Stephen Brookfield

Stephen Brookfield, since beginning his teaching career in 1970, Stephen Brookfield has worked in England, Canada, Australia, and the United States, teaching in a variety of college settings. He has written fifteen books on adult learning, teaching, critical thinking, discussion methods and critical theory, six of which have won the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education (in 1986, 1989, 1996, 2005, 2011 and 2012). He also won the 1986 Imogene Okes Award for Outstanding Research in Adult Education. His work has been translated into German, Korean, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, and Polish. In 1991, he was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University System of New Hampshire for his contributions to understanding adult learning. In 2001, he received the Leadership Award from the Association for Continuing Higher Education (ACHE) for "extraordinary contributions to the general field of continuing education on a national and international level." In 2008 he was awarded the Morris T. Keeton Award of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning for "significant contributions to the field of adult and experiential learning." He currently serves on the editorial boards of educational journals in Britain, Canada and Australia, as well as in the United States. During 2002, he was a Visiting Professor at Harvard University. In 2003, he was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from Concordia University (St. Paul). After 10 years as a Professor of Higher and Adult Education at Columbia University in New York, he now holds the title of Distinguished University Professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota where he recently won the university's Diversity Leadership Teaching & Research Award and also the John Ireland Presidential Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Teacher/Scholar. In 2008 he also received the Morris T. Keeton Award of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning for his outstanding contributions to adult and experiential learning. In 2009 he was inducted into the international Adult Education Hall of Fame and in 2010 he received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Muhlenberg College.

Publications

Repressive Tolerance and the “Management” of Diversity

This chapter uses Herbert Marcuse's notion of repressive tolerance to examine the ways that higher education institutions manage diversity so as to ensure that the ideology...

A Critical Theory Approach to Program Planning

The dominant modes of program planning in the field of adult education are drawn from three intellectual traditions; humanistic psychology, progressivism and behaviorism. This...

Teaching for Critical Thinking

This chapter reviews the core process of critical thinking—hunting assumptions—and explains how this process differs according to the context of what is being taught and the...

Democratizing Classroom Discussion

This chapter analyzes the way Jurgen Habermas, the German critical theorist, connects the development of democracy to the educational use of discussion. It proposes an...

Teaching for Critical Thinking

This article reviews the core process of critical thinking—hunting assumptions—and explains how this process differs according to the context of what is being taught and the...

Scholarly Publications: Proposing and Revising Book Proposals

This chapter describes the stages of preparing a book proposal and offers practical strategies for dealing with securing a publisher, receiving and responding to feedback, and...

A Critical Theory Approach to Program Planning

The dominant modes of program planning in the field of adult education are drawn from three intellectual traditions; humanistic psychology, progressivism and behaviorism. This...

Repressive Tolerance and the “Management” of Diversity

This chapter uses Herbert Marcuse's notion of repressive tolerance to examine the ways that higher education institutions manage diversity so as to ensure that the ideology...

Teaching for Critical Thinking

This article reviews the core process of critical thinking – hunting assumptions – and explains how this process differs according to the context of what is being taught and the...

The Serious Use of Play and Metaphor: LEGO® Models and Labyrinths

In this chapter we examine kinesthetic forms of learning involving the body and the physical realm. Despite the increasing pervasiveness of technology-enhanced learning, certain...

The Essence of Powerful Teaching

Empowering learners and using powerful techniques are prominent elements in the discourse of adult and vocational education. But what constitutes the elements of what might be...

Preparing Book Proposals for Scholarly Publishers

There are three stages typically involved in submitting a book proposal to a scholarly publisher. The first is to overcome one's sense of impostorship, the feeling that books...

Teaching Critical Thinking and the Role of Team Teaching

Critical thinking pedagogy is usually conceived as a solo teacher working with multiple students. Yet, if we take seriously the finding that students benefit enormously from...

A Critical Theory Perspective on Program Development

The dominant modes of program planning in the field of adult education are drawn from three intellectual traditions: humanistic psychology, progressivism, and behaviorism. This...

Repressive Tolerance and the Practice of Adult Education

Herbert Marcuse's concept of repressive tolerance argues that behind the justification of tolerance lies the possibility of ideological domination. Tolerance allows...

“The Illness that Dare Not Speak Its Name”: An Auto-Ethnographic Approach to Understanding Adult Learning in and on Clinical Depression

Depression is something variously estimated to afflict between 5 and 10% of the North American adult population at any particular time. As such, it represents a major community...

Racializing the Discourse of Adult Education

Adult education scholarship has been racialized through the lens of Eurocentric theory and research. Theoretical paradigms such as Africentrism struggle to gain academic...

A Critical Theory of Adult and Community Education

Critical theory is one of the most influential theoretical frameworks influencing scholarship within the field of adult and community education. This chapter outlines what...

Teaching for Critical Thinking

This article reviews the core process of critical thinking – hunting assumptions – and explains how this process differs according to the context of what is being taught and the...

Teaching for Critical Thinking

This chapter reviews the core process of critical thinking—hunting assumptions—and explains how this process differs according to the context of what is being taught and the...

Democratizing Classroom Discussion

This chapter analyzes the way Jurgen Habermas, the German critical theorist, connects the development of democracy to the educational use of discussion. It proposes an...

Teaching through Film

Film can be used for multiple educational purposes in the support of students’ learning. It can be used at the beginning of a unit to generate avenues for discussion or...

The Serious Use of Play and Metaphor: Legos and Labyrinths

In this paper the authors wish to examine kinesthetic forms of learning involving the body and the physical realm. The authors look at two particular techniques; using Legos to...

The Essence of Powerful Teaching

Empowering learners and using powerful techniques are prominent elements in the discourse of adult and vocational education. But what constitutes the elements of what might be...

A Critical Theory of Adult and Community Education

Critical theory is one of the most influential theoretical frameworks influencing scholarship within the field of adult and community education. This chapter outlines what...

International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology (IJAVET)

Viktor Wang, Judith E. Parker, Geraldine Torrisi-Steele. Est. 2010.

The International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology (IJAVET) provides a global look at educational technologies for adult learners in higher education with...