Representative of a wide range of adult education and lifelong frameworks and experiences, this book "gives voice" to emerging perspectives and offers thought-provoking critiques of established practices and accepted theories. Those in the adult academy, as well as "other voices" often excluded from the discourse in adult education, offer critiques of the social, political, economic, and historical forms of hegemony in the discipline. They analyze the ways in which these "hegemonic norms and practices" have affected adult learning environments and the participation rates of varying groups, and shed light on how education as a field of practice can marginalize individuals based on their ethnicity, race, gender, class, language, age, or sexual orientation. These critiques provide a powerful statement about silence, invisibility, and the marginalization of the "other," and suggest that adult educators may complicitly, if not implicitly, marginalize adult learners.

This book will provide professors and students, adult literacy teachers, corporate trainers, community-based organizers, and others with alternative ways to think about adult education practice, adult learners, and the multiple, intersecting realties that influence the teaching/learning transaction. In so doing, this book provides practitioners and academicians with a forum to dialog about emerging theories and practices, and through language that is accessible and inclusive.

Foreword The Beginning: A Response Phyllis Cunningham
Deconstructing Exclusion and Inclusion in AE
Opening the Gates: Reflections on Power, Hegemony, Language, and the Status Quo Peggy A. Sissel and Vanessa Sheared
Incorporating Postmodernist Perspectives into Adult Education David F. Hemphill
Challenging Adult Learning: A Feminist Perspective Daniele D. Flannery and Elizabeth Hayes
Talking About Whiteness: `Adult Learning Principles' and the Invisible Norm Sue Shore
An Invisible Presence, Silenced Voices: African-Americans Americans in the Adult Education Professoriate Sherwood E. Smith and Scipio A. J. Colin III
History Revisited and Claimed
African-American Market Woman: Her Past, Our Future Cheryl Smith
Creating an Intellectual Basis for Friendship: Practice and Politics in a White Women's Study Group Jane M. Hugo
Northern Philanthropy's Ideology Influence on African-American Adult Education in the Rural South Bernadine S. Chapman
Struggling to Learn, Learning to Struggle: Workers, Workplace Learning, and the Emergence of Human Resource Development Fred Schied
The Role of Adult Education in Workplace Ageism Su-fen Liu and Frances Rees
Classrooms and/or Communities: Contexts, Questions, and Critiques
Communities in the Classroom: Critical Reflections in an Appalachian Community Mary Beth Bingham and Connie White with Amelia R. B. Kirby
Education, Incarceration, and the Marginalization of Women Irene C. Baird
Adult Basic Education: Equipped for the Future or for Failure? Donna Amstutz
Teaching as Political Practice Ruth Bounous
Cultural Infusion: Reflections on Identity and Practice
African-American Women of Inspiration Angela Humphery Brown
Through the Eyes of a Latina: Professional Women in Adult Education Rosita Lopez Marcano
By My Own Eyes: A Story of Learning and Culture Lynette Harper and "Mira"
Using Queer Cultural Studies to Transgress Adult Educational Space Andre P. Grace
Feminist Perspectives on Adult Education: Constantly Shifting Identities in Constantly Changing Times Elizabeth J. Tisdell
Reconstructing the Field: Our Personal and Collective Identities
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Confronting Who `We' Are Merilyn Childs
Technologies of Learning at Work: Disciplining the Self John Garrick and Nicky Solomon
The Political Economy of Adult Education: Implications for Practice Jorge Jeria
What Does Research, Resistence and Inclusion Mean for Adult Education Practice? A Reflective Response Vanessa Sheared and Peggy A. Sissel