Adult Education Today Is Being Research Paper

Learning communities need to be established, led by nongovernmental organizations, churches, women's groups, public schools, and others from a diversity of each society that engages in adult learning.

Meantime, global capitalism's forces have fully "infiltrated universities" and have "incorporated" global thinking into a great deal of adult education as well; hence, professor Peter Jarvis asserts that traditional adult education necessarily must develop a new approach to "counteracting the forces of consumerism" (Jarvis, 2008, p. 12). The author spends considerable time referencing globalization and the consumer society before outlining his take on adult education. In discussing adult education Jarvis makes a pertinent and salient point: since adult education has been "incorporated into the dominant system" there is a danger for those in adult education that have been "sitting in the sidelines of society for a long time" to be blown away by becoming part of the mainstream of education (Jarvis, 23). The danger, Jarvis writes, is that a critical understanding of what adult education needs -- and of the social processes that are occurring -- cannot be achieved from within the system. It's impossible to have "objective moral authority from within the system" and hence Jarvis fears traditional adult education is in danger of losing its identity (23).

If Jarvis' assertions are true, then what's the solution? Echoing Giraldo's essay, Jarvis believes that new forms of adult education are needed and will be forthcoming; perhaps by using digital means, such as "modern techniques of information transmission" like Internet campaigns (think distance learning), adult education can again raise "public awareness" so that adult education can again play a "major moral role" in this consumer society (24).

In conclusion, if adult education is being pushed to the back of the bus so to speak, and otherwise becomes insignificant up by the forces of capitalization and globalization, alert educators need to form networking alliances and re-write the rules and the goals of adult education.Works Cited

Giraldo, Monica Arboleda. (2007). Dreaming of Holistic Adult Education in 2020. Adult

Learning, 18(3/4), 14-19.

Gois, William. (2007). Migration and Adult Education. Convergence, XL (3.4), 217-224.

Holst, John D. (2004). Globalization and Education Within Two Revolutionary Organizations

in the United States of America: A Gramscian Analysis. Adult Education Quarterly, 55(1),

23-40.

Jarvis, Peter. (2008). The Consumer Society: Is There a Place for Traditional Adult Education?

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