Book Review: Tomasevski,Katarina. 2003. Education Denied:Costs and Remedies. London: Zed Books Limited. 224 pp. ISBN 1-84277-251-1

International Review of Education -     

INTERGENERATIONAL ACTIVITY ANALYSIS WITH THREE GROUPS OF OLDER ADULTS: FRAIL,COMMUNITY‐LIVING,AND ALZHEIMER'S

This study documents the effects of utilizing different types of activities (i.e., cognitive, rote, active, passive) in fostering positive intergenerational exchanges between preschool‐aged children and three groups of older adults—frail, community‐living, and elders diagnosed as in the early to mid‐stage of Alzheimer's disease. Results suggested that, overall, simple and largely unstructured activities with one or two steps and very few rules can be most successfully utilized with all three groups of elders when interacting with young children. Community‐living older persons and children were found to enjoy the widest range of activities, while intergenerational contact involving frail elders and those with Alzheimer's disease needed to be approached with care in order to maintain the dignity of the elders, the positive perceptions of the children toward the older generation, and the comfort of staff members.     

Paul Wangoola and Frank Youngman (eds.). 1996. Towards a Transformative Political Economy of Adult Education: Theoretical and Practical Challenges

International Review of Education -     

Book Review: Schweisfurth Michele,Lynn Davies,and Clive Harber (eds.). 2002. Learning Democracy and Citizenship: International Experiences. Oxford: Symposium Books. 304 pp. ISBN 1-873927-29-0

International Review of Education -     

Clearing the Theoretical Ground: Elements in a Theory of Popular Education

The author argues that a theory of popular education is emerging, the elements of which include (1) an emphasis on the relationship of education and learning to collective and emancipatory struggle, (2) an analytical framework which enables connections to be made between learning and education on the one hand, and analysis of political economy, micro-politics, ideology, and discourse on the other. The theory is tested through a case study of workers' informal learning during the restructuring of an Australian open-cut mine.     

The Neighbourhood House: site of struggle,site of learning

Adult education research has tended to concentrate on the pragmatics of facilitating learning and developing educational programmes in institutionalised settings. Critical, contextual analysis of adult learning, and studies of informal learning, are both relatively neglected in the adult education literature. Applying concepts drawn from contestation theory to data from two Australian women's learning centres, this paper suggests that, while women gain considerable knowledge from adult education courses conducted in community centres, the informal, incidental or embedded learning that takes place as women participate in these centres is also very significant. This experiential learning enables women to make sense of and act on their environment, and to come to understand themselves as knowledge‐creating, acting being. It appears that much of this informal learning is generated by conflict between people within the centres.