2016 Annual Conference

The social, economic, and educational marginalization of adult basic education (ABE) participants is exacerbated when programs promote policy goals over learners’ own goals. This session will use data from an ethnographic study of ABE learners and the Critical Race Theory methodology of counter-storytelling to envision alternatives grounded in learner-centered instruction.

This session will be especially of interest to those who are concerned about marginalization and institutional racism in adult basic education. The discussion will be relevant to practitioners who are interested in supporting learner-centered, anti-racist classrooms, policymakers and policy advocates who are interested in promoting legislation that supports educational equity, as well as researchers interested in qualitative research or the application of critical race theory and methodology in adult basic education.

This session is grounded in the goals and motivations articulated by participants in an ethnographic study of adult basic education (ABE). Utilizing the critical race theory (CRT) method of counter-storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), this session imagines what might have been learners’ educational experiences and outcomes had instruction been guided by their goals and interests, rather than by deficit-driven policy goals. These counter-stories contrast with the institutionally-created failure and marginalization experienced by these learners and explore other models of ABE that value learner knowledge, insights, and experiences as the foundation of educational growth.
The large majority of ABE participants are low income people of color. In addition to oppression based on race, class, gender, and sexuality, ableism and discrimination rooted in print literacy status frequently inform learners’ past and contemporary educational experiences. Previous critical policy scholarship foregrounded race and the marginalization of ABE learners during welfare reform (Sheared, McCabe, and Umeki, 2000), but little research has examined whether and how contemporary policy perpetuates learner marginalization and oppression. CRT offers ABE researchers an approach to critical examination of policy and instructional practice that accounts for persistent discrimination (Closson, 2010; Peterson, 1999), but has thus far been under-utilized in the field.