Adult Education: Between Modernism And Post-modernism

Since the appearance of the Enlightenment,the development of adult education has been in the control and guidance of Modernism.The ideas of Modernism:Seeking truth,reform,improvement and innovation have made a great contribution to the progress and prosperity of the human society,by pouring into the vitality and the vigor for the development of modernist adult education.However,the development of modernism is in the pross of the continuous expansion of ration of technique,and the development of ration of technique makes the whole adult education system tend to be utilitarian.The ration,authority,unity,confirmation and the final values of Modernist impel the development of adult education to the extrem:The Modernist adult education ignores the spiritual abundance and the health of adult student's in physics and mind.Post-modernism developed on the basis of criticizing and reflecting the Modernism.The points of view of Post-modernism made a great inspiration to reflect the contemporary adult education problems.However,the Post-modernism isn't a normative ideological system with strict demonstration and the rigorous expression.There are many viewpoints which are opposite to the theory of Modernism.Although Post-modernism advocates openness,containing and being communicated with each other,it thoroughly destroys and subvers the Modernist adult education.From one extreme to another,this kind of adult education theory can't solve the problem of Modernist adult education.The purpose of my thesis is to study the adult education theotry,from two antithetic ideological system—Modernism and Post-modernism,in order to form a steady way for the development of adult education.Based on the comparison and reflection two adult education theories,my thesis points out that adult education should develop between Modernism and Post-modernism.By means of literature review and comparative analysis,this thesis discusses this issue from five aspectsrthe goal of adult education,knowledge view of adult education,the relationship between teachers and students of adult education,the process of adult education and the space and time view of adult education.