By Means of Critical Theory: Informed Emancipatory Education – An Essay on Realities and Possibilities

By Means of Critical Theory: Informed Emancipatory Education – An Essay on Realities and Possibilities

Gabriele Strohschen
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8598-6.ch073
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Abstract

So-termed non-traditional adult students have become a key target for marketing efforts in higher education, and non-conventional, accelerated paths to university-issued degrees are the lure du jour in the business of selling education programs. A key ethical challenge in our profession remains how we align the education of adults according to the higher education institutions' mission statements to the education adults seek and actually receive.  This chapter calls for considering the realities and possibilities of socially responsible educating when institutions are accountable to myriad stakeholders to peer at this issue through the lens of emancipatory education informed by tenets of critical theory. The argument hopes to engage the readers in problem-posing so that cross-sector, collaboratively designed education options can be considered that are contextual rather than prescriptive in nature and which align to the indigenous needs of teachers, learners, institutions, and communities.
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Introduction

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”

― Albert Einstein

Toward Problem-Posing

What is the purpose of education for adults? This simple question elicits diverse answers. Consider for a moment the variety of underlying assumptions and the concomitant considerations that are at the root of pondering the question when we ask different stakeholders about the purpose of educating adults. Drilling deeper, we may further ask: Toward what end do adult educators facilitate learning? Who determines the kind of transformation education programs are to achieve for adult learners? Whose reality are we reproducing with adult education programs? Whose reality are we affecting and how? The issue at hand in our field is that the power over the why, what, and the how of teaching is unilaterally maintained by those institutions, who sell their education products; namely education programs for which they award a coupon that declares one an educated adult. How did we arrive at this?

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