Joni Schwartz

This textbook guide for the book Learning to Disclose: A Journey of Transracial Adoption by Joni Schwartz & Rebecca Schwartz, November 2020 published by the Peter Lang Group. This teaching aid accompanies the text. This teaching aid was created by Alejandro Toro as part of an LIB 220, Spring 1 research course project. It is submitted with his written permission

The following is an interview with Dr. Talmadge C. Guy, to his friends and colleagues in adult education; he is Tal. Recently retired from The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia following a 40 year career in adult education, the last 23 of which he spent at the University of Georgia.  He received his doctorate in adult education from Northern Illinois University, a master of arts in social ethics from Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Fisk University. At the University of Georgia, Tal worked with masters and doctoral level students in graduate research. Through his career he has conducted research on diversity and inclusion in adult education and learning settings with special expertise in multicultural adult education, history of adult education, and socio-historical analysis of the African American experience in adult education with a focus on the early 20th century. A particular focus has been the representation of race and gender throu...

This short 24 minute documentary addresses one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time, mass incarceration and re-entry, through the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated college students and faculty. It is ideal for adult education classrooms as it addresses the connection between education and the prevention of recidivism. The documentary was created through the collaboration of a group of stakeholders including students, faculty and college administrators. Counterstory was an official selection of (In)Justice for All International Film Festival 2018. To view the trailer go to: https://www.facebook.com/counterstoryafterincarceration/?modal=admin todo tour or https://twitter.com/counterstorydoc CONTACT: jonischwartz@jonischwartz.com to secure Counterstory for educational/public screenings

This exploratory, comparative case study of an urban community college calculus classroom examines adult learning from Yang’s Holistic Learning Theory and provides concrete pedagogical suggestions for how adult learning practitioners can engage adult learners in transformative learning. Data collection was from a selective sampling of student reflective survey writing throughout the span of one calculus course. Data content analysis was both manual and with the aid of NVivo qualitative software by two separate coders. Findings indicate that students exhibit strong explicit and in some instances implicit learning modes but seldom engage in transformative or emancipatory modes of learning as it relates to math. The study, although a pilot, suggests avenues for further research in math learning as well as ideas for eclectic teaching approaches in adult math classrooms. Implications for professors and administrators are discussed.

Mass incarceration in America is a moral, economic, and societal crisis with serious implications for many men of color and high school non-completers who are incarcerated at proportionally higher rates than Whites or college graduates. For the formerly incarcerated, engagement in adult learning, whether high school equivalency (HSE) or college, decreases the likelihood that they will return to prison, increases opportunities for employment, and serves as a powerful re-integration tool in society. This article describes one community college’s collaborative inquiry and writing project that uses archival, auto-ethnographic, and interview data to explore how formerly incarcerated students might be effectively engaged in adult education and offers this inquiry project as a potential model for this engagement. Through the voice of the faculty/instructor, this article conceptualizes the inquiry writing project process using a two-part framework: Chevalier and Buckles’ five stages of coll...

This case study examines, Al Bawsala, a nongovernmental organization and a female cyber social activist, Amira Yahyaoui, in the aftermath of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution through the lens of adult education. The theoretical frameworks of conscientization and third space are employed to describe Yahyaoui’s development of the watchdog political organization, Al Bawsala, for the purpose of democratic learning and popular education in Tunisia. Through interviews with Yahyaoui as well as content analysis of social media platforms used by Al Bawsala, the findings suggest popular education praxis of conscientization and third space are operative and central to Tunisia’s relatively nonviolent path toward democratization after the Arab Spring. The authors further suggest that Al Bawsala’s work is one approach for moving forward in a postrevolution context, and that adult education is central to that process.

Teaching Communication Activism: Communication Education for Social Justice. Lawrence R. Frey (Editor), David L. Palmer (Editor) New York, New York: Hampton Press, Inc., 2014. ISBN: 978-1-61289-134-7. Hardbound. ISBN: 978-1-61289-134-4. Paperback, 539 pages. http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=978-1-61289-134-7

New Book - Lexington Books   Arriving this summer – Race, Education, and Reintegrating Formerly Incarcerated Citizens – co-edited with John R. Chaney -  https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498540902/Race-Education-and-Reintegrating-Formerly-Incarcerated-Citizens-Counterstories-and-Counterspaces

This chapter is a call to action for adult educators to critically engage the Black Lives Matter Movement through pedagogy, community engagement and scholarly activism. It explores the intersection of the Black Lives Matter movement and adult education by highlighting the response of one community college initiative.

This concluding chapter discusses the important contribution Black men's voices have made and can make to adult education theory and practice. Particular emphasis is placed on troubling the various factors that contribute to the silencing of those voices.

A fair amount has been written about the use of social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube) before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy by government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, volunteer groups, and individuals to provide ongoing communication to response partners and to share much needed information to the community affected. However, little has been written about the loss of media technology and its impact on emotions and intra- and interpersonal communication on those affected but not directly devastated by the storm. This practitioner’s phenomenological study examined the loss and change of media communication during and after Hurricane Sandy through the “lived experiences” of 49 east coast community college students. The findings suggest that limited or loss of media technology had impact on family, community, inter-, and intrapersonal communication dynamics which manifested in competing feelings of mindfulness and powerlessness.

This autoethnographic research project examines the transformational learning of a transracial adoptive adult mother and daughter through the lens of postcolonialism. As collaborative researchers, adult adoptee and adoptive mother, examine this lifelong learning experience through critical self-reflection, qualitative meta-analysis, and autoethnographic research methods within the overarching historical and sociopolitical context of Haiti. The findings address the lived complexities of increasingly hybrid families, particularly around the contentious boundaries of race, nationality, and colonial history, as they impact transformational learning. Color blindness and racial identity development for both mother and daughter within their relationship are explored. Implications for adult educators around the use of autoethnography to engage the social imagination and employ disclosure toward transformative learning are discussed.

he 2016 American presidential election season was one of the most provocative in modern history with the final results leaving the marginalized feeling more disenfranchised. Within this marginalized population, a person formerly or currently connected to the criminal justice system is no exception. Fear and anxiety have created a type of neurotic anxiety permeating a society that is divided on views that supersede those fundamental beliefs that our country has stood upon – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Furthermore, the impact of the past election on formerly and currently incarcerated citizens has intensified the need to respond to this social justice issue, which has reached epic proportions (Alexander, 2010). The intersection of social justice and education is poignantly felt in the disproportionate mass incarceration of so many of our black and brown brothers and sisters in addition to the inequality of educational opportunity based on income and race across the country. These two intersecting injustices may very well be the greatest civil rights issue or challenge of our day. Given the prior administration's progressive actions on issues relating to persons with a criminal background versus the current administration's regressive stance, adult educators are forced to reevaluate their current pedagogy in response. We make the argument that if anyone should be concerned and involved in prison education, advocacy, and re-entry work at this juncture in our history, it is the adult educator. Therefore, Dialogues in Social Justice: An Adult Education Journal has devoted its third issue to adult education and prison/re-entry. The four interrelated goals of this DSJ issue are: (1) to make the argument that education and the support of opportunity for adult education is a substantiated solution to decreasing recidivism; (2) to emphasize that institutionalized racism and educational inequality support T

This case study examines. Al Bawsala, a nongovernmental organization and a female cyber social activist, Amira Yahyaoui, in the aftermath of Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution through the lens of adult education. The theoretical frameworks of conscientization and third space are employed to describe Yahyaoui's development of the watchdog political organization, AlBawsala, for the purpose of democratic learning and popular education in Tunisia. Through interviews with Yahyaoui as well as content analysis of social media platforms used by Al Bawsala, the findings suggest popular education praxis of conscientization and third space are operative and central to Tunisia's relatively nonviolent path toward democratization after the Arab Spring. The authors further suggest that Al Bawsala's work is one approach for moving forward in a postrevolution context, and that adult education is central to that process.

his article, based on an ethnographic study of an urban General Education Development (GED®) program, suggests that for some marginalized young men of color, Adult education programs are counter-spaces of spatial justice in opposition to previous negative school spaces. Framed by critical race theory (CRT) and drawing on critical geography and adult education literature on space and place, the author defines these counter-spaces through four dimensions: place, temporal, intrapersonal, and interpersonal, maintaining that they are not equivalent to activities or experiences although they may inhabit them. The article concludes with implications for the use of CRT in understanding GED as potential counter-space.

While in no way supporting the systemic injustices and disparities of mass incarceration, Gifts from the Dark: Learning from the Incarceration Experience argues that we have much to learn from those who have been and are in prison. Schwartz and Chaney profile the contributions of literary giants, social activists, entrepreneurs, and other talented individuals who, despite the disorienting dilemma of incarceration, are models of adult transformative learning that positively impact the world. The authors interweave narratives with both qualitative and quantitative research references to analyze the role of solitude, writing, non-verbal communication; race and gender; physical exercise; education; technology; family and parenting; and the need to “give back” that precipitate transformative learning. The prison cell becomes a counterspace of metamorphosis. In focusing upon how men and women have chosen the worst moments of their lives as a baseline not to define, but to refine themselves, Gifts from the Dark promises to forever alter the limited mindset of incarceration as a solely one-dimensional, deficit event.

Joni and Rebecca Schwartz in their collaborative autoethnography, Learning to Disclose: A Journey of Transracial Adoption, are doing soul work. This adult white mother and black daughter reflect and dialogue around the places and histories that shaped their relationship. Through three voices: the voice of critical history, the daughter and the mother, the co-authors excavate the past to see if and how it lives in their present. In an intriguing mix of critical history of places like Portau-Prince and Gulu, Uganda as well as lesser-known narratives of W.E.B. Dubois, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and Shirley Chisholm, the co-authors tell their own personal and moving stories of becoming mother and daughter engaging such topics as racial identity, disclosure, racial appropriation, colonialism, and the complex history of transracial adoption. For anyone interested in racial identity in the complex world of blended families and adult mother and daughter relationships, this is a must read. This book is ideal for all humanities courses across disciplines from sociology, education, qualitative research, and social work to race and communication studies. In this era of strained and confusing racial dialogue, this book is refreshing in its honesty, moving it its personal narratives, and instructive in its engagement in how the historical lives in the social imagination of our present lives and relationships.

This volume of New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education is the continuation of a two-part series that focuses on salient topics and issues affecting Black males as they engage in adult education and learning. Like the first, this volume assumes that both the historical and current contexts of learning have a unique impact on the way in which these men participate in adult education.

Here is an introduction to salient topics and issues affecting Black males as they engage in adult basic education programs, pursue employment, and obtain higher education. The chapters include academic research as well as program descriptions and personal narratives with a concern for the “lived experiences” and the voices of the men.

While not exhaustive, this volumne does hope to challenge commonly held stereotypes, interactions, and policies. It is designed to raise questions about the unique experiences of this specific population and to explore the sociocultural dynamics that impact their education.
This is the 144th volume of the Jossey Bass series New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. Noted for its depth of coverage, it explores issues of common interest to instructors, administrators, counselors, and policymakers in a broad range of education settings, such as colleges and universities, extension programs, businesses, libraries, and museums.


Table of Contents

EDITORS’ NOTES 1
Dionne Rosser-Mims, Joni Schwartz, Brendaly Drayton, Talmadge C. Guy

1. Race, the Black Male, and Heterogeneous Racisms in Education 5
Juanita Johnson-Bailey, Nichole Ray, Tennille Lasker-Scott

This chapter explores the effects of historical and current racism on the educational experiences of American Black males. The authors use critical race theory to illustrate how assumptions about culture and gender have subverted the egalitarian ideals of adult education. Teachers and students are urged to use critical reflection and open discussion about racial issues.

2. The (End)angered Black Male Swimming Against the Current 15
Talmadge C. Guy

This chapter discusses the sociohistorical and deeply embedded myths and stereotypes that have dominated narratives about Black men and how these shape the educational and professional experiences of Black men.

3. The Good Provider: Missing or Overlooked? 27
Brendaly Drayton

This chapter explores Black men’s reasons for participating in an adult basic education and literacy program through the lens of gender identity.

4. High School Equivalency as Counter-Space 37
Joni Schwartz

This chapter is based on the findings of an ethnographic study of an urban General Education Development (GED) program and suggests that, for some marginalized African American and other young men of color, adult education programs are counter-spaces (Yosso, Ceja, Smith, & Solorzano, 2009) of spatial justice in opposition to previous negative school spaces. The chapter is framed from the perspective of critical race theory.

5. A New Normal: Young Men of Color, Trauma, and Engagement in Learning 49
Carlyle Van Thompson, Paul J. Schwartz

This chapter will center on the continuing impact of systemic and persistent educational trauma experienced by Black and Latino males and how trauma affects their current learning. The young men’s counterstories from a phenomenological study and documentary are included.

6. The Reentry Adult College Student: An Exploration of the Black Male Experience 59
Dionne Rosser-Mims, Glenn A. Palmer, Pamela Harroff

This chapter shares findings from a qualitative study on reentry adult Black males’ postsecondary education experiences and identifies strategies to help this population matriculate through college and graduate.

7. Returning to School After Incarceration: Policy, Prisoners, and the Classroom 69
Brian Miller, Joserichsen Mondesir, Timothy Stater, Joni Schwartz

This chapter addresses the challenges facing men of color who return to adult education after incarceration. It frames their experience as a war from a sociopolitical and cultural context, and then explains the support men need to succeed both in and outside the classroom.

8. Empty Promise: Black American Veterans and the New GI Bill 79
Alford H. Ottley

The 2008 GI Bill offers college funds for veterans. Yet Black male vets are not taking advantage of these benefits. This chapter examines personal and societal problems that hinder access to higher education for Black vets, and suggests some ways adult educators can advocate for these young men.

9. Black Males and Adult Education: A Call to Action 89
Brendaly Drayton, Dionne Rosser-Mims, Joni Schwartz, Talmadge C. Guy

In this concluding chapter, the editors offer their reflections on the key themes of this volume and implications for future research and practitioners of adult education.

This chapter, chapter 12, examines through autoethnography the working relationship and personal friendship of three women of diverse racial backgrounds. The challenges, triumphs, joys and struggles of interracial friendship among professional women is examined.

A fair amount has been written about the use of social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) before, during and after Hurricane Sandy by government agencies, corporations, non-profit organizations, volunteer groups, and individuals to provide ongoing communication to response partners and to share much needed information to the community affected. However, little has been written about the loss of media technology and its impact on emotions and intrapersonal and interpersonal communication on those affected but not directly devastated by the storm. This practitioner’s phenomenological study examined the loss and change of media communication during and after Hurricane Sandy through the “lived experiences” of forty-nine east coast community college students. The findings suggest that limited or loss of media technology had impact on family, community, interpersonal and intrapersonal communication dynamics which manifested in competing feelings of mindfulness and powerlessness.

Published by Wiley- Jossey-Bass (2014) in the book "Swimming Upstream: Black Males in Adult Education" in the series New Directions in Adult & Continuing Education; this chapter addresses the challenges facing men of color who return to adult education after incarceration. It frames their experience as a war from a sociopolitical and cultural context, and then explains the support men need to succeed both in and outside the classroom.

Published by Wiley - Jossey Bass Publishers (2014)  in the "Swimming Upstream: Black Males in Adult Education"  book in the New Directions in Adult & Continuing Education series. This chapter is based on the findings of an ethnographic study of an urban GED program and suggests that for some marginalized men of color, adult education programs are counter-spaces of spatial justice in opposition to previously negative school spaces. The chapter is framed from the perspective of critical race theory.

Abstract: A fair amount has been written about the use of social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) before, during and after Hurricane Sandy by government agencies, corporations, non-profit organizations, volunteer groups, and individuals to provide ongoing communication to response partners and to share much needed information to the community affected. However, little has been written about the loss of media technology and its impact on emotions and intrapersonal and interpersonal communication on those affected but not directly devastated by the storm. This practitioner’s phenomenological study examined the loss and change of media communication during and after Hurricane Sandy through the “lived experiences” of forty-nine east coast community college students. The findings suggest that limited or loss of media technology had impact on family, community, interpersonal and intrapersonal communication dynamics which manifested in competing feelings of mindfulness and powerlessness.

Abstract:
This chapter focuses on the mentoring of undergraduate young men of color majoring in the STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and explores the nature of these relationships with their faculty mentors. The chapter draws on the findings of three phenomenological studies and observations of one mentoring program; both the study sites and the program are located within a large urban East Coast public university system where three fourths of all incoming freshmen receive need-based aid and an estimated ninety percent are students of color. The structure of the chapter covers the following topics: a definition of undergraduate research (UR) STEM mentoring, an overview of the studies, a literature review, and the studies’ findings which include the benefits and costs of UR mentoring for students and faculty, the affective nature of the mentoring relationships, and the racial component in the mentoring of young men of color. The emotional, financial and professional costs to faculty engaged in UR mentoring relationships are also addressed. Examples of successful mentoring relationships are highlighted. And finally, recommendations for retaining young men of color in STEM and the development of early college mentoring programs with a focus on young men of color are suggested.

This documentary addresses one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time, mass incarceration and re-entry, through the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated college students and college faculty.
Executive Producer – Joni Schwartz
Associate Producers – Bethany Jacobson, Terry Parker; Editor – Andre Lewis; Music – Andrew Russell;
Stakeholders – Tiheba Bain, Richard Brown, Stanley Bussey, John R. Chaney, Johnny Davis, Darren Ferguson,
Steven Hitt, Kevin Jordan, Juan Merced, Brian Miller, John Powell, Marquise Powell, Kareem Smith, Tony Walker, Patrick Van Sluytman, Paul Waters