Papers by Shirley Walters
European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults
The climate catastrophe is a clarion call to humanity to change how we live. How do radical popul... more The climate catastrophe is a clarion call to humanity to change how we live. How do radical popular educators respond to this call? We ‘join the dots’ using climate justice, ecofeminism and our own insights from our engaged activist scholarship as theoretical positions to explore this question. Dominant Western worldviews which separate humans from other life forms contribute to ecological degradation. For climate justice, this hard-wired worldview needs to be disrupted. Drawing on multiple examples from Africa, we conclude that ways to do this require the foregrounding of cognitive justice which includes recognising the validity of multiple knowledges, learning from others and supporting communities’ in their struggles for reparation, reclamation and conservation of their land. These actions can be amplified in engagements which disrupt the unsustainable behaviour and policies of the wealthy. We argue that radical popular education in these times is climate just and ecofeminist.
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This study describes and analyses the challenges encountered in a recent case of global collabora... more This study describes and analyses the challenges encountered in a recent case of global collaboration in developing a web-based masters program for adult educators. “Agency,” “structure,” and “frame factor” are used as analytical concepts to help understand the dynamics of the collaboration and the character of the program produced
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Southern African Journal of Environmental Education
Drawing on the working lives of popular educators who are striving for socioeconomic and socio-ec... more Drawing on the working lives of popular educators who are striving for socioeconomic and socio-ecological justice, we demonstrate how popular education is a form of care work which is feminised, often undervalued and unrecognised as highly skilled work. It is relational work that aims to forge solidarity with communities and the environment. Given the state of the planet, the radical transformations that are needed, and the future projection of ‘work’ as including the care economy in large measure, we argue that popular education is a generative site for further exploration of research into work and learning. However, to move popular education as work from the margins means to rethink the current economic system of value. Addressing the contradiction that undervalues work for life/living, popular education engages transformative action motivated by a deep sense of solidarity and a focus on imagining alternatives as an act of hope.Keywords: work and learning, popular education, care...
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Activists and scholars committed to lifelong learning for social justice and democratic citizensh... more Activists and scholars committed to lifelong learning for social justice and democratic citizenship have devised a framework for transforming higher education in the new South Africa. The author draws on this work, developed at the University of the Western Cape, to examine the extent to which her own institution is addressing the challenges it presents. The former context of apartheid has left a legacy where few black and poor people – particularly women – have had experience of higher education. To realize the potential of lifelong learning in an emancipatory narrative requires an awareness of issues for change for individuals and organizations. Ultimately, it involves challenging ideas and assumptions about identity, pedagogy, epistemology and power relations.Web of Scienc
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This special issue of the Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training (JOV... more This special issue of the Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training (JOVACET) presents a collection of research papers on adult learners’ access to learning opportunities in post-school education and training (PSET). It was prompted by a conference entitled, Access, barriers to participation and success for adult learners: Rethinking equity and social justice in post-school education, held in Cape Town on 24–25 November 2018, where early versions of the articles featured were presented.
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Dimensions of Adult Learning, 2020
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Studies in the Education of Adults, 2018
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International Review of Education, 2020
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Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training, 2018
In Cape Town we have been experiencing the most severe drought in our history. We are not alone.O... more In Cape Town we have been experiencing the most severe drought in our history. We are not alone.Other cities – for example, in the United States, Brazil, Spain, Belgium, Australia, Morocco andPakistan – are also learning to live under new, more extreme, drought conditions. In this article Iuse the local drought as an aperture through which to identify key insights into how adult learningand education (ALE) can and should respond in times of climate crisis. The article is exploratory, asthe ambitious topic opens up a raft of complex economic, socio-ecological and political issueswhich can only be touched upon. It aims to prompt deeper conversations about ALE and climatecrises and to identify key questions for future ALE research.
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South African Journal of Education, 2018
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Perspectives in Education, Sep 1, 2006
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Convergence
Gender trainers must attend carefully to issues of power and resistance. Construing power as prop... more Gender trainers must attend carefully to issues of power and resistance. Construing power as property does little to explain complex relations. A better approach is understanding power as action and resistance as a form of exercised power. (SK)
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International Encyclopedia of Education, 2010
The juxtaposition of adult education and nation building foregrounds the political purposes of ad... more The juxtaposition of adult education and nation building foregrounds the political purposes of adult education. In this article, nation building is seen as both being driven by legitimate governments and being shaped by other social and economic forces, like liberation, religious, or ethnic movements for change. The region of the Southern African Development Community is selected as illustrative, to demonstrate how adult education and nation building is influenced by local, regional, and global developments. Adult education is integral to social, cultural, economic, and political processes; therefore, to understand adult education and nation building, knowledge of the historical contexts is critical. It is linked to understandings of the ways that adult education is interwoven through development, democracy, and citizenship.
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Journal of Workplace Learning, 2008
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Second International Handbook of Lifelong Learning, 2011
The key questions propelling this chapter are: How does the advent of the HIV and AIDS pandemic c... more The key questions propelling this chapter are: How does the advent of the HIV and AIDS pandemic compel facilitators, trainers and educators to re-think and refine pedagogical approaches within a lifelong learning paradigm, particularly in countries of the South where medication may not be readily available for the majority? Are there new insights which have emerged that might relate to other contexts and which could enrich lifelong learning practices more generally? I will address these questions by reflecting on approaches that I, together with colleagues, have developed, over the last 10 years in Southern Africa. In particular, I will explore the courses we have designed and facilitated for community activists, educators, trainers and caregivers in HIV- and AIDS-saturated environments.
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New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2005
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Education, Equity and Transformation, 1999
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International Journal of Lifelong Education, 2013
be arguing, rather dubiously, that the focus of university–community relationships is importantly... more be arguing, rather dubiously, that the focus of university–community relationships is importantly different between ‘North’ and ‘South’ and the final chapter presents a valiant attempt to draw out some implications from the study for policy and practice. This last chapter, disappointingly, has little to say about its subject. It tends to present an alternative set of findings——understandably, though, given the diversity of political, cultural and historical contexts in which the case studies were located. However, there are a few pertinent implications identified, including that of the need for ‘truly effective, generalizable metrics for civic and community engagement activity and impact’ (p. 252). Drawing out significant findings across the case studies is similarly fraught, for essentially the same reason: the diversity of universities and their contexts makes such commonalities unlikely and difficult to identify. The idea of generalising beyond the 20 case studies is even more problematic, given that all participating universities had already signalled a major institutional commitment to civic and community engagement through their membership of the Talloires Network and their agreement to commit not insignificant human resources to their participation in the survey. Understandably, then, many of the findings tend towards the trivial, for example, ‘For all of the participating institutions, addressing community and societal challenges is a major goal of their civic engagement and social responsibility work’ (p. 208). Others, though, have greater import, such as that: ‘Less Prestigious Institutions Lead in Innovation ... Much of the more pioneering work is done by colleges and universities that are not overly concerned about where they fit in the academic pecking order’ (p. 214), ‘Almost all participating institutions see the traditional academic rewards system as an obstacle’ (p. 214) and ‘Many of the institutions are led by ardent proponents of civic engagement’ (p. 211). It is arguably true to suggest that the greatest strength of the study is in the detail of the individual university profiles. These will have value in themselves for readers who have a particular interest in the individual universities. They also, though, present interesting pictures of the civic engagement and social responsibility programs and functions and of the issues that are seen as arising in each case. In the final analysis, the work does, as its authors suggest, serve as a pioneering international survey of higher education’s engagement with its broader communities——a survey from which ideas for more focused studies of the influences on, and the impact, effectiveness and utility of, such engagement may be drawn.
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Papers by Shirley Walters