Racializing the Discourse of Adult Education

Abstract

In this article, Stephen Brookfield explores the "unproblematized Eurocentrism" that characterizes contemporary adult education in light of Herbert Marcuse's perspectives on repressive tolerance. Brookfield, a White English male, explores the implications of his own social location for his work in adult education by drawing on the works of Cornel West and Lucius T. Outlaw Jr., two prominent African American scholars who racialize the discourse of adult education. Brookfield further considers the broader implications for adult education practice and scholarship that emerge from West's and Outlaw's perspectives on critical thinking, which are paradigmatically different from the Euro-American traditions that tend to ignore issues of race and dominate the field. Finally, Brookfield offers recommendations to practitioners and scholars for actively exploring adult education's role in challenging the "the myth of neutral, non-impositional, adult educators."