Rewriting the History of Adult Education: The Search for Narrative Structures

Abstract

This article questions the traditional narratives used in writing the history of adult education. It challenges the standard narratives as records of the celebrated history of national educational movements, and the success of well-known adult educational institutions, policies, and reformers. Rather than accounts in terms of eras, the recognition of formative periods is proposed. It is argued that it is necessary to take more account of the contribution of social movements to the social organization of the historical development of formal, nonformal, and informal learning. The history of adult education has to be located in relation to the broader dynamics of social change and conflict. This will contribute to the rewriting of narratives in terms of the unremembered, unsuccessful, and embarrassing events in the history of the social organization of adult learning in difficult times.