Education for Social Change or the Status Quo? Gender, Curriculum, and the State in Soviet and Post-Soviet Belarus

Comparative Education Review · 2026-04-08

Curriculum is a key mechanism through which states construct and normalize dominant gender ideologies and power relations (Paechter 2000; Apple 2004). Using critical discourse analysis, this article compares gender education curricula in Soviet- and post-Soviet-era Belarus by examining the gender norms, roles, and identities they articulate and the shifting role of education in shaping gender relations in each political era. The comparison reveals a transition from a Soviet-era conceptualization of education as a transformative social force to promote the official gender-equality rhetoric to the post-Soviet model where education functions as a tool of social control to construct and reinforce gender hierarchy. The shift demonstrates how changes in state priorities and ideologies directly shape curriculum development and gender politics. By historicizing gender and the relationship between education and the state, the article contributes to debates on the role of the state in shaping gender relations through education.

Building Museum-University-Library Partnerships for Family Learning and Engagement: Lessons from the Talk with Me Toolkits

Journal of Museum Education · 2026-04-13

Editors’ Notes

New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education · 2025-06-01

Adult Learning Matters: Examining Parents’ Learning in the Philadelphia Family Literacy Initiative

2025-01-01

Adult Education Confronting White Christian Nationalism: A Thematic Analysis

New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education · 2025-06-01 · 1 citations

ABSTRACT As a way to conclude, this article elaborates key themes that emerged from the collected articles in this volume. Each article carries its own important message about the role of adult education in confronting White Christian nationalism, while here, Prins and Carr‐Chellman offer a thematic interpretation of the volume as a whole. These themes include: Anti‐Black racism at the heart of White Christian nationalism, implications for educating about and counteracting White Christian nationalism, and the role of churches in such efforts.

Unlearning and Deradicalizing From White Christian Nationalism: Implications for Adult Learning and Education

New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education · 2025-06-01 · 2 citations

ABSTRACT Since the January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, the influence of White Christian nationalism (WCN) has become even more pronounced and concerning. Adult educators and the public need a better understanding of whether and how WCN can be unlearned, and the roles ordinary citizens and adult educators can play in this process. After describing WCN and its reach in the United States, the article draws on three bodies of literature to consider how both the most committed proponents and sideline supporters might turn from WCN toward new beliefs and identities. These literatures are: (1) deradicalization from extremist groups and movements (e.g., terrorism, cults, gangs); (2) unlearning; and (3) personal accounts of leaving and discarding beliefs rooted in White supremacy, Christian nationalism, or White evangelicalism. Together, these sources offer useful insights into the conditions that help people change beliefs associated with extremist movements such as WCN.

United for what and for whom? An analysis of White Christian nationalism in a 2023 school board election campaign

The Review of Education Pedagogy & Cultural Studies · 2024-08-22 · 10 citations

Public school board elections have become cultural battlegrounds as groups with opposing views on education, politics, religion, and social and cultural issues vie to shape public education, their communities, and the nation. To date, little research has examined White Christian nationalism as a political force shaping these elections. This paper analyzes the November 2023 State College Area School District (SCASD) school board election in a polarized Pennsylvania town, focusing on the five "United for SCASD" candidates. Using public data (e.g., Facebook, websites, radio interviews, emails from candidates to board and administrators), the paper examines how these candidates' rhetoric – largely drawing on Civil Rights-era minoritarian framing – mobilized key White Christian nationalist tropes such as persectuion and voicelessness. The findings explore how candidates characterized desirable versus undesirable types of unity and diversity. For instance, they advocated for focusing on students' "common humanity" and teaching American exceptionalism as unifying strategies, argued for "parents' rights" to opt children out of objectionable material, and asserted the need for "viewpoint diversity" on the board. However, they opposed the board's alleged ideological uniformity and "divisive" initiatives and curricula focusing on systemic inequities, especially concerning race/racism and gender. The data show some evidence of White Christian nationalist tropes, particularly beliefs in American exceptionalism, the trope of persecution and voicelessness, the assertion of a common cultural template for US public schools, and us-them binaries, in this case, between liberal board members and their constituents versus the U4SCASD slate and more "conservative," often rural, families.

Editorial

Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung · 2024-08-01

On average approximately 20% of the adults across the countries participating in an international survey showed low performance in reading and numeracy tasks (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, PIAAC, OECD 2016, 2019).A much higher proportion of adults, with an average of around 50% across the participating countries, showed low problem-solving skills in technology rich environments.Although standardized literacy assessments do not fully capture adults' literate capabilities in daily life, these figures signify the need for adult basic and literacy education around the world.To elucidate the needs of adults with low literacy skills and how their needs could be addressed, we issued an international call for papers on research on adults

Parents’ learning in family literacy: a mixed-methods evaluation

Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung · 2024-08-01 · 2 citations

Abstract In the USA, comprehensive family literacy programs integrate adult education and parent education, interactive parent-child literacy activities, and early childhood education or school for children. Although parents’ learning is central to family literacy, research overwhelmingly focuses on children’s outcomes or positions parents as conduits of children’s learning. Thus, we know little about changes in parents’ language and literacy capabilities, self-concepts, social support systems, or other benefits. This study reports findings from a multi-year, mixed-methods evaluation of five family literacy programs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Participants were primarily immigrant mothers. Qualitative data, along with statistically significant quantitative data from a pre-post survey ( n = 139), demonstrate learning in four domains: educational, personal, social, and parenting. Specifically, parents developed literacy and language skills; enjoyed reading more and spent more time reading alone and with children; were more involved in everyday literacy practices; increased their self-confidence and self-esteem; provided support for each other, developed friendships, and built a sense of community; and increased support for and involvement in their children’s development, literacy, and education. These results build on prior research on parental outcomes and illustrate the value of using multi-faceted, holistic measures to examine how parents benefit from family literacy.

Practicing performance accountability in US adult basic education: a community case study

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2024-06-11 · 1 citations

The purpose of this chapter is to explore how adult basic education (ABE) providers in one U.S. city perceived, implemented, and shaped federal US performance accountability policy in their programs for adults who receive English language education services. Critical sociocultural policy analysis and the case study approach guide this qualitative investigation. We argue that standardised testing provides only a partial glimpse of adults’ progress pertaining to English language proficiency and their civic, social, and other goals. ABE providers in this study called for redefining measurable skills gain to include adult learners’ multi-faceted goals while also adopting practices that meant devoting resources to demonstrating gains as prescribed by the accountability policy. Ultimately, testing was transformed as primarily a means of retaining funding rather than one of measuring their own program quality or student progress.