The limited number of presentations dealing with immigration, internationalization, and globalization reflect a rich diversity of topics, including literacy, informal learning, citizenship education, health and nutrition education, transformative learning, community development, non-governmental organizations, social movements and adult learning, popular education, literacy in international contexts, migration and identity development, learning and development among immigrant students, globalization and its impact, and challenging Western views of learning, among others. They addressed many important questions, such as what is globalization? What is the driving force of globalization? What is the impact of economic globalization on university adult education? How should adult education respond to the globalization agenda? Does global consciousness lead to social action and a more tolerant society? Does labour education accommodate the corporate structuring caused by globalization or does it provide resistance? Whose interest does literacy serve? What prevents adults from participating in literacy education? Why should adult educators be involved in community development and social movement? What are some of the institutional barriers to popular education and social movement learning? How do immigrant students navigate the foreign academic culture? What is the role of early schooling socialization on learning and epistemological development among transnational migrants in the host country? How do specific groups of foreign-born individuals negotiate the home and host cultures and the impact of such bicultural existence on one’s sense of identity and perceptions of home in the diaspora? These presentations and the questions
Table 2: AERC Proceedings Related to Immigration, Internationalization, or Globalization, 1995–2010
they addressed are instrumental in helping us develop critical understanding of the process of globalization and our responsibility as global citizens to our interconnected global communities.
Most presentations were single-country studies (e.g., adult literacy in Swaziland, popular education in India, economic impact and structural adjustment in African countries, adult education and English-language education in Romania, aging and learning in Malaysia, intercultural adjustments of American expatriates living in Beijing, post-literacy development in the Republic of Niger), often applying North American concepts to a different social, political, and cultural context. A small number adopted a comparative approach involving two or more countries. Examples were citizenship education in Canada and Brazil; university adult education in Canada and the U.K.; civil society, cultural hegemony, and adult education in North America, Latin America, and the Middle East; and an exploration of non-formal education programs in Ghana, Senegal, and Burkina Faso. Regarding their geographic locations, Africa and Asia were overly represented in these studies; 14 of the Canadian papers and 22 of the U.S. papers had to do with research in these two continents. We also found that some studies (13 papers) mirrored the two countries’ lingering colonial past, involving Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Bangladesh, British Caribbean, Ghana, India, Malawi, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, and the U.K.
Transnational Collaborations
Turning to the process of knowledge production and dissemination, we found that the majority of the papers in Canada were single-authored, while U.S. papers were more evenly distributed between those that were single-authored and those completed in collaboration, where one or more of the authors were from an international country. In the case of individual research, the author often travelled to a foreign country to collect data relative to that country. We found these single-authored papers to be those of university professors who had other affiliations—for example, a church or other missionary organization. Meanwhile, we found a significant level of participation among international graduate students who, in collaboration with a professor/advisor from the host country, produced the majority of the co-authored papers. It was obvious that international students were using opportunities within their graduate education programs in the U.S. and Canada to research important issues within their home countries.
Furthermore, the joint conferences of AERC and CASAE tend to attract a number of researchers from outside North America, including Australia, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the U.K. These joint conferences have become an international forum for adult educators to disseminate research, form partnerships, and learn from one another. In addition, a growing number of researchers in 2006 to 2010 were from visible minority communities who were not born in Canada or the U.S. They have contributed significantly to the emerging critical scholarship in studies related to globalization and, especially, immigration. As Preissle (2006) observes, “Just as what we are doing has diversified in the past four decades so too has who is doing it. We are no longer men, no longer white, no longer even disciplinary experts” (p. 689). It is no surprise that those engaged in
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international research are as diverse as the issues they address. However, the diversity of issues is not as transparent in the curricula of adult education programs.
Evidence of Internationalization in the Curricula of Selected Adult Education Programs
We reviewed the programs, course offerings, and course descriptions of selected adult education program websites in both countries for evidence of an international perspective. Based on course titles and/or course descriptions, only six universities from the U.S. and five from Canada were found to have at least one course with an international focus (see Tables 3 and 4). The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, and Penn State and Cornell Universities in the U.S. appear to be well on their way to internationalizing their curricula. Our review also revealed three curricula focus areas related to internationalization and globalization: (1) comparative and international adult education, (2) the relationship of globalization with adult education, and (3) adult education in a broader global context.
As these tables suggest, of the 20 university adult education programs featured in this study, only two U.S. and three Canadian universities offered more than two courses that address international issues and concerns. From the course offerings identified, it was obvious that Penn State University in the U.S. has made a deliberate attempt to internationalize its curriculum with three courses addressing issues beyond the local. This is not surprising as it is a program that offers a PhD in globalization and lifelong learning. Courses at Cornell have a strong focus on education and the development in Africa and the diaspora. Canada, on the other hand, is advancing faster than the U.S. in internationalizing its programs and curricula. Both UBC and OISE, for example, registered six courses addressing some aspect of globalization, internationalization, or immigration.
UBC’s Adult Learning and Global Change—an innovative online Master of Education program—is offered in collaboration with Linköping University (Sweden), the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), and Monash University (Australia). One of the program’s objectives is to analyze dominant and alternative theories and discourses of globalization and develop a critical perspective on the relationship between adult learning and global change as these are experienced and understood in different parts of the world. Students in this program benefit from a truly international learning environment in which both students and instructors are drawn from four participating universities. Of the top universities in Canada and the U.S., the number that demonstrates evidence of global consciousness or an international engagement in research and curricula is very small, indeed. This finding supports Altbach’s (2002) argument that in American colleges and universities, programs aimed at providing international perspectives and the development of cross-cultural skills are increasing, but the increase is minimal and does not compare with the rapid changes that result from the effects of globalization. Indeed, the authors noted that in the U.S. in particular, there is much more rhetoric than action concerning the internationalization of adult education. While U.S. adult educators profess the value of educating citizens for a global civil society, the data suggest there is no urgency in taking actions toward accomplishing that goal.
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