Connolly, Brid and Finnegan, Fergal
(2016)
Making Hope and History Rhyme: Reflections on Popular Education and Leadership following a Visit to Highlander.
Adult Learning, 27 (3).
pp. 120-127.
ISSN 1045-1595
Abstract
This article draws on our backgrounds as
adult educators in Ireland and our experience at
Highlander in 2014. We review our development as
critical educators, exposed to deep inequalities in
Irish society. We explore role of popular education
in fostering social change, beginning with the
commitment to equality and freedom, whereby, we
produce emancipatory knowledge with students
and participants. This learning process is more
explicitly political and collective
than individual psychological
concepts of learning. The
Highlander experience
provided the opportunity to
interrogate related assumptions
that underpin the concept of
leadership, pointing toward a
more collective and political
framework. The article uses
feminist critical theories as
lenses for this interrogation,
holding that equality and
freedom are mutually constitutive principles of
critical practice. Popular educators foster critical
thinking and reflection. The Other’s Tools, drawing
on the precept that traditional thinking reinforces
the status quo. These critical thinking tools are vital
to question the assumptions that power and control
in society as individualized or de-politicized. We
take this learning into our practice in Ireland.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
popular education; social movements;
critical practice; feminisms; leadership theories; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Adult and Community Education |
| Item ID: |
11137 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159516651611 |
| Depositing User: |
Fergal Finnegan
|
| Date Deposited: |
07 Oct 2019 13:59 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Adult Learning |
| Publisher: |
SAGE Publications |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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