Editorial: Adult Education in Troubling Times

• Published in: Canadian journal for the study of adult education 2009-03, Vol.21 (2), p.iii-iv
• Main Author: Nesbit, Tom
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult education; Adult Learning; Learning; Recessions; Role of Education; Social change
• ISSN: 0835-4944; 1925-993X
• DOI: 10.56105/cjsae.v21i2.1073

The third article by Peter Sawchuk brings together issues of work, labour organisations and the environment. He argues that the continued "greening" of the labour movement represents one of the key challenges of our lime and provides a powerful opportunity and impetus for new forms of organising, particularly in relation to sustainable production. Next, Tanya Brann-Barrelt looks at some of the methodological issues involved in conducting research with socially and economically disadvantaged young adults. She highlights specific challenges in regard to participant recruitment and retention and how they themselves might be encouraged to become more involved in the research. Her article exposes some of the inherent assumptions in research practices that inadvertently reproduce some of the inequalities they were designed to challenge and disturb. Finally, Michael Welton contributes an essay on the new forms of learning that occurred when European settlers like Christopher Columbus and Jacques Cartier first encountered new lands and strange customs. By documenting how such explorers filtered their perceptions and learning through their inherited cosmography, he offers an initial probe into how we might understand the history of adult learning in Canada before adult education was invented.