Adult Educators for Social Change, the Experience from Halifax in the 1980s and 1990s

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis examines the practice of adult education for social change in Halifax, Nova Scotia during the 1980s and 1990s. The study is based on the analysis by Finger (1989), Hart (1990), Holford (1995) and Welton (1993) of the role of adult educators who work with social movements. The study begins by examining the context of the geography, history and political economy of Halifax and the tradition of adult education for social change in the city. It then examines the lack of a theory of adult education for social change in the North American adult education literature in English of the 1970s and 1980s (Houle 1972, Kidd 1973, Knowles 1980) and the development of the theory of adult education for social change in the 1990s. For the analysis of practice the study develops the concepts of subject positions and social imaginaries from the writings of Foucault (1983) and Mouffe (1988). The dissertation includes narratives describing 18 programs that involve adult educators working for social change. These narratives describe adult educators working with community groups, establishing knowledges and identities and negotiating, establishing and losing power. This is followed by an analysis of the institutional dynamics of adult educators employed by educational and community institutions while working with social movement groups. The analysis includes an examination of the creation of agency through the formation and development of subject positions and the creation of new social images, identities and communities. The dissertation concludes with implications for the theory of adult education for social change and the need for new social images for Halifax.Ph.D