Hart, Greg. (1998). Power, Literacy and Motivation. Focus on Basics, 2 A http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~ncsall/fob/1998/hart.htm

Hart sees literacy as a means to greater power and personal freedom. He states “it is the prospect of achieving power and not the concept of literacy that truly motivates both students and teachers”. As a result, Hart and his colleagues at Pima County Adult Education (PCAE) decided to invest time, energy and money to introduce the potential for power and civic engagement in an integrated way into their curriculum. Hart explains that they did this in order to motivate students to “use and respect literacy as a tool of action rather than to regard it as a concept unrelated to the reality of their lives and their powerlessness”. Power is the ultimate motivator. It allows the student to feel in control and confident in their decisions. This feeling of power will also motivate students to prioritize their engagement in the program.

Johnson-Bailey, Juanita & Cervero, Ronald. (1997). Beyond facilitation in adult education: power dynamics in teaching and learning practices. 27th Annual SCUTREA conference. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000000248.htm

The authors of this article challenge the accepted notion that the ideal role for an adult educator is that of facilitator. They state “if all learners are to thrive, adult educators must go beyond the facilitator’s role to directly negotiate the power dynamics in the classroom”. The qualitative comparative case study found that power dynamics had a direct impact on students’ learning. In some cases these dynamics negated the learning while in other cases it empowered students to learn more. Students also reported being negatively impacted in the learning environment when a student dominated the class discourse and the teacher did not interfere.

Malicky, Grace. & Norman, Charles. (1996). Perceptions of Adult Literacy Learners about Themselves and their Lives. Adult Basic Education. 6, 1 p. 3-20. http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/pat/vol6no1/page3a.htm

The primary purpose of the 3-year study reviewed in this paper was to understand the lives of participants in adult literacy programs in a large urban centre in Canada from the perspectives of the program participants themselves. A second purpose involved asking them about perceived changes within themselves and in their lives as they participated in literacy programs. This is a very interesting study to read for practitioners and policy makers interested in classroom management because it clearly demonstrates that the more we know about the adults in the literacy programs, the more the programs can reflect their needs and the subjective realities of their lives.