Social movements, civil society, and radical adult education

This book explores the relationship between adult education and social change and argues that it is vital for all adult educators to continuously engage radical theory in their teaching, reassess radical adult education's doubting and abandonment of the Marxist tradition in favor of postmodernism and radical pluralism, and seek to reinject the Marxist tradition into radical education. The following are among the specific topics discussed: (1) the context of contemporary interest in social movements and civil society in radical adult education theory and practice; (2) the sociology and politics of social movements; (3) civil society within and beyond the Marxist tradition (the beliefs of John Locke, Adam Ferguson and the Scottish Enlightenment, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato, and John Keane); (4) adult education, social movements, and civil society (the question of whether education can change society; the nature of education in social movements; linking old and new social movements; the politics of social movements, civil society, and adult education); and (5) Gramsci's concept of civil society and its implications for reconceptualization of radical adult education theory and practice