2002 Conference (Dekalb, Ill : Northern Illinois University)
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Item ADULT ARTS EDUCATION: A DELPHI STUDY FORECASTING THE ROLE OF THE ARTS IN A LIFELONG LEARNING SOCIETY(2005-12-16T14:29:28Z) Laffery, Sue-AnnePoster Session-As we deal with a rapidly aging population, the arts education and arts policy community needs to take an active role in providing insight into policies that address adult choices. This includes defining the role of the arts beyond K-12 education, intergenerational opportunities, and identifying connections with ‘general well-being’ age-based policies from leisure, recreation, and aging in the United States. The Delphi Technique Method was used to identify what actions need to be taken to serve older adults and forecast the role of adult lifelong learning in the arts, as well as address the attitudes to such programming on the national, state, and local policy level. The anonymous Delphi – a qualitative forecasting method that is a structured group process that outlines the pros and cons of an issue, with the goal of identifying priorities of personal values and social goals – was sent to national stakeholders in arts policy, arts education policy, and gerontology. The stakeholders were chosen due to experience in their field, an exhaustive literature review, and recommendation from their colleagues. The data collected from this group identifies an overview of the attitudes, beliefs, knowledge of, and objectives and goals in serving the needs of adults and older adults in and through the arts. This research will provide insight into the characteristics and identify, if any, future predictions of local, state, and national initiatives of adult arts education. Using the Delphi method, it was possible to develop a theoretical framework based on experts’ vision, multiple perspectives, and comprehensive insight to address the role of the arts in a lifelong learning society. As we enter the twenty-first century, we are engaged in a wide-ranging process of redefining the character of the arts’ common purpose. The door is open for the arts to become an important ingredient in the public purpose by involving the many adult learners of the twenty-first century. In order to take advantage of this opportunity and to accommodate the changing aging demographics, lifelong learning in the arts beyond K-12 education must be redefined.Item ACTION RESEARCH FOR NURSE EDUCATORS:A MORE NOURISHING ALTERNATIVE TO EATING OUR YOUNG(2005-12-15T18:48:20Z) Berent, Georgine RPoster Session- Since Florence Nightengale began professional schools of nursing, socialization in the nursing curriculum has been viewed from multiple perspectives. University-based nursing programs include a professional nursing course at the beginning of students’ studies. This begins the professional development of students. A thorough overview examining the history and evolution of nursing demonstrates a gap in the socialization process and faculty’s influence. In this proposed study, the researcher will examine ways in which the nursing faculty communicates with the student nurses. The question to be explored using action research is: What are the implicit and explicit behaviors nursing faculty integrate into the nursing curriculum that socialize students? This research proposal asserts that Participatory Research (PR) methods impacting the curriculum will support and empower students in this important process. Gajanayake (2001) outlined an eight-phase cycle. This will be used as a flexible template for redesigning the early professional development nursing courses. Collaboration between students and faculty will stimulate the PR method. PR will provide the structure for joint faculty and student exploration of the problem. This methodology includes: 1.Identification of a problem or need: Fewer students are choosing a career in nursing. Many nurses are leaving the profession for various reasons. Many students and nurses verbalize the lack of support throughout nursing education. 2. Reflection: Faculty members and students will be invited through focus groups and interviews to identify the impact of the socialization process. 3. Investigation: Participants will explore historical influences that have changed the face of nursing. 4. Analysis: Data gathered in the investigation phase will be used to identify the major problems and suggest possible solutions. 5. Integration: With the analysis information, participants will stimulate curriculum change by sharing and publishing this research. 6. Action Planning: In this phase, we will engage in grant writing, obtaining administrative support, and coordinating faculty input. As a result, changes in the curriculum will be created. 7. Implementation: The curriculum changes will be evaluated and analyzed. 8. Transformation: The goal of these curriculum changes is an improvement in self-confidence and self-worth in the students and the faculty. This phase will only be able to be evaluated over a period of time. What is advocated here, then, is not merely a PR project but a curriculum “revisioning” with PR as the central pedogogical feature. As a new framework outside the traditional research conducted by nurse researchers, I am aware of possible resistance. I am hopeful that this beginning work will help to reshape and rejuvenate nursing curriculum.Item LOCATING ASIAN AMERICANS IN ADULT EDUCATION DISCOURSE(2005-12-15T18:49:57Z) Cabasa-Hess, Virginia APoster Session-As disparate as their countries of origin and their histories, Asian Americans share a common experience of discrimination, injustice and oppression with other minority groups. In spite of the notable gains and inroads made in bringing the voices of Native, African, Latino Americans and other minority groups of various perspectives and orientations to the center of adult education discourse, Asian Americans, more than a century after they came to work in railroads and sugarcane plantations have yet to find their ‘space’ in the field. There is a need to explore issues that relate to Asian Americans in the broader context of their participation in the mainstream socio-cultural and political processes and in the more specific context of participation in adult learning environments. The “Model Minority” label used to describe the group has pitted them against others especially in the allocation of funds needed to support marginalized ethnic groups. The stereotypic label obscures the presence of Asian Americans who live on the fringes of society: single mothers and fathers, women recruited into prostitution, men and women working in sweatshops, Asians caught in the web of international drug and human trafficking. Asian Americans, who do not fit the label and are ‘less successful’ than their peers could find it difficult to gain access to social and government services. Though the term is used in a positive light, it reinforces the dominant culture’s standards of success. It also prevents the conduct of research and investigations that may be helpful in creating policies that address their needs. Does the “Model Minority” label mean that Asian Americans can be successful so long as they do not question the existing inequalities in the society? Against which and whose standards is success being measured? What strategies of adoption and integration did Asian Americans use to succeed in this society? What did they give up, in return? How has being ‘successful’ in the mainstream society positioned them in relation to other minority groups? The strength of adult education lies in the field’s accommodation of competing interests and voices. The challenge to practitioners is to expand the space further to bring seldom-heard voices to the center, one of them, the Asian American voice.Item BRIDGING THE GAP IN ADULT CONTINUING EDUCATION FROM MARGIN TO CENTER(2005-12-15T18:50:48Z) Ham Garth, PhyllisPoster Session-Much of the adult education graduate curricula fail to include both content and practice relative to the intersection of race, class, gender and sexual orientation. This research seeks to conduct a critical examination of the underlying assumptions and perspectives shaping adult education graduate curriculum content (selection) and instructional practice (delivery). This critique will proceed from an Africentric feminist approach. Africentric Feminism is an ancestrally historically based paradigm that reflects the lived experiences, struggles and shared history of women from the Afrikan Diaspora. An Africentric feminist approach is embedded in a consciousness that espouses the affirmation of all people, female and male alike. It is imperative that there is a shift from the dominant (traditional) approach to organizing content around the lived experiences/worldviews of those marginalized or non mainstream, bringing their experiences and “voice” from the margin to the center of the analysis. This research consisted of an analysis of a foundational graduate course in adult education, a course in the history and philosophy of adult education that was taught in a traditional manner utilizing a dominant approach, and one that was subsequently taught from an Africentric feminist paradigm. The incorporation of Africentric tools such as historically ethnic appropriate material, the philosophical perspectives of Africentric/Latina(o)/First Nation scholars, the voice of Afrikana womanists, the struggles of Queer Nation provide selfethnic reflectors (Colin,1994) for various marginalized groups. By doing so, it exemplified the lived experiences and “voice” of “others” resulting in a more inclusive process. Diversity in the course content provides space that enables changes in instructional practice as well: insisting that power relationships are diffused as much as possible, encouraging co-learning, establishing norms for encouraging women to speak out, precluding more assertive students from monopolizing their voice in the classroom. Thus, students are afforded an opportunity to have a different classroom experience because they are directly involved in the discourse and the content is their story. This type of experience leads to the potential for an emancipatory learning experience. It allows those in the margin to be located in the center, and to feel centered. Being centered is very close to feelings of power because it is related to identity, this is when education becomes exciting. Conversely, students of the dominant group who have taken privilege for granted can have the experience of deconstructing that privilege. This type of teaching is one that can become exhilarating for both adult educators and learners.Item ADULT EDUCATION IN THE POST 9/11 WORLD: REFLECTIONS ONE YEAR LATER(2005-12-15T18:51:42Z) Tolliver, Denise E; Tisdell, Elizabeth JPoster Session-What is our place in the global community? For many, the tragedies of September 11, 2001 have elevated this question to a level of seriousness that goes well beyond a simple intellectual exercise. Issues of politics, power, and power relations have reached a heightened sense of saliency among adult educators and learners alike. A sense of interconnectedness with others in the world seems to be increasing. At the same time, some of the anger, suffering, and pain experienced in the wake of 9/11 has resulted in calls for retaliation against targeted groups and increased expressions of intolerance for diversity, different beliefs and different voices. Indeed, there have been many public responses to the events of 9/11 from the leaders of prominent organizations of higher education. They all speak to the important role that adult educators and learners have to contribute to a greater understanding of our collective place in the global community. Yet, it is important to ask how has 9/11 shown up in the classroom and other learning environments. Has it been like the elephant in the living room that no one wants to mention because feelings of loss and grief are too intense? Is it so present that it has to be included as part of the process, regardless of the content of a course? Has the nature of learning changed? Has the impact shifted as time has passed? It would make sense that the range of responses varies greatly. Little has been published to date, whether as anecdotal accounts or planned research, about how 9/11 has affected the day-to-day practice of adult educators. This poster presentation will contribute to this area by exploring the impact that the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001 have had on the work of the authors, both of whom are adult educators. We have reflected on how the actual events, our learners' and our own responses to the 9/11 tragedies have affected our specific educational practices. In this poster presentation, we will share the questions that have emerged for us, while identifying dilemmas and issues that we have encountered as we support student learning. We, the authors, hope to foster dialogue about how to utilize the emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and other types of responses to 9/11as a catalyst for learning larger lessons that can support transformative educational practice.Item EXPANDING THE SMALL SPACE: RASTAFARIANS AS KNOWLEDGE PRODUCERS(2005-12-15T18:51:24Z) Stanley, Cathy S.Poster Session-The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the lived lives of 20 Rastafarians, whom I refer to as co-reasoners. Rastafarians have been defined as being members of a loosely organized religious-cultural movement that begin in Jamaica in the 1930s as a response to the oppressive conditions in which they found themselves. There were 14 Rastamen and six Rastawomen, reflecting the male-dominance of the Rastafarian movement. The study examined how cultural and spiritual teachings and practices of the Rastafarians in response to oppressive conditions, and how this has had an impact on the dominant Jamaica culture. Findings revealed the following six themes of the cultural and spiritual experiences as described by the co-reasoner’s. Findings fell within two categories: identity and ideology. The themes in the identity categories are as following: 1) lens of know; 2) self-identity; 3) cultural identity; 4) collective identity. The themes for the Rastafarian ideology are 5) spiritual groundation and 6) traversing reality. The question guiding this ethnographic study asked: How do Rastafarians impact the dominant Jamaica culture? And how do Rastafarians contribute to the discourse on emancipation and liberation practices? The study draws on several bodies of literature including Jamaican history, Rastafarian, adult education, and Transformation and Transcendence.Item CREATION OF THE YELLOW PERIL: A STUDY OF AMERICA’S EARLY CHINESE IMMIGRANTS(2005-12-15T18:51:08Z) Leong Kappel, PatriciaPoster Session-Lured to Gum San (“The Gold Mountain”) by the discovery of gold in California in 1848, thousands of Chinese men left their families and a homeland, wrought with drought, floods, famine, and rebellion. Unlike most European immigrants before them, the early Chinese had no intention of building a new life in America; instead, they were intent upon securing their fortunes and returning home to their families. However, racism, nativism, and exclusion distinguished the experience of these Chinese immigrants from that of their European counterparts, and altered the course of their lives. Competition for gold was only one reason why the welcome extended the Chinese was short-lived. As the flow of Chinese immigrants increased, their numbers magnified their racial and cultural differences in a society grown increasingly intolerant and suspicious of foreigners. Their non-assimilation into a non-receptive culture fueled xenophobic fears that were exacerbated by the "contrary" presence exhibited by the Chinese in their appearance, dress, speech, and customs. In the Chinatowns, opium dens and prostitution flourished from the trade of the majority male population, whose bachelor life was imposed by restrictive, discriminatory immigration practices that kept wives and families from entering the United States. However, the White perception of Chinese immorality and criminality was ignited, and it intensified the collusive work of nativists and U.S. labor to take action against the influx of these “wage-busting” immigrants. As a result, educational, economic, social, and political barriers were erected, many by U.S. legislation, which included the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, naming the Chinese as the only people in United States history to be specifically barred from American emigration. This societal banishment of the Chinese created insulated and isolated communities. In these Chinatowns, the Chinese found refuge from murder and persecution through benevolent associations, similar to those formed around clans in China. With help from outside groups like the Methodist Mission House and the YWCA, the Six Companies, later known as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), provided a link to homeland and eventually to the White culture. The CCBA became a social, economic, and political force, which strengthened and established stability in this Confucian-based culture. Through the efforts of the CCBA and the assistance of sympathetic outside supporters, the Chinese survived the oppression of a hostile host culture and transitioned into American society to become a "model minority." Though both voluntary and involuntary isolation inhibited the assimilation and acculturation of the Chinese into the American mainstream, in time, education facilitated mutual acceptance. Formal educational institutions had shunned the Chinese, but they acquired the key to assimilation---language---from service organizations like the YMCA, the church, and their own Chinese benevolent societies. How the early American Chinese responded to and survived racism and discrimination is a study that merits greater illumination in our nation’s history. Moreover, the study of the Chinese experience unveils the important role of education in this people’s American history, a role largely absent from the literature on adult education. This omission in the history of adult education deprives practitioners of a perspective that could inform practice that serves ethnic and cultural minorities. Therefore, the American experiences of cultures like the Chinese mandate closer examination by adult education for their potential contributions to the understanding and knowledge of the education and learning of diverse peoples.Item THE SELECT 50 INITIATIVE: HELPING MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS ACHIEVE ACADEMICALLY THROUGH SCHOOL-FAMILY-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS(2005-12-15T18:50:14Z) Folkman, Daniel V; Hill, Lee; Stuckert, SusanPoster Session-This poster presentation summarizes a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project that involved helping 50 students identified as being academically at-risk in each of 12 middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This PAR project emerged from Milwaukee’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CLC) Initiative, which provides after school programs for students, families and community residents. The CLC Initiative has documented that after school programs help students academically. The challenge is to identify, recruit and retain students in after school programs that are at risk of failing academically. This is a particular challenge for middle school students. Accordingly, at the beginning of the 2001-2002 academic year, a group of 12 middle school principals with CLC programs were asked to select 50 students who were at risk academically. Parents, retired teachers, and local community residents were recruited to fill positions as half-time outreach workers. The outreach workers were charged with building and sustaining personal relationships with these students, their families and their teachers. The task was simple but challenging: Create a personal relationship that is based on trust, support and improved communication between the students, parents, and teachers. It was assumed that through this supportive relationship students would improve academically in terms of grades, attendance and overall attitude toward school. The focus of this poster presentation is on the activities and learning that occurred among the Outreach Workers as they implemented the project. The display highlights the array of practices that the outreach workers implemented, the challenges and barriers they encountered, the success they enjoyed, and the results they produced in student academic achievement. Representatives from the project are available to discuss the learning that occurred not only among the select 50 students but more importantly, from an adult education perspective, among the teachers, administrators, parents and community volunteers who work with at-risk students. The implementation of the project evolved over three phases: Phase I involved gaining entry into the schools and establishing connections between the outreach workers, teachers, principals and the CLC after school programs. This phase also included identifying the pool of students who were at risk of academic failure and recruiting students into the program. Phase II involved establishing connections with the students and building a relationship of support and trust between the students and the outreach worker. This phase also included building similar relationships of trust and support between the outreach workers, teachers and the parents of the select 50 students. Phase III involved the on-going work with the select 50 students with emphasis on helping them remain focused on their studies as well as maintaining the web of support among the teachers, parents, CLC staff and other caring adults.Item THE INTERPRETATION OF INFORMATION AND THE BIAS OF EDUCATORS IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH(2005-12-15T18:50:31Z) Gittens, GarthPoster Session-The physical enslavement of the Africans and African Americans necessitated, to a certain degree, the control of their worldview. Chains about the body were unable to quench the inborn desire for liberty and autonomy. The propaganda of African “mental” inferiority, though it was proffered on every front, outlived its validity. Slaves proved themselves to be intellectually equal and in some cases superior to whites. Therefore, educative methods were employed for the purpose of controlling their reality. Religion and spirituality, as witnessed by the presence of the conjurer, was fundamental to the slaves’ way of life. Religion gave adequate access and Christianity, with its proselyting ethos, provided a complementary motif for the indoctrination of slaves. Therefore, the education of adults for the purpose of establishing a Caucasianized worldview, not only for slaves, but also for masters, and the Old Southern community at large, came tinted in Christian hue. The most imminent schema of this systematic indoctrination as it related to slavery was to convince slaves, masters and the society at large that ignominious practice of slavery was not only justifiable but also necessary. Thus the conflation of Christianity and educating the adult slave fostered a perfect model for the extension of the Southern Aristocracy. Paradoxically, this very conflation violated, what some thought to be the fundamental tenets of Biblical philosophy. Emancipatory meanings and conclusions emerged from the study of the Christian documents. Many slaves, and some whites, saw the God of the Bible as the God of the oppressed not the God of the oppressor. Whites fought along side blacks with the Bible as the magnum opus for slave liberation. A subtle and deliberate process of reinterpretation and reeducation within the context of Christianity took place in the slave community. The Christian religion and education was again conflated but this time for the purpose of liberation. The quintessential question therefore is: how were Christianity and adult education used as methods for perpetuating the philosophy of white supremacy, by extension black bondage and oppression in the Antebellum South, while simultaneously providing an avenue for liberation? The Bible was the direct source of educational influence. To the aristocracy, and those sympathetic to the doctrine of race-based classism, the Bible justified the cognitively dissident concept of human-chattel. To most slave-preachers, abolitionist, and those sympathetic to the plight and posterity of African and African American peoples in the United States, the Bible propagated the liberation of slaves. In some cases, the Biblical bias was markedly subservient to the educative predisposition of its interpreters. Each group of educators found in the Bible, information that was pliable enough to be molded to suit their societal allegiance, and out of those discolorations they presented their theme as the ultimate law of Deity. Hence, on the one hand the Bible and Christianity was used to substantiate and prolong slavery and on the other its ethos was the liberation of enslaved peoples.Item TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING:INSIGHTS INTO WOMEN SEMINARIANS’ DECISIONS TO PURSUE ORDINATION(2005-11-21T18:27:49Z) Fewell, JilaineThe purposes of this study were (1) to discover and investigate the factors that influence women seminarians to alter their programs in order to pursue ordination, (2) to explore the connections between the emerging factors and Mezirow’s theory of perspective transformation, (3) to critique the theory on the basis of the emergent factors, (4) to explore the connections between the emergent factors and other strands of thought regarding transformative learning: consciousnessraising,development, and extra-rational/spiritual, and (5) to explore the impact of gender and traditional gender roles as a factor. Twenty-four women participated in this qualitative study. The data are presented through the stories of three composite women—Ella, Lily, and Sadie (pseudonyms). Telling the stories through composites made it possible to view the data through the lens of the four strands of thought regarding transformative learning and the impact of gender. The women had experiences related to the four strands of transformative learning to various degrees. All were impacted by gender. The study suggests four conclusions: (1) a new model for understanding the women’s decisions, (2) the importance of gender to the women’s decisions, (3) the importance of context and (4) power to the women’s decisions.