Critical adult education theory: Traditions and influence

Abstract

The notion of what constitutes critical adult education theory and practice is strongly contested, partly because the word ‘critical’ is open to so many interpretations. In this chapter, I begin by reviewing two major traditions of critical analysis that have framed much adult educational theorising. The first of these is Marxism and the attempt of the Frankfurt school of critical social theory to modernise Marx’s ideas for in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The second is the critical pedagogy tradition that draws especially strongly on the work of Paulo Freire I then examine the way that specific critically inclined streams of theorising such as transformative learning, feminist theory, queer theory, Africentrism and critical race theory have influenced theorising in adult education. The key to all these theoretical efforts is a desire for a theory to assist in the dismantling of structures of power by critiquing the ideologies that keep these structures in place.