John D. Holst

Radicalizing Learning calls for a total rethinking of what the field of adult education stands for and how adult educators should assess their effectiveness. Arguing that major changes in society are needed to create a more just world, the authors set out to show how educators can help learners envision and enact this radical transformation. Specifically, the book explores the areas of adult learning, training, teaching, facilitation, program development, and research. Each chapter provides a guide to the different paradigms and perspectives that prevail across the field of theory and practice. The authors then tie all of the themes into how adult learning for participatory democracy works in a diverse society.

The idea that radical adult educators should build civil society through social movements is the dominant paradigm within the adult education left today. This work is the first book-length treatment on the subject of social movement and civil society theory within radical adult education. The author covers the history and current status of social movement and civil society theory within radical adult education and the left generally. This historical survey reveals how the current dichotomy between radical pluralist and socialist perspectives that prevails within radical adult education is a result of debates over globalization, postmodernism, and the left's understanding of the demise of most socialist states. The book concludes with a reconceptualization of Gramsci's use of civil society and its implications for contemporary radical adult education theory and practice, arguing, unlike others, that Gramsci did not advocate building civil society but proletarian hegemony.