This study examines the lives of Black "professional" adult educators (both have PhD.s) as they reflect on their respective 20 years of work experience. The primary question to be answered is: How have these women shaped their own professional identity in adult education and to what extent has that process been affected by race and/or gender? A subsidiary and closely linked question is: What lessons are learned by shifting the methodological lens to contemplate the lives of two nondominant people in adult education? Four theoretical constructs bear directly on how the research problem was framed and how the "data" were perceived. Those constructs were: the concept of hegemony, the perspective of African American feminist theory, the perspective of a theory of women's history, and theories of professionalization. / A life history methodology, with a feminist influence, was used in this qualitative study; the data were analyzed using a grounded theory analysis. Two African American adult educators collaboratively engaged with the researcher in open-ended interviews and analysis of emerging concepts during 1992-93. Analysis revealed strategies used by the "co-historians" to overcome gender and racial barriers within their institutions and in the larger society. Findings indicate professional identity for these adult educators was not one of "conversion" to an externally defined symbolic model of an adult educator (no such model exists), rather it was an identity "melded" with personal beliefs and values colored by racial and gendered experiences. Another significant finding is the extent to which the lack of definition and professionalization of the field of adult education seems to affect the necessity for its members to create not only a professional identity but also the necessity to design opportunities for the application of their skills--this is referred to as "intrapreneuring." Life history, in this study, appears to be an important addition to adult education historiography because it accentuates the relationship of the degree of professionalization of the field to the individual practitioner's identity formation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-08, Section: A, page: 2247. / Major Professor: Peter A. Easton. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77201 |
| Contributors | Closson, Rosemary Brown., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 337 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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