Adult Education, transformation and social justice

Abstract

First paragraph: Critics of the dominant model of education argue that the education curriculum across nations has a strong utilitarian function, which selects and distributes dominant education in different ways to different social groups, reproducing class inequalities which fail to address issues of power relations in the learners’ lives. We see, for example, the hidden curriculum of formal schooling serving and reflecting the social, economic and moral hierarchy that drives the needs of neo-liberal global capitalism, a framework that is closely bound to ideologies that stem from production and economic values. Where the dominant discourse, political focus and language of policy highlight only the performative function of education in getting work or securing ‘better’ work, the broader values of education aligned to the value of the individual beyond economic productivity are lost. It is within this context that educational systems shape identities and notions of worth and indeed lack of worth. Within this performative landscape humanistic, transformative and holistic visions of lifelong learning for all have been marginalised, silenced and neglected