ABSTRACT
In his book on adult civic education, David Boggs (1991) writes that adult education agencies ‘have no higher purpose than to promote the attitudes and skills necessary for participation and involvement in a democratic society and to augment the learning that accrues when these behaviors occur’ (p. 12). And yet, in Boggs’ view, adult education agencies have routinely avoided this purpose, ‘preferring instead the placid environment of academic subject matter, certificates, and diplomas’ (p. 6). In so doing, such agencies have ‘relegated themselves to the sidelines and become peripheral observers to the task of establishing a democratic civic culture’ (p. 6). Boggs calls for adult educators and their associations to get off the sidelines and become actively engaged in civic life.
