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Abstract

The field of adult education is characterized by an ideological commitment to democracy. Yet the formal knowledge base of the field has been overwhelmingly constructed by one or two groups. This article argues that who we include and exclude in the production of knowledge is largely determined by our place in history and the larger cultural milieu of academia. As long as in the development of our own formal knowledge base we reproduce the structures and values of the larger academic culture, we will be an academic field that speaks of empowerment and liberation for others, but has yet to realize such empowerment for itself. It is only through the small conscious acts of each of us that we will enact in our own practice the democratic values we seek to help others enact.

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The Democratization of Knowledge

Abstract

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