for their influence on the beginning of the NAAPAE (Below), and Brookfield for his prevalence  in the  debates that ensued in the 1990's.

Mezirow and Horton

Simply looking on the internet for the history of the NAAPAE, it doesn't take long to see that some equate its start in 1988 (others 1982) as a failed start and other see its beginning as a consensus building time, but regardless of the process the North American Alliance for Popular and Adult Education (NAAPAE) emerged in the 1990's under the initial efforts of Mezirow and Horton. It was an attempt to create a "civil society" organization to connect North American and popular educators with one another, as well as being a part of the International Council on Adult Education (ICAE) which was a transnational-NGO for adult education. Though it is argued  by some that it never rose above the promotion of popular education. It lasted 21 years (Heaney 1996, p. 43).

Stephen Brookfield

Although there is not room to unpack his predictions, Brookfield's (1995,  p. 379) examination of the three big trends coming out of adult education in the early to mid 90's is eerily accurate. Each  of these three in fact touch in some way upon all these themes covered. He sees them wielding their influence "into the twenty first century."  These  trends are "(1) the cross-cultural dimensions of adult learning, (2) adults' engagement in practical theorizing, and (3) the ways in which adults learn within the systems of education (distance education, computer assisted instruction, open learning systems) that are linked to recent technological advances."  Each of these three areas, on closer examination would reveal trends of the day that have already been highlighted. Many of the key debaters of the 90's seemed to have his voice echoing somewhere in their tossing about of concerns and ideas. It wasn't so much that he was responding to but that he in many ways seemed to be articulating what needed to be said, and asking the questions that needed to be asked.

The Debate Over the Mission of Adult Education

In her feisty little six page article, Kerka, (1996) manages to pull together several concise sources to articulate the division present within the field of Adult Education in 1996. Although she wasn't the first to mention these ideas she certainly made it abundantly clear that this debate was rooted in something real. The debate was between those who saw their work as a call to social action and change and those who supported the status quo through market driven Adult Education or in accomplishing the call of government for training the workforce. The root of this tension exists in the answer to the question she asks:

Some believe that adult education was focused on a mission of social change in its formative years as a field in the 1920s. As it evolved and became institutionalized, the field became preoccupied with professionalization.  More recently, emphasis on literacy and lifelong learning in a changing workplace has allied it with the agenda of economic competitiveness. This Digest examines the debate over the mission of adult education: is it to transform individuals or society? It looks at whether adult education functions as a means of empowerment in a democratic society or as an instrument for maintaining the status quo (Kerka 1996, pp. 1-2).

Push for and Push Back Against Professionalization

Another theme being debated that could stand on its own during this decade (but also fits squarely in the debate over the mission of adult education), is the role of professionalization. Kerka's (1996, p. 3) words are insightful here as well: "Professionalization of adult educators also extends and upholds the existing system... they have a stake in maintaining the status quo, which could affect their approach and their responsibility to those outside the mainstream."

Implications

 

Remember the Story

"What the son wishes to forget the grandson wishes to remember." - Marcus Lee Hansen

Globalization

Multiplied by the speed of technological development, the dynamics of a global world impacted adult educators in a unique way. Not only was the world closer to them, raising an awareness of peoples and places across the globe, but it also brought them closer to the world, recognizing the struggles of their global brothers and sisters in ways never before experienced. But it was also somehow oddly reminiscent of the very history of their youthful discipline.

 

Live the Story to Recover the Mission

Governmental Emphasis of Vocational Training

Practically the shift from promoting "structures of opportunity" to an "individual learning" in the 90's means that, "learning in the workplace has now become the dominant understanding of the development of adult education in the early twenty-first century" (Rubenson 2011, p. 5). Coupled with a new global awareness and the reminder of the past role of adult education in America, there is a much clearer understanding of the rising debate on the mission of adult education, as well as the struggle over community action and individual workforce development concerns that now permeate every aspect of adult education practice.

The need to reevaluate its theories was the natural response, and again many found a return to the Critical Theory of Habermas a helpful exercise. His philosophy provided answers to the very dilemma being experienced in society as a whole. The external governmental pressure towards narrowing the focus of adult education to individual learning outcomes naturally moved many practitioners and theorists back to examining the mission of adult education becoming central debate of the day.

Leaders

Though the dream of this organization did not reach the aspirations of its founding, it relationship with ICAE and its connection to UNESCO is a curious one. Regardless of its outcome, it represented at an organizational level the global consciousness of adult education in the 1990's, as well as a connection to the consciousness raising work of the past, now at a global level being  mediated by the present voice of the day and this gave hope in light of the present state of affairs on a national level.

Brookfield seemed a tune to this helping to articulate the questions and potential means of finding answers. He of course was not alone and several others could provide an example of the leaders of the day, but the few sources used in this point to his work as a good representation. Additionally, this new brand of leaders did not want to embrace their power, but were recognizing the need to find the appropriate evaluative and information gathering methodologies to employ in this world were knowledge and power can easily manipulate the outcomes, and thereby continue to marginalize people. The need to for qualitative versus quantitative analysis would give a voice to those being studied and level the playing field for educator and learner and become yet another tool in critical reflection.

The Internet and the New Media

In the early days of the internet, 1992, before the commercial network and the our modern web browser David Clark a member of the Internet Engineering Task Force declared: "We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code." In 1996 John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace revealed the revolution that marked the spirit of the age:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone...You have no sovereignty where we gather... so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks... (Cybertelecom.org ?)

It is ironic that such wild idealism speaks both the truth and lies in the very same breath. Today the digital divide  is great with only 14.6 of the worlds 6.4 billion having access to the internet. Yet during the 90's adult educators were recognizing this challenge in the day and age of such revolutionary fervor. To some ideas that have been shared in this overview of the 90's by Cunningham (2000), and Finger (2005b) may seem extreme in their "socially conscious" quest for adult education, but such insight then towards the day we live in today should give pause.

A New Generation

Remembering what was forgotten or abandoned can reconnect adult educators with vital elements of their past and better prepare them to tomorrow. A return to the Critical Theory of Habermas can help to recover some of the vital elements lost in simply equipping people for jobs instead of facilitating critical reflection to find meaning for themselves and in their communities. Employing qualitative methodology over quantitative research methods can help adult educators better address the challenges of globalization, multiculturalism, and marginalized peoples as well as critically examine themselves. In so doing they can join in the greater story of the history of adult education who wrestled with similar challenges to find their answers. There is something about third and fourth generations that is not understood by the second generation. What the second generation chooses to forget in their quest for establishing themselves or their theories, the following generations wants to understand, and needs to make sense of anew in order to meet the demands before them. They are more aware of those connections between the past and their present realities, and more aware of what that means for the future. And their children will help their parents to remember as they are required anew to pass their legacy onto their grandchildren.

Here is a good conclusion for a new generation from others who could also be added to the list of  leaders through the decade of the 90's and into today:

As Cunningham (1988, p. 141) has noted, much program planning is based on an individual deficit model rather than an examination of "the oppressive structures in which people live." Programs are thus designed around learner deficiencies that may or may not be of concern to the learner. What is necessary, Cunningham and others assert, is for socially responsible adult educators to become aware of the "social as well as personal dimensions of learning and the capacity of education to respond" (Cunningham, 2000, p. 574). If one conceptualized any nation as composed of the state (governmental sector), civil society (voluntary sector), and the market economic sector), then how these sectors are related and how education serves these sectors become critical questions in understanding the relationships between adult education and society" (p. 574). Nevertheless, "adult education is given public support when the public can see the connection between education and the solution to a threatening situation" (Griffith & Fujita-Starck, 1989, . 172) (as sited in Merriam et al 2012, p.91).

 Implications

Summary of the History of Adult/Community Education

Areas	Summary
Social Background	·         Globalization (Education for All) ·         Governmental Emphasis of Vocational Training ·         The Internet and the New Media
Highlights	·         The Advent of Distance Learning ·         Re-emergence of the Idea of Lifelong Learning ·         A Return to Critical Theory ·         A Shift in Research Emphasize from Quantitative to Qualitative Research
Influential factors	·         Leaders/Institutions ·         The Debate Over the Mission of Adult Education ·         Push for and Push Back Against Professionalization
Implications	·         Remember the Story - By connecting with theories and ideas of the past (reclaiming what was lost) to meet the needs of the day. ·         Live the Story to Reclaim its Mission- By engaging in new methodologies and practices that authenticate the story of adult education and substantiate the legacy. ·         A New Generation - Embrace the challenges of the day and leave a renewed legacy.

References

Bhola, H. S. (1998). World trends and issues in adult education on the eve of the twenty-first century. International Review of Education, 44(5-6), 485–506.

Brookfield, S. (1995). Adult learning: An overview. International Encyclopedia of Education, 375–380.

Cybertelecom :: Internet History 90s. (n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/internet_history90s.htm#96

Cyr, A. V. (1999). Overview of Theories and Principles Relating to Characteristics of Adult Learners: 1970s-1999. Retrieved from http://proxy.bsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED435817&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Griffith, W. S., & Fujita-Starck, P. J. (1989). Public policy and the financing of adult education. Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Haddad, W. (1990). Meeting basic learning needs: a vision for the 1990s. Inter-Agency Commission (UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, WORLD BANK) for the World Conference on Education for All.

Hake, B. J. (1999). Lifelong learning in late modernity: The challenges to society, organizations, and individuals. Adult Education Quarterly, 49(2), 79–90.

Heaney, T. (1996). Adult Education for Social Change: From Center Stage to the Wings and Back Again. Information Series No. 365. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED396190

Kerka, S. (1996). ERIC - Adult Education: Social Change or Status Quo? ERIC Digest No. 176., 1996. Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://eric.ed.gov.proxy.bsu.edu/?id=ED402472

Maehl, W. H. (2004). Adult degrees and the learning society. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2004(103), 5–16. doi:10.1002/ace.144

McGee, P., & Green, M. (n.d.). Lifefelong Learning and Systems: A post-Fordist Analysis.

Merriam, S. B., & Brockett, R. G. (2011). The profession and practice of adult education: An introduction. John Wiley & Sons.

Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2012). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide. John Wiley & Sons.

National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy, B., MA. (2002). The First Five Years: National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy, 1996-2001. Retrieved from http://proxy.bsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED471275&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Schied, F., Mulenga, D., & Baptiste, I. (2005). Lifelong learning in a global context: Toward a reconceptualization of adult education. In, RJ Hill and R. Kiely. In Proceedings of the 46th Annual Adult Education Research Conference (pp. 395–399).

Torres, R. M. (2000). One decade of education for all: The challenge ahead. Adult Education and Development, 141–154.

Wright, U. T. (2003). Institutional ethnography: A tool for merging research and practice. Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/handle/1805/353