How can we speak about radical education in these seemingly unpropitious times? I explore this question first by examining aspects of our radical heritage (self-directed learning, facilitation, democratic pedagogy, learning in hegemonic struggle, learning in social action, critical pedagogy) and then by discussing what radical learning and education mean now, in an era of capitalist triumphalism. I outline a method which helps practitioners to investigae and act on what people are actuallly learning and teaching each other in different sites—educational instititions, workplace families, communities, the mass media and social movements. Culture is ordinary: that is where we must start. (Williams, 1958a)

Radical adult education and learning

This article describes and analyzes how black and white working-class women define and claim knowledge. It is based on participant observation in classrooms and in-depth interviews outside school with women attending adult basic education programs. The women's perspectives challenge feminist analyses that have identified a single or universal mode of knowing for women; instead, they speak to complex gender, racial, and class relations of power that shape how they think about learning and knowing. Their claims to knowledge simultaneously accept and reject dominant social relations and create paradoxical situations for the women as

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2112822

Working-Class Women's Ways of Knowing: Effects of Gender, Race, and Class

This paper considers the three main Western feminist theoretical frameworks — liberal, socialist and radical — and their educational applications. Examples of studies using each approach are discussed. Liberal feminists writing about education use concepts of equal opportunities, socialization, sex roles and discrimination. Their strategies involve altering socialization practices, changing attitudes and making use of relevant legislation. Critics of the liberal school point to conceptual limitations and the liberal reluctance to confront power and patriarchy. Socialist feminists analyze the role of the school in the perpetuation of gender divisions under capitalism. Major concepts are socio-cultural reproduction and to a lesser extent acceptance of and resistance to gender-based patterns of behaviour. So far socialist-feminist educational writing is mainly theoretical rather than practical and has therefore been criticized for its over-determinism and insufficient empiric foundation. Radical feminists in education have concentrated mainly on the male monopolization of knowledge and culture and on sexual politics in schools. Strategies involve putting women's and girls' concerns first, through separate-sex groups when necessary. Critics argue that radical feminism tends towards biological reductionism, description rather than explanation and also contains methodological weaknesses. Mutual criticism of perspectives seems less destructive in educational writing than in some other categories of feminist scholarship. All the theoretical frameworks are subject to the same pressures including the oppressive power of structures, the resilience of individuals, and the tension between universality (how women are the same) and diversity (how women differ on attributes like class and race).

Feminist theory and the study of gender and education

(1989). Education for sexism: A theoretical analysis of the sex/gender bias in education. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-19.

Education for sexism: A theoretical analysis of the sex/gender bias in education

(1997). Women studying at a distance: what do they need to succeed? Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning: Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 41-49.

http://www.c3l.uni-oldenburg.de/cde/support/readings/hipp97.pdf

Women studying at a distance: what do they need to succeed?

All too often, those who write about women and education have concerned themselves with how well, or how badly, women achieve in comparison with men in a men’s world, and not too much with how men’s education affects women: still less with what can be done about it. Prescriptions for the future have been dominated by suggestions as to ways in which women may better compete, rather than how education can better serve the needs of women. If only for taking a different line than this, Thompson’s book would have been welcome, but it is also an excellently written text. Jane Thompson’s contention is that,

Learning Liberation: Women's Response to Men's Education Jane Thompson Croom Helm, 1983, Radical Forum on Adult Education series, £8.95 pbk, £14.95 hbk:

Laura Middleton

Papers

Learning Liberation: Women's Response to Men's Education Jane Thompson Croom Helm, 1983, Radical Forum on Adult Education series, £8.95 pbk, £14.95 hbk: