Power in Practice: Adult Education and the Struggle for Knowledge and Power in Society

337 Pages·2000·0.96 MB·English

by  Ronald M. Cervero

B u s i n e s s C u l i n a r y A r c h i t e c t u r e
C o m p u t e r G e n e r a l I n t e r e s t
C h i l d r e n L i f e S c i e n c e s B i o g r a p h y
A c c o u n t i n g F i n a n c e M a t h e m a t i c s
H i s t o r y S e l f - I m p r o v e m e n t H e a l t h
E n g i n e e r i n g G r a p h i c D e s i g n
A p p l i e d S c i e n c e s P s y c h o l o g y
I n t e r i o r D e s i g n B i o l o g y C h e m i s t r y
e
WILEY
B O O K
WILEY
JOSSEY-BASS
PFEIFFER
J.K.LASSER
CAPSTONE
WILEY-LISS
WILEY-VCH
WILEY-INTERSCIENCE

Power in Practice

Power in Practice
Adult Education and the
Struggle for Knowledge
and Power in Society
Ronald M. Cervero, Arthur L. Wilson,
and Associates
Foreword by Michael W. Apple
Copyright © 2001 by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, California 94104.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Power in practice: adult education and the struggle for
knowledge and power in society / Ronald M. Cervero, Arthur L.
Wilson, and associates; foreword by Michael W.Apple.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-7879-4729-6
1. Adult education—Social aspects. 2. Adult education and
state. 3. Educational equalization. 4. Cervero,Ronald M.
I. Wilson, Arthur L., date–. II. Series.
LC5225.S64 P69 2001
374—dc21 00-011644
FIRSTEDITION
HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword ix
Michael W. Apple
Preface xv
The Authors xxiii
1 At the Heart of Practice: The Struggle
for Knowledge and Power 1
Ronald M. Cervero, Arthur L. Wilson
Part One: Adult Education and Work 21
2 The Power of Economic Globalization:
Deskilling Immigrant Women Through Training 23
Shahrzad Mojab
3 Silent Power: HRD and the Management of
Learning in the Workplace 42
Fred M. Schied, Vicki K. Carter, Sharon L. Howell
4 The Power of Discourse: Work-Related Learning
in the “Learning Age” 60
Elaine Butler
5 The Power of the State: Connecting Lifelong
Learning Policy and Educational Practice 83
Kjell Rubenson
Part Two: Adult Education in Colleges and Universities 105
6 The Politics of Globalization: Transformative
Practice in Adult Education Graduate Programs 107
Budd L. Hall
vii
viii CONTENTS
7 The Power of Race and Gender: Black Women’s
Struggle and Survival in Higher Education 126
Juanita Johnson-Bailey
8 The Politics of Positionality: Teaching for
Social Change in Higher Education 145
Elizabeth J. Tisdell
9 Transforming Boundaries of Power in the Classroom:
Learning from La Mestiza 164
Mechthild Hart
Part Three: Technologies of Practice in Adult Education 185
10 The Politics of Access and Communication:
Using Distance Learning Technologies 187
Nod Miller
11 A Political Analysis of Discussion Groups:
Can the Circle Be Unbroken? 206
Stephen D. Brookfield
12 The Politics of Place: Producing Power and
Identity in Continuing Education 226
Arthur L. Wilson
13 Solidarity and Power in Urban Gay Communities:
Planning HIV Prevention Education 247
Kimberly B. Sessions, Ronald M. Cervero
14 Power in Practice: A New Foundation
for Adult Education 267
Arthur L. Wilson, Ronald M. Cervero
Name Index 289
Subject Index 295
Foreword
In the old mill town on the east coast where I grew up, it was hard
to miss the ways in which relations of inequality structured our daily
lives. Because of the impoverished nature of the city, caused in part
by capital flight, there were constant struggles to challenge these
relations in nearly all its institutions—in schools and colleges, in
labor unions, in community organizations, in families, in govern-
ment, in health care, in the justice system, and elsewhere. It was
clear to me and many other people that education inside and out-
side of the community’s formal institutions was central to the mul-
tiple projects of interrupting dominance. It is to the credit of the
authors of this book that I was immediately reminded of my first in-
volvement in the role of education in the processes of political/
economic/cultural transformation when I read it. The book feels
“real” in two ways. First, it is grounded in the realities of differen-
tial power. Second, it is not content to simply throw slogans at edu-
cational problems. That is, its chapters are serious contributions,
ones not content to engage merely in the rhetorical artifice that has
characterized too much of the recent literature on critical pedagogy
(Apple, 1996, 1999). Because of this, I believe that all those who are
concerned with democratizing education should welcome this
book. Let me say a bit more about this.
While some may deny it, we are not an equal society. Our social
system is crisscrossed by axes of class, gender, race, age, nationality,
region, politics, religion, and other dynamics of power. All of these
produce differences, some of which are more strongly experienced
than others, depending on the situation. However, these sets of
social differences are notisolated. They interact with each other in
a complex nexus of power relations. And because social power is
clearly not distributed equally throughout society, “any set of social
relations necessarily involves power and resistance, domination,
ix