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From Social Learning to Norm Validation

This chapter asserts that the emergent ontology of critical realism especially as mobilized by sociologist Dave Elder-Vass in his discussion of norm circles provides a powerful theoretical basis for supporting the emancipatory aspirations of critical adult education. According to Michael Welton, because of its capacity to support social learning, critical adult education has a pivotal role to play in human emancipation. Drawing on Jürgen Habermas's critical theory of communicative action, Michael Welton argues that critical adult education's deepest contemporary purpose is to foster social learning that can enable people to resist the destructive colonization of lifeworld contexts. This chapter argues that, while Habermas provides important insight into the normative foundations of critical adult education, his theory of communicative action cannot alone illuminate the ways human learning shapes and is shaped by lifeworld contexts. Elder-Vass's exploration of norm-circles helps identify weaknesses in the concept of “social learning” and identify how, in addition to supporting individual learning, emancipatory adult educators can also support the distinctive emergent power of norm-circles to form and enforce epistemic, discursive, ethical, and practical norms.