Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and adult education : rearranging desires at both ends of the spectrum

As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak identifies deeply with her role both as an educator and a teacher, she writes and talks extensively about her teaching at Columbia University and her teaching activities with adults in the rural areas of India and some African countries. I discuss in this article some of her valuable thoughts, observations, and insights gained over a number of years, which can be inspiring for adult education. After a short introduction to Spivak’s working context and her approach to education, some of her most important concepts will be presented in a concise overview: ‘The importance of aesthetic education’; ‘the necessity to teach at two ends of the spectrum’; and ‘the task to rearrange desires and to change epistemologies’. The article ends with a short insight into the current contexts and discourses of adult education, including an example of how some of these concepts can be applied in research projects in the context of ‘adult education and migration’.peer-reviewe

Alles im weißen Bereich?: Institutioneller Rassismus in Sachsen: Erweiterter Tagungsband

Die Tagung «Alles im weißen Bereich. Institutioneller Rassismus in Sachsen», die im Februar 2014 stattfand, war die fünfte Tagung in unserer Reihe zu Fragen der Demokratie. Der Gegenstand von Tagung und Sammelband steht für uns einerseits in logischer Reihenfolge bisheriger Fragen und Diskussionen zu den Zuständen Sächsischer Demokratie. Insbesondere war unsere Entscheidung in der Vorbereitung aber auch von der Arbeit der Untersuchungs-ausschüsse zum «NSU» angeregt worden. Ohne den Rassismus, der als grundlegender gesellschaftlicher Wissensbestand existiert, ist die Geschichte und das Versagen des staatlichen Sicherheitsapparates im Zusammenhang mit dem NSU schwer vorstellbar oder nicht möglich. Rassismus ist damit nicht nur das Motiv für die Ermordung von Menschen, sondern auch ein entscheidender Grund dafür, dass diese Morde nicht wirksam verhindert und teilweise nicht oder erst sehr spät aufgeklärt werden können. Diese Feststellung scheint offensichtlich, sie hat sich aber trotz einer breit geführten öffentlichen Debatte und der Arbeit verschiedener Untersuchungsausschüsse als nicht mehrheitsfähig erwiesen. Ebenso wenig konnte Institutioneller Rassismus als Perspektive und Analyseinstrument politisch etabliert werden. Redaktionsschluss: November 201

Paternalistic benevolence – enabling violence. Teaching the hegemonic language in a double bind

The transnational empirical project zooms in on ‘German language classrooms’ and the teachers’ task of dealing with the double bind between ‘the need to teach the German language for the empowerment of the learners’ on the one hand and the consequent ‘reproduction of the hegemonic norm of a monolingual society’ on the other. The teachers in the focus of the project work for institutes of adult education with learners who are migrants and refugees living in Germany or Austria. The results show how teachers frame their work through two central positions. The first can be framed as ‘paternalistic benevolence’ and the second as ‘enabling violence’. The latter corresponds to a critical stance reflecting on the harm done in learning spaces while still being inevitable in nationstates that construct themselves as monolingual unities. Pedagogical professionals looking for a responsible path that reduces the violence done to a minimum will discover interesting reflections on the possibilities of how to find an always uncertain and contradictory place in the interstices. (DIPF/Orig.

Everything under control?

Abstract In the present European context migrants and refugees are represented as a threat to security in the first place. Adult Education, especially when subsidised by the state, finds itself in a double-bind. On the one hand it has to offer a place for “Bildung” for all adults, where they can develop themselves according to their interests, capabilities and needs. Unequal chances are to be reduced and the humanistic ideal of development and expression of one’s personality shall be met. On the other hand—institutions of adult education are turned to adjuncts of the state apparatus by misusing them for monitoring and controlling the migrant participants. To maintain a critical, reflexive and resistant attitude in such a dilemma, time and space for a self-reflexive approach is needed. Time and space, which is too often insufficiently available in daily practice. On the basis of interviews with educational staff, responsible for the organisation of German Courses for migrants and refugees, the power lines running through present pedagogical practice are expounded. Following, vestiges of rooms, where resistance still is possible, are delineated. Rooms, where inherent goals of adult education, still can be achieved and questions concerning a change of given societal relations can be asked

Autonomie als Gegenstand und Maßstab der Kritik

Etzkorn N, Mecheril P. Autonomie als Gegenstand und Maßstab der Kritik. In: Akbaba Y, Heinemann AMB, eds. Erziehungswissenschaften dekolonisieren. Theoretische Debatten und praxisorientierte Impulse. Weinheim, Basel: Beltz Juventa; 2023: 125-150