Connolly, Brid (2008) Praxis, Critical Pedagogy and Critical Adult and Community Education. PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
My motivation for undertaking this research stemmed from the fascination I had in the
ways of working with adult learners and the way in which adult and community
education was a powerful tool for change. The purpose of this study was to explore this
interest in close detail, examining how praxis, the cycle of action and reflection, and
critical pedagogy in adult and community education might work towards social
transformation. Critical pedagogy, the dynamic interaction between ‘really useful
knowledge’, the educators and the learners, in the learning environment, lacked an
ingredient that I sought to uncover in the study. What do adult educators do that enables
them and the learners to act upon the world?
The literature centred on critical pedagogy in mainstream education, feminist pedagogy,
praxis and critical consciousness. It conceptualised the study with a brief overview of
Ireland, with a particular focus on inequalities and injustice.
To gather data, I interviewed fifteen critical adult educators, policy workers and other
stakeholders, asking how they developed their critical outlooks, and further, inquiring
how critical pedagogy was carried out. The research endeavoured to be congruent with
adult and community education, and thus, focused on the stories that the interviewees told
about their lives. Their reflections revealed their aspirations to work for social justice,
particularly through adult and community education.
The study found that the practice which aimed to develop critical consciousness
comprised a wide variety of methods, ‘really useful methods’, which engaged learners,
motivating them to think critically, to discuss and to question. That was a way to create
the environment for acting upon the world.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
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Keywords: | Praxi; Critical Pedagogy; Adult and Community Education; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Education |
Item ID: | 5084 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 03 Jul 2014 08:51 |
URI: | https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/5084 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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