Interconnectedness of Adult Basic Education, Community-Based Participatory Research, and Transformative Learning

Abstract

This article argues for the beneficial interconnectedness of adult basic education as an educational practice, community-based participatory research as a methodological approach, and the framework of transformative learning, for exploring and theorizing about adult learning and education. It is elaborated that these three approaches are connected by shared core values that counter the dominant economistic discourse on adult basic education. A community-based participatory research project, comprising researchers with an adult basic education learners’ background, adult basic education practitioners, and the two authors as university-based researchers, serves as a local empirical example. Selected data from the research process illustrate how these three approaches complement each other and can show their inherent potential. Together, these three approaches establish a democratic space of learning and thus act as a resource of hope for education and research aimed at (self-) empowerment, emancipation, participation, and collective action toward humanization, democratization, and social justice.