ABSTRACT
In a body of recent work in our field, the development of critical thinking and critical reflection have been proposed by a number of writers as organising concepts to inform adult education practice (Mezirow, 1981, 1991; Brookfield, 1987; Marsick, 1987; Garrison, 1991, 1992), although the tensions between what have been called liberal and socialist interpretations of these ideas have been noted (Griffin, 1988, 1989). There has also been a spirited attempt to explore the connections between the intellectual movement known as critical theory, or critical social theory, and the field of adult education (Collard and Law, 1991; Collins, 1985; Collins and Plumb, 1989; Hart, 1990; Little, 1991; Welton, 1991). It is not surprising, then, that encouraging students to undertake a critical analysis of ideas embedded in adult educational literature is one of the most frequently espoused aims of programmes of university adult education and that many assignments in such a programme focus on this activity. Collins (1991: 110) is typical in his insistence that ‘a critical practice of adult education needs to re-confirm the importance of writing as a means of careful expression’. For some of us who are lecturers and professors of adult education, written critical analysis is focused chiefly on deconstructing adult education texts for the political and social values which frame and inform research, philosophy and theory. This form of analysis draws on the Frankfurt school of critical social theory and neo-Marxism, and is concerned with identifying the dominant cultural values and hegemonic processes embedded in practice and the ways in which capitalist forms of organization are reflected in adult education provision. Practice, research and theory are scrutinized for the extent to which they do, or do not, pay attention to the variables of ‘race’, class and gender. Others, drawing primarily on traditions of progressive liberalism, see critical analysis as focusing essentially on exploring theory-practice connections and discrepancies, and on helping adult educators clarify their own implicit, informal theories in use.
