The Sociology of Adult & Continuing Education

Chapter Seven

Teaching Methods and Learning

The strategy-based position springs from a long tradition of thought including such diverse notables as Rousseau, Wilhelm Reich, A. S. Neil, Carl Rogers and Erich Fromm. Shaped in what can be generally termed a radical humanism, this group acknowledges the oppressive power and control exercised by schools, but they differ from the content-focused radicals in their assessment of the nature of such control. For the strategy-based radicals the essence of schooling lies in its reproduction of traditional, hierarchical, social relationships. In general these relationships replicate top-to-down models of authority and sanction social conformity rather than student initiative and imagination. The strategy-based ...