Racializing Criticality in Adult Education

Abstract

This article examines two attempts to racialize criticality in adult education from an African American perspective. The first framework is second-generation critical theory, in which African American intellectuals reframe criticality as the awareness of a need for struggle against systemic racism. The second framework, Africentrism, proposes to reconceptualize criticality as an alternative discourse rooted in a distinctive Africentric epistemology. Each framework offers implications for adult education curricula and instruction. Questions about whether these positions are compatible or can be integrated remain open to debate.