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Through close examination of Higgins’ role and his 1957 memoir of David Stewart, the paper shows how 1960s “official” adult education lost ties with radical working-class politics, later re-emerging through popular education and social movement learning.",{"@graph":69,"@context":126},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/esmonde-higgins-and-the-lost-history-of-australian-adult-education/592915/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/esmonde-higgins-and-the-lost-history-of-australian-adult-education/592915.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Marglet","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118,122],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why did the AAAE founders need an origin story in 1960?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"With Australia locked in Cold War capitalism-versus-communism and anticommunism at high intensity, founders sought an origin narrative that would appeal to these prejudices and secure influence and funding.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How did post-1960 adult education histories treat radical adult educators?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Early histories largely dismissed radical adult educators and left-wing organisations, instead emphasizing mainstream “great men” and university or institutional leadership over organised working-class sources.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What role does Higgins’ memoir of David Stewart play in the paper?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The memoir written in 1957 by Esmonde McDonald Higgins becomes a key source for understanding how 1960s adult education lost touch with its radical roots, because Higgins’ later account sanitised earlier socialist-driven development.",{"name":123,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":124},"How does the paper connect current adult education to earlier radical traditions?",{"text":125,"@type":113},"It argues that links are re-emerging through studying popular education and social movement learning, while noting that few social movement educators in Australia know their profession’s radical past.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":128,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":130,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":132,"site_id":62},592915,1792191338,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":135},{"doc_id":132,"user_id":136,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":137,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":138,"file_id":139,"file_url":140,"file_type":141,"file_size":142,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":143,"language":144,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":145,"faqs":146,"seo_title":147,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":148,"read_time":149,"preview_page_count":4},2336477982702,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 60, Number 3, November 2020  \nEsmonde Higgins and the lost history of Australian adult education  \nBob Boughton University of New England  \nWhen the Australian Association of Adult Education (AAAE) was established in 1960, Australia was locked into a global conflict between capitalism and communism, known as the Cold War. With anticommunism at fever pitch, AAAE’s founders who were fighting to retain some influence with Australian universities and with government funding authorities needed an origin story which would appeal to these prejudices. Not surprisingly, therefore, histories of‘the profession’produced in the first decades largely dismissed the role of the many radical adult educators and left-wing organisations which had been instrumental in extending adult education to the working class in the first half of the twentieth century. One of the main sources for these early histories was a memoir of David Stewart, founder of the Workers Education Association, written in 1957 by a university adult educator, Esmonde McDonald Higgins. In this paper, Itell a different story, through a close examination of Higgins’ own role in this early history, to show how 1960s ‘official’adult education lost touch with its own roots in radical working class politics, roots which are only now re-emerging, through the study of popular education and social movement learning.  \n424 Bob Boughton  \nKey words: Adult education history, Australian Association ofAdult Education (AAE), Workers Education Association (WEA), radical adult education, popular education, communism  \nIntroduction  \nThe Australian Association for Adult Education (AAAE) was formed in 1960, ata meeting of professional adult educators, mainly drawn from university adult education departments and the Workers Education Association (WEA) branches in some states. Today, AAAE has become Adult Learning Australia (ALA), representing the organisations which comprise a recognised ‘sector’of the Australian education system, known as Adult Community Education (ACE), and the professional adult educators who work in and with ACE ‘providers’. The mostrecent‘environmental scan’of the ACE sector estimates there are 2500 providers in this sector, providing accredited and non-accredited courses including personal enrichment/interest learning, adult basic education in language, literacy, numeracy, digital and other foundation skills and …. formal vocational education and training.”(Adult Learning Australia 2020) .  \nThe ACE sector, as defined by ALA, has a history. Some providers, such as the WEAs, trace their origins back to the early twentieth century (Dymock 2001; Morris 2013). Even before then, the Sydney Working Men's College, the Mechanics Institutes, Railway Institutes and Schools of Arts were forerunners to today’s vocational education and training providers (Candy & Laurent 1994). But the history of today’s ACE providers is not the whole story. Rather, ACE and ALA which represents it, is the outcome of a long history during which the more ‘mainstream’forebears of today’s providers vied with other, more radical institutions for the allegiance and interest of adult learners. Sixty years ago, when the AAAE formed, the Cold War and the bitter anti-communism of those times had cut a swathe through the field of adult education, casting many of the most progressive providers and practitioners of earlier decades into oblivion. As a consequence, late 20th century adult education lost many historic links it once had with progressive social movements. Today, those links are re-emerging, through the study  \nEsmonde Higgins and the lost history of Australian adult education 425  \nof social movement learning, known in the Global South as popular education (Kane 2001; Hall [et.al](et.al). 2012) . But few social movement educators in today’s Australia know anything about their profession’s radical past (Boughton 1997a). This paper contributes to filling that gap,","cbCaict9iGzZ3rYG","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaict9iGzZ3rYG","pdf",144525,21,"English","# Introduction\n## Formation of the AAAE and Cold War context\n## Adult community education sector and historical tensions\n## Contribution through Higgins’ life and memoir","[{\"question\":\"Why did the AAAE founders need an origin story in 1960?\",\"answer\":\"With Australia locked in Cold War capitalism-versus-communism and anticommunism at high intensity, founders sought an origin narrative that would appeal to these prejudices and secure influence and funding.\"},{\"question\":\"How did post-1960 adult education histories treat radical adult educators?\",\"answer\":\"Early histories largely dismissed radical adult educators and left-wing organisations, instead emphasizing mainstream “great men” and university or institutional leadership over organised working-class sources.\"},{\"question\":\"What role does Higgins’ memoir of David Stewart play in the paper?\",\"answer\":\"The memoir written in 1957 by Esmonde McDonald Higgins becomes a key source for understanding how 1960s adult education lost touch with its radical roots, because Higgins’ later account sanitised earlier socialist-driven development.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the paper connect current adult education to earlier radical traditions?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that links are re-emerging through studying popular education and social movement learning, while noting that few social movement educators in Australia know their profession’s radical past.\"}]","Esmonde Higgins and the lost history of Australian adult education | PDF",1792076180,53]