La unión hace la fuerza: Community Organizing in Adult Education for Immigrants

Abstract

Adult English as a second language (ESL) educators have struggled to move beyond skills-based instruction to implement more student-centered, contextualized pedagogy that prepares students to become active citizens and to solve real-world problems, even as the growing number of immigrants make adult education increasingly important for determining the future of civic life in the United States. In this article, Russell Carlock investigates how community organizing can support adult education to foster democratic engagement among immigrant parents. The author co-taught and observed ESL classes with a community-based organization in the Boston area and examined how organizing strategies supported a content-based, student-centered curriculum that encouraged immigrant parents' civic engagement in their children's school and the wider community. Ethnographic data revealed two components of community organizing that catalyzed activism among immigrant parents in an adult ESL class: building a civic learning community and developing a public voice. Findings suggest that adult educators may use organizing to facilitate deeper learning and civic action among students.