Adult Learning and the Generation of New Knowledge and Meaning: Creating Liberating Spaces for Fostering Adult Learning through Practitioner-Based Collaborative Action Inquiry

Abstract

Practitioner research is a topic of growing interest and scholarly writing in the field of education in general and adult education in particular. This article describes a particular form of practitioner research that rests on a participatory worldview and draws heavily from theory and practice in adult learning and action research. Practitioner-based collaborative action inquiry strives to create social space in organizations and other social institutions for generative learning. It is argued that this form of adult education practice is critical in the implementation of emergent forms of knowledge creation and meaning making that have been described as Mode 2 knowledge creation. A robust example of this form of inquiry and the role of adult-learning theory and practice in facilitating it is described in detail as a practice-based example.