Socially Responsible Higher Education

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A reflective book review-Challenging the professionalization of adult Education: John ohliger and contradictions in modern practice
(2010) Hall, Budd L
Dr. Budd Hall's reflective review of Challenging the Professionalization of Adult Education (Grace & Rocco) examines the intellectual and political legacy of John Ohliger, who spent decades working outside the academy to defend adult education's democratic roots. Drawing on personal encounters and shared political work, Hall traces how Ohliger pushed back against the professionalization and marketization of adult learning, highlighting commitment to voluntary, community-based, and socially engaged education. The review connects Ohliger's thought to participatory research and popular education, arguing that his critique of compulsory, market-driven approaches remain relevant to contemporary adult education and social change. Hall ultimately presents Ohliger as a public intellectual whose work continues to inspire efforts to preserve the democratic and transformative potential of the field.
Big Tent Communique VI. Local identities and global citizenship: A message from Catania and challenges for universities
(2015-11-04) Hall, Budd L
In a world facing growing inequality, conflict, and environmental strain, the Sixth Big Tent Communiqué reflects on what role universities can play in responding to these challenges. It sees higher education as more than classrooms and research, calling for closer ties with communities and a stronger sense of responsibility to society. The communiqué raises questions about how universities can support young people, create knowledge that connects rather than divides, and rebuild trust in uncertain times. Instead of final answers, it leaves open the possibility that the future of universities will depend on how far they are willing to rethink their purpose.
Building a global learning network: The international council for adult education
(International Council for Adult Education, 0000) Hall, Budd L
What can we learn from the histories, tasks, and challenges of building global cooperation in adult education? In this chapter, Dr. Budd L Hall reflects on the emergence and significance of the International Council for Adult Education as a key step in strengthening international collaboration in adult learning. He traces its historical roots in post war movements for literacy, liberation, and development, and situates its formation within broader struggles for democratic participation and social justice. The chapter outlines ICAE’s early tasks, including building regional networks, amplifying voices from the Global South, and shaping global policy debates in partnership with bodies such as UNESCO. Hall also discusses internal tensions, funding constraints, and the political challenges of sustaining an independent global civil society network. By examining questions of direction, alliances, and accountability, he invites readers to reflect on how global networks can remain responsive to changing contexts while staying grounded in their transformative commitments.
Commentary on the progress report on the futures of education
(UNESCO Chair, 2020-04-24) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd L
Community based participatory research & sustainable development goals
(2017) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
In this report, Dr. Budd Hall and Dr. Rajesh Tandon explore the role of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The authors contend that addressing the social, economic, and environmental challenges within the SDG framework demands knowledge production approaches that go beyond what conventional academic research offers. Higher education institutions, with their considerable intellectual, physical, and digital resources, are seen as well-placed to generate locally relevant and actionable knowledge through socially responsible research. CBPR is discussed as a collaborative and participatory approach that brings together universities, communities, civil society, and policy actors in equitable partnerships, with an emphasis on co-learning, capacity building, and social change. The report also considers how higher education institutions can integrate CBPR into their research work through locally grounded and community-driven methods. It closes with recommendations for universities, policymakers, funding agencies, and civil society organizations on building stronger institutional support for CBPR in the pursuit of the SDGs.
Curriculum, higher education, and the public good
(2009) Hall, Budd L; Bhatt, Nandita; Lepore, Walter
Curriculum change in higher education is an extremely complex process. Influences on the content of what is taught in higher education include new knowledge coming from the various academic disciplines, from the regulatory bodies of many of the professions, from national calls for action, from global challenges, from social movements of the day. This chapter argues that in the search for excellence, engagement and social responsibility that there is no contradiction between responding to local calls for action and global matters. Illustrations of curriculum change which attend to both the local and the global include classroom changes, single university changes, system-wide changes in Canada, Asia, Latin America and New Zealand. We call for more attention to community engaged learning and the creation of central offices for community university engagement.
“I AM NOT A PEACENIK”: Adult learning of development education in English-speaking Canada
(Canadian and International Education, 1983) Hall, Budd L
What can development education look like in a changing world order? In this article, Dr. Budd Hall reflects on the meaning of development education and the approaches of adult learning within it. Drawing on thinkers such as Freire, Tawney, Marx and others, he examines their fundamental principles and approaches to education, and considers how adult learning can be understood through their perspectives. He foregrounds the persistent and difficult questions that confront development educators across the world, particularly those related to power, positionality, access, influence and reflexivity. Through examples ranging from Gatt Fly in Canada to educators in Tanzania, he traces common threads across varied experiences. Reflecting on his own work, the experiences of other educators, and major intellectual traditions, Hall reflects upon how development education must respond to the challenges of a changing world order. He also emphasises the interdependence of countries and argues that development education must fundamentally recognise and engage with this reality. Situated in the 1980s, the article offers a critical reflection on the direction and responsibilities of development education.
In the face of neoliberalism and other evil things: Canadian adult education as a social movement
(2016) Hall, Budd L
This review by Dr. Budd L. Hall examines three works on Canadian adult education and argues that the field is best understood as a social movement rooted in struggles for social justice, democracy, and collective learning. Through a critical discussion of Building on Critical Traditions, Lifelong Learning as Critical Action, and Moving Forward Giving Back, Hall traces a shared concern that adult education, whatever pressure it faces from neoliberalism and professionalization, remains alive in communities, in struggles for Indigenous self-determination, in labour organizing, and in everyday acts of learning for change. The review engages Grace's call for lifelong learning as critical action, Nesbit's framing of the field as a social movement, and Silver's account of Aboriginal adult education in Winnipeg, finding in all three a refusal to reduce learning to credentialing or economic utility. Hall argues that adult education in Canada continues to draw its energy from the margins from communities pushing back against inequality, demanding recognition, and building knowledge on their own terms.
India launch of the UNESCO Chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education
(UNESCO Chair, 2012-12) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
International Adult Education
(2016) Hall, Budd L
In this article, Dr. Budd Hall examines the history, contemporary challenges, and international dimensions of adult education. Tracing its origins to nineteenth-century social reform, labour, and popular education movements, the article highlights the transnational exchange of ideas and practices that shaped adult education initiatives across industrialized and developing societies. It examines adult learning within the context of globalization, emphasizing its contested role in addressing inequality, fostering democratic participation, and supporting social transformation. The article also discusses the significance of international conferences and organizations, particularly UNESCO and the International Council for Adult Education, in advancing global adult learning. It identifies key trends in international adult education, including divergent policy approaches between wealthy and developing nations, the emergence of learning spaces beyond formal institutions, and the declining visibility of adult education within international development agendas. Despite these challenges, the article affirms adult education's continuing relevance as a site of learning, advocacy, and social transformation.
International collaboration for changing the culture of research: The UNESCO Chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education
(Autonomie Locali e Servizi Sociali, 2020-04-01) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
In this article Dr. Budd L. Hall and Dr. Rajesh Tandon reflect on the evolution and global impact of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, established in 2012 as a joint initiative of the University of Victoria, Canada, and the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), India. Based on over forty years of collaborative work in participatory research, the authors trace the growth of international networks focused on community-based research, knowledge democracy, and socially responsible higher education. They examine how the chair's work, combining research, advocacy, and capacity building, has aimed at changing cultures of knowledge production and strengthening university-community partnerships. Through global studies, policy engagement, the "Big Tent" Communiqués, and the Knowledge for Change Consortium, they show how this work has addressed both local needs and the Sustainable Development Goals. The authors show that participatory, engaged research increases the social relevance of higher education by co-creating knowledge and building research capacity in the Global South and the "excluded North," marginalized communities within wealthy nations. The article points to sustained international collaboration and a substantive commitment to democratizing knowledge production as critical to reorienting research cultures towards equity, social justice, and sustainability.
Introduction social responsibility and community based research in higher education institutions
(BRILL, 2021) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh
Knowledge democracy and diverse epistemologies: Inspired by the book “Socially responsible higher education: International perspectives on knowledge democracy”
(UNESCO Chair, 2021) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd L
Mass adult education: a necessary element in the development of socialism in Tanzania
(Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 1972) Hall, Budd L
How are socialist principles realised in a country where literacy is scarce? This article by Dr. Budd Hall discusses approaches to mass adult education in Tanzania in the 1970s that are sustainable in the long run, enable political education, and are grounded in the everyday struggles of the people. It focuses on two key aspects: technical and technological knowledge that can support agricultural production, and ujamaa ideology. Ujamaa, a Swahili term meaning extended family, seeks to move away from colonial forms of knowledge and align education more closely with Tanzanian values. By undertaking a qualitative and reflective analysis of education policies from the period, informed by practitioner experience, the article outlines how training cadres were developed through shortened training programmes and reduced pressure on existing school teachers, with adult education taking place in community centres alongside children’s education and other initiatives aimed at strengthening adult education.
Participatory research-Popular knowledge and power
(1984-09) Hall, Budd L
Participatory research: An approach for change
(International Council for Adult Education, 1975) Hall, Budd L
How can research be imagined as an educational and transformative process rather than an extractive one? In this reflective essay, Dr. Budd Hall examines the shortcomings embedded within dominant principles of social science research. Drawing from his experiences as a researcher and his interactions with local education officers in the 1970s, he reflects on how research practices often alienate communities from the very processes meant to understand them. The essay explores key concerns around the ideological foundations of research, the ways in which social problems are oversimplified, and the distance from adult education principles. In doing so, it invites researchers to reimagine research as a dialectic, dialogic and ongoing educational experience which is oriented towards the liberation of human creative potential rather than the production of “neutral” knowledge.
Participatory research: Canadian adult educators build a global movement
(0000) Hall, Budd L; Jackson, Edward T
What role did Canadian adult educators play in shaping one of the most significant global research movements of the twentieth century? In this chapter, Dr. Budd Hall and Edward T. Jackson trace the history and evolution of participatory research as a major approach in adult education and community-engaged scholarship. The Participatory Research Group was founded in 1976 at OISE and was the Canadian node of the International Participatory Research Network. The group worked with labor, Indigenous organizations, immigrant associations, women’s groups, and other community-based organizations. It also describes important transformations in institutions, including the creation of international research networks, the expansion of community-university partnerships, and the emergence of programs like the Community-University Research Alliances (CURA) and UNESCO-supported initiatives that promote knowledge democracy. The chapter concludes with an analysis on lessons learned from five decades of practice and a reaffirmation of the ongoing relevance of participatory research for the advancement of equity, democratic participation, and socially responsive forms of education.
Perspectives on community practices: Living and learning in community
(Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani, 2015) Krašovec, Sabina Jelenc; Štefanc, Damijan; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh; Tremblay, Crystal; Singh, Wafa
This book presents the findings of the 2015 European Society for Research on the Education of Adults conference and brings together a rich collection of research that explores how communities learn, organise, resist and transform across varied contexts. It covers themes such as adult learning and wellbeing, intergenerational spaces of experience, feminist work in public museums, learning cities and regions, community resilience, applied theatre and transformative learning, and the co-construction of knowledge in community–university partnerships. Contributions such as Adult Learning and Wellbeing: Between Body Politics and the Body Politic, Community Building as Forum and Arena, and Challenges in the Co-Construction of Knowledge foreground tensions between policy, participation, power and everyday practice. The strength of this book lies in its plurality. It holds together critical, empirical and practice-based insights, making it an important resource for understanding community learning in complex and changing times.
Shaping socially responsible higher education through knowledge democratisation
(2023) Hall, Budd L
Beginning with early influences, Budd Hall shares some background on his 60+ years of engagement with the world of higher education. Sharing a world view deeply critical of the contemporary domination of global capitalism, he suggests that knowledge activism, knowledge democracy, and questions of knowledge equity, are key to the radical reinvention of higher education that is needed. He goes on to outline principles of socially responsible higher education, closing with a message of the urgency of our times.
Social movements and the practice of citizenship: Learning in the canadian and global context
(0000) Aggarwal, Pramila; Hall, Budd L
How can learnings from social movements advance the practice of citizenship? In this paper, Budd L. Hall and Pramila Aggarwal argue that social movements are intensive sites of democratic learning where citizenship is not only claimed but actively practiced. They identify interconnected forms of learning. Informal learning among participants, intentional educational efforts within movements, and broader public learning that occurs as movements reshape public understanding. Knowledge generated in struggle travels beyond direct participants. Hall reflects, for instance, on how insights from the women’s movement transformed his own understanding of power even though he was not directly part of it. Drawing on the work of Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire, this paper situates social movements as spaces where learning, agency and structural critique converge. Movements generate new knowledge, identities and capacities for collective action, thereby expanding the meaning and practice of citizenship beyond legality and advancing adult learning as a lived, collective process. The authors posit that social movement learning can serve as vital sites for advancing adult learning and, by extension, deepening democratic citizenship.