This document provides an overview and analysis of adult education programs through a study of the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas (LCCT). It discusses how LCCT aims to provide job training and basic education courses, but does so within a larger political and economic context that can potentially reinforce inequality. The document advocates examining nonprofit structures, hidden curriculums that promote dominant values, and alternative models of adult education that promote liberation rather than just workforce training. A critical analysis of assumptions and systems of power is needed to ensure education truly addresses poverty and lack of access.

1. Adam Benden Bridging Disciplines Program Connecting Experience 3/16/2016
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Literacy and Liberation:
Politics, Economy, and Adult Education at the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas
“Those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly.”
- Paulo Freire
Introduction
Educational attainment is a primary component of human capital and correlated with a
host of important measures such as income level and lifetime earnings, physical health, and
political participation and engagement. While education typically connotes elementary or high
school experiences in American society, programs for adults that focus on job skill training,
basic math and reading skills, or passing the General Education Development (GED) test are also
significant in the functioning of the American economy and maintaining the structure of social
relations and institutions. Additionally, adult education is not a universal social good funded and
provided by the government like compulsory elementary schooling. According to Curti (1958),
the history of adult education in the United States has been deeply intertwined with private
philanthropic organizations initiating efforts to include people without the access to traditional
learning institutions such as public schools by expanding or improving on the available adult
education services. Non-profit agencies and philanthropic organizations, such as the Ford
Foundation, continue to function as key sources for offering and implementing adult education
services by donating millions of dollars to establish adult education services in both the private
and public sectors (Edelson, 1991).
This paper will provide an introductory analysis of adult education through the study of
an Austin-based nonprofit organization from two primary angles: through the basic education
and job training programs implemented at Literacy Coalition of Central Texas (LCCT) and
alternatively from the critical pedagogy framework developed by Chilean philosopher and

2. educator, Paulo Freire. A brief overview of some theoretical foundations of adult education as
well as a small number of relevant historical cases will also be provided. This study hopes to
show that adult education must be considered in the larger political-economic framework which
it exists if we are to fully evaluate its functions and outcomes. Without a more comprehensive
approach, programs like those at LCCT could reinforce prevailing systems of class power and
perpetuate the same social relations that contribute to socioeconomic inequality. Including
elements such as enhanced education and training for staff around issues of class, race, and
gender as well as a an analysis of non-profit organizational aspects that mimic for-profit structure
and methods from a critical and economic perspective could enhance the ability of LCCT to truly
address issues of poverty and lack of education among its clients in a more robust way.
Theoretical and Historical Background
The function of adult education can defined in myriad ways and how it is defined affects
the design of programs, implementation of curriculum, and the structure of relations between
learners and teachers. According to Merriam and Brockett (2011), adult education throughout its
history in the U.S. has been utilized for such purposes as moral and religious instruction or
developing civically informed citizens, depending on the needs of the society and its context at
that time. Additionally, the authors also state that the “modern era of adult education has been
concerned with educating and retraining adults to keep the United States competitive in a global
economic market” (p. 26). Rubenson (1989) reports that there is an emphasis on focusing adult
education research on the relationship between the learners and learned content, which privileges
a psychological orientation where “the context of education is largely ignored” (as cited in
Merriam and Brockett, 2011, p. 28). Omitting a discussion on the larger sociopolitical context of
adult education exists can prevent asking critical questions about the nature of the adult

3. education system. This type of critical inquiry could generate useful debate and analysis of adult
education services being offered in an increasingly neoliberal society where labor and
productivity are prioritized over education geared towards civic engagement and human value in
a globalized economic system. These critical questions are important not only in assessing the
overall effectiveness and inherent values within current adult education programs but also in
gaining insight into the tangible impacts and effects adult education has on students and teachers.
In response to adult education, which is geared towards the labor market and global
competitiveness, there have been critical models of education developed precisely to analyze and
dismantle modes of education which serve only to reinforce classist, racial, and gendered forms
of oppression that exist within neoliberal systems and the globalized marketplace, primarily
through the spread of postindustrial capitalism (De Lissovoy, 2008). The models have most
widely been developed by thinkers and teachers such as Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Noah
De Lissovoy. According to De Lissovoy (2008), critical pedagogy seeks to break down the
power dynamic between teachers and students to create a cooperative process which “should
make vivid for students their own actually existing relationships, as inhabitants of a territory or
region, to broader relations of power and exploitation” (p. 127). Furthermore, Freire (2000)
states that this form of education is “the pedagogy of people engaged in the fight for their own
liberation” (p. 53).
So what is it that this approach aims to liberate students and teachers from? By drawing
on Marxist philosophy and critical theory methodologies, critical pedagogy sees education as
being built upon the premises of whatever economic system exists within a society and serving
those who hold power within that system (Burbules & Burk, 1999). In a capitalistic and
neoliberal society that subsumes everything to productivity and defines people by their worth as

4. laborers, education that simply trains individuals to enter the workforce or acquire higher paying
jobs may be beneficial on a small scale while simply reinforcing the same system of inequality
that put peoples into the positions of oppression in the first place. Furthermore, Giroux (2014)
states that this capture of education by “a variety of privatizing, market-driven forces” can even
lead to a “loss of egalitarian and democratic values, ideals, and responsibilities” (p. 30). In
critical pedagogy, education is always political and economic.
For examples of the different outcomes an alternate approach to adult education can lead
to, we need look no further than two cases: the Antigonish Movement in Nova Scotia during the
1920’s and the “Freedom Summer” of 1964 during the American Civil Rights Movement. The
Antigonish Movement utilized adult education as a primary vehicle for organizing local fishing
communities through the use of study groups and civic leadership training. The communities
went on to develop economic cooperative systems and even their own local economies outside
the bounds of the Canada’s national economy system (Coady, 1939). Primarily, adult education
was seen as a method to help local communities take charge of their own lives and actively work
to build the society they wanted to exist within, as opposed to helping individuals assimilate into
the established economic and political order. The Freedom Summer also utilized approaches to
adult education that emphasized not only standard curriculum such as reading and mathematics
but also courses on civic leadership and the history of racial oppression and violence within the
United States (McAdam, 1990). While most of the teachers in these programs were volunteers
from northern Ivy League universities and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), a unique approach was utilized where the teachers moved into the same communities
with those they taught who were suffering under the weight of racial violence and oppression
and developed close cooperative relationships with the students (McAdam, 1990).

5. LCCT, Non-Profits, and Adult Education
LCCT provides adult education and job skill development for individuals 18 years of age
and older. Programs offer educational content ranging from basic math and reading skills to
GED preparation to interviewing and conflict resolution skills in the workplace. Students come
to the agency for many different reasons: some want to obtain better employment, some value
bettering their education for its own sake, and others want to simply improve their computer and
internet skills. However, the program is designed in a linear way so that every student will
ideally complete the job training/computer skills classes and acquire their GED. Financial
incentives for students are offered throughout the program in the form of gift cards to local
businesses for gains in employment such as a promotion or a raise. The mission and purposes of
LCCT fit squarely into the current model of adult education which seeks to train or retrain adults
for the job market and keep the United States competitive in a global economy. While there is no
doubt about the philanthropic motivations and altruistic dedication of individuals at
organizations like LCCT, examining larger structural components of non-profits and broader
economic and political factors can reveal unexpected aspects to the work done by agencies
focused on adult education programs (Del Moral, 2005).
LCCT is one of many 501©(3) non-profit, tax-exempt organizations functioning in
Austin. These non-profit organizations can have a number purposes but the original motivation
behind granting this status to certain charities was based on the rationale that “they provided
services that the government would otherwise have provided” (del Moral, p. 1). This may strike
us as a fairly benign statement on its surface but there are political factors and history that must
be considered here but what the overall purposes of those services have been. According to Piven
and Cloward (2012), programs like those at LCCT which focus on relief and education for low-

6. income people do more than just help individuals find better jobs – they also make “an important
contribution toward overcoming…persisting weaknesses in the capacity of the market to direct
and control people” (p. 33). The authors also discuss that education programs for low-income
individuals which emphasize the virtues of work and self-sufficiency reinforce capitalistic and
free market ideologies by connoting that “lack of skills prevented recipients from becoming self-
sufficient through work” (Piven and Cloward, p. 382). While a thorough study of their work is
outside the scope of this paper’s purview, their analysis of the history of social welfare programs
provided through government and non-profits for the purposes of funneling the poor and
unemployed into low-wage work for the purposes of quelling social unrest is of primary
importance for anyone working with government or non-profit agencies dealing with social
welfare and education programs.
The structure of non-profit agencies themselves is worthy of consideration as it has
recently come under greater scrutiny from activists and scholars for becoming part of the issue
they seek to solve. While a great number of non-profit organizations may be set up with missions
oriented in social justice and societal transformation, changes during the Reagan era “pushed
nonprofits to adopt corporate structure through his narrower definition of a nonprofit
organization, which was determined by its financial structure” (Del Moral, p. 1). Furthermore,
the author states that these changes have forced nonprofits to mimic corporate hierarchical
structures and to be beholden to the same logic of the market that characterizes neoliberalism and
the current system of class relations and inequality that many were set up to combat in the first
place. The values and goals behind the funders and grant associations that are essential to the life
of non-profits can also severely limit the scope of programs and services offered if they run
counter to the ideologies of those sources they rely on for financial support. To this point,

7. Rodriguez (2007) states that “unless a project seeks to reform its institutions in ways that
preserve those institutions, it cannot be supported” and that this structure on nonprofit
organizations “ultimately maintains politics and institutions of oppression, keeping a lid on
radical political work while pushing organizations to provide basic services that quell unrest” (as
cited in Mananzala and Spade, 2008, p. 56). Organizations like LCCT and other adult education
services in Austin for people in poverty could benefit greatly by examining the history of racial
and economic segregation within the city and how their own organizational structure and
services could be unknowingly preserving those same divides. If the types of employment
students gain access to never provide enough economic resources to elevate themselves out of
their current class situation, then the overall effectiveness of adult education services at an
organization such as LCCT can be seen from new perspectives and perhaps even reimagined.
Unspoken Curriculum
One final aspect of adult education programming needs to be discussed that is much more
intangible than economic and political analysis but which is equally important. This has to do
with the transmission of unspoken values and ideologies through educational programs and
content. Values such economic productivity and prioritizing individual self-sufficiency as a
measure of human worth might appear on the surface to be inherently desirable or legitimate in
themselves but they cannot be separated from the relations of class and power within a society
that can elevate one particular set of values of ways of life as the accepted standard of behavior
and attitude. According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984), uncritically adopting these values
and ideologies “implies a submission to the dominant values and to some of the principles on
which the dominant class bases its domination, such as recognition of the hierarchies linked to
educational qualifications or to the capacities they are supposed to guarantee” (p. 395).

8. While this may strike some individuals working in agencies like LCCT as extreme,
teaching low-income and unemployed individuals who typically reside in the bottom of the
United States class hierarchy particular ways to speak, walk, or shake hands are ways of
communicating these class behaviors through embodied action and ways of being (Bourdieu,
1984). Furthermore, popular frameworks for teaching individuals in poverty, such as those of
Ruby Payne which are influential among social service staff at LCCT, have been widely
criticized for doing this exact thing. According to Payne (2005), the United States has three
levels of class, each with unique “hidden rules,” and to move up in class and “be successful,” we
must “understand their hidden rules and teach them the rules that will make them successful at
school and at work” (p. 3). There are numerous issues with this approach to educating people in
positions of poverty. As stated by Gorsky (2006), a few concerns include its “conservative
reframing of poverty…a lack of analysis of the systemic nature of poverty and classicism…and a
reliance on the deficit perspective, which problematizes people in poverty instead of
problematizing the ways in which the classism is cycled in schools and the larger society” (p. 2).
The ideas of Bourdieu and continuing debate over the value of Payne’s framework for educating
people in poverty are of utmost importance for individuals serving in agencies such as LCCT.
Conclusion
This paper has endeavored to provide only the very beginnings of an in-depth analysis of
adult education programs offered by non-profit organizations and some critical concerns for not
only academic and theoretical research but also for the implementation of curriculum by staff
and teachers. Any of the areas mentioned such as the various philosophical frameworks for adult
education, a history of more radical adult education projects, nonprofit structure, or the cultural
values contained within structure and programming for students warrants its own unique and

9. substantial research and analysis. However, for those working in the field as social workers,
Americorps volunteers, development staff, and others in agencies like LCCT, to begin asking
questions about these areas are of crucial importance in providing adult education services and
the ways we act, think, and speak within those various roles. Without critical analysis of the
different assumptions about identity, service work in non-profits, and the role of adult education
in our socioeconomic situation, we risk replicating existing forms of social oppression and
marginalization which could undermine the benefits of the services organizations like LCCT
seek to offer.
Critical consciousness about one’s own values and the larger social systems we exist
within, such as the political and economic, is vital if we hope to make large-scale change and not
just recreate the conditions which cause or exacerbate poverty and social inequality. There is
much more work to be done in this area such as how aspects of race, gender, and national
identity interact with class ideology within these programs. Overall, it may be a difficult and
arduous process to question our most fundamental values, history, and experience when
examining our place within the field of adult education but, as the Freire quote that began this
paper states, we owe it to those we serve if we hope for that education to be a force for liberation
and not one of subtle and unconscious oppression.

10. Works Cited
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard University
Press.
Burbules, N. C., & Berk, R. (1999). Critical thinking and critical pedagogy: Relations,
differences, and limits. Critical theories in education: Changing terrains of knowledge
and politics, 45-65.
Coady, M. (1939). Masters of their own destiny.
Curti, M. (1958). American philanthropy and the national character. American Quarterly, 10(4),
420-437.
De Lissovoy, N. (2008). Power, crisis, and education for liberation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Del Moral, A. (2005). The revolution will not be funded. LiP Magazine, 4.
Edelson, P. J. (1991). Socrates on the assembly line: The ford foundation's mass marketing of
Liberal adult education. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Midwest
History of Education Society.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Giroux, H. (2014). Neoliberalism's war on higher education. Haymarket Books.
Gorski, P. (2006). Savage unrealities. Rethinking schools, 21(2), 16-19.
Mananzala, R., & Spade, D. (2008). The nonprofit industrial complex and trans
resistance. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 5(1), 53-71.
McAdam, D. (1990). Freedom summer. Oxford University Press, USA.
Merriam, S. B., & Brockett, R. G. (2011). The profession and practice of adult education: An
introduction. John Wiley & Sons.
Payne, R. K. (2005). A framework for understanding poverty. Highlands, TX: aha! Process.

11. Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. (2012). Regulating the poor: The functions of public welfare.
Vintage.