Popular Education

Popular education is a term which has been used for a considerable time. At the outset, however, it should be pointed out that there are multiple perspectives, but they do not “speak” much to each other. There is a tendency to define popular education in narrow and formulaic terms, according to which tradition one is drawing on. I counter this by discussing four traditions and attempt to distil common features across the multiplicity.

This paper arguments that if competency assessment is to make any contribution as a potentially “liberating” curriculum strategy for struggles of community development and self-determination then it needs to contest the authoritarianism of the national qualification frameworks that have been established in Australia and New Zealand. This article critiques research and policy efforts, in particular for indigenous learners which seek to merely make authoritarian curriculum and assessment structures more culturally appropriate, more accessible and equitable rather than changing and democratising the structures themselves.

Environmental education that fosters meaningful community participation and learning has been considered a requisite to sustaining our human and natural environments in many of the global conferences, agreements, declarations and charters since the 1972 UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm. Despite this growing consensus there is a small amount of published research in Australia in this field of practice we have decided to call popular and informal environmental education – education that often involves adults in social action. The authors argue, however, that there is no shortage of educational practice that can be described as popular and informal environmental education. The autors propose a typology that will assist in defining this field of practice and establish theoretical links with the emerging field of environmental adult education.

The author presents first-hand and personal accounts of what popular education looks like in a classroom. Barbara Bee has had over 30 years teaching experience in adult education programs with poor and disadvantaged learners. She is regarded as one of the leading Australian practitioners in that time who drew inspiration from Paulo Freire. She describes how teaching in the 1970s and 1980s was so different to today. Back then teachers were encouraged to negotiate the curriculum with students. But today teachers are expected to adhere to a tightly prescribed set of curriculum and assessment guidelines.

Adult learning professionals are understood in the context of European Policy as key factor for the quality of adult education. In this paper a transnational European study programme, the European Master in Adult Education, is focussed on as an academic contribution to the professionalization of adult learning professionals: What core themes of European Adult Education can be identified? What didactic approaches are required for a transnational curriculum? How is the labour market taken into consideration? A student survey and documents from the development process of the programme constitute the empirical basis for the article. The authors conclude by asking: What are the possible “effects” of a transnational study programme regarding the professionalization of European Adult Education.