Women and Graduate Adult Education:
A Feminist Poststructuralist Story of Transformation © Tammy D. Dewar 1996TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
4. PAINTING THE GRANARIES - FALL, 1995
6. LIVING/LEARNING FEMINIST POSTSTRUCTURALISM - FALL, 1996
7. MOVING THROUGH SILENCE - FALL, 1995
9. DE/CONSTRUCTING LANGUAGE - FALL, 1995
10. HITTING THE WALL - JANUARY, 1996
12. EXPERIENCING RESEARCH - FEBRUARY, 1996
13. SPEAKING CIRCLING WOMEN - AUGUST, 1994
14. RETURNING TO REAL LIFE
Our increasingly complex information age has demanded of adults a continual involvement in learning projects throughout their lives, not just those confined to high school and preparatory education. Given this current recognition of and emphasis on lifelong learning, there is a corresponding need for competent, ethical adult educators who can skilfully facilitate adult learning. The critical examinination and improvement of adult education practices, generally, is of great importance, but the more profound inquiry is that which examines the education of adult educators, especially at the graduate level.
Within a feminist poststructuralist framework, I investigate and problematize the focus of my research through the question "How do women experience their graduate degrees in adult education?" Through repeating hermeneutic cycles, I deepen the problematizing of myself, peers, and the academy in relation to graduate adult education.
I demonstrate a self reflexivity in form and content as advocated by leading feminist poststructuralists. Individual and collaborative autobiography, real and imaginary dialogue, circles of learning, narrative, fictional representations, stories, deconstruction and poetry are woven together to explore the various and contradictory discourses that frame my own experiences as a woman/adult educator/researcher; the research process itself; and the graduate adult education experiences of six women adult educators.
The central theme around which everything revolves is transformation - of myself, others, the nature of research and knowledge, and the changing role of the academy in the postmodern world. Readers are invited into my story as observers, but, ultimately, challenged to reflect upon their own experiences and sense of self in the rapidly changing postmodern world. This examination of one's own subjectivity is especially relevant to those involved in graduate programs in adult education.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. "Four Quartets", T.S. Eliot
It was a long time ago and just this moment that I began and finished this dissertation. My linear acknowledgement of the people who cheered me on does not adequately capture the feeling I have that my past, present and future were all spiralling around me as I was writing in 1995 and 1996.
My parents, Don and Betty Dewar, and my sister and brother, Jenny and Phil, are with me in everything I do. They have supported and loved me in my endless risk taking and searching. Our divergent paths and individual life struggles have taught me much about love, joy, despair, strength, courage and spirit. I am blessed, too, with a large extended family and numerous lifelong friends whose background cheering, love and support is never far away.
My involvement with the learners and instructors in the Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education (CACE) has been the most significant of my professional career. I learned much about the true ethos of adult education, and embraced the sense of community that developed among these hundreds of people. It is indeed unique in our fragmented world, and continues to be a source of inspiration and vision to me as I continue my development as an adult educator.
My feelings for the circle of women who participated in this research study - Jyllian Bonney, Pat Fryers, Carol Gerein, Jacquie Peters, and Maureen Motter-Hodgson - go well beyond a thank you. Their support of me and commitment to adult education was sustaining and inspiring as I moved through many "dark nights of the soul" while I was writing.
The role that Tad Guzie, my advisor, played in the completion of this degree is profound. He has truly been a mentor, friend, colleague, benefactor. I would not have finished the degree without his support and advocacy. My other committee members - Richard Butt, Nancy Dudley, Susan Hutton, and Em Plattor - ensured that my final defense was a meaningful and memorable celebration of my work.
Dianne Edwards, whom I met at the Center for Positive Living, has been a recent spiritual mentor. My involvement with the Center, and specifically Dianne, has been a catalyst for significant shifts in my life, and I have recovered my sense of awe, purpose and vision.
Many thanks also go to members of the Teaching Online I class facilitated by Rob Higgins of Cybercorp who, having never met me in person, cheered me on from all over the world as I finished the final draft in the spring of 1996.
And finally, my thanks and love go to Rob Higgins for showing me my future.