The Literacy Triangle: Literature, Literacy, and Lifelong Learning

This paper introduces the “literacy triangle” as a heuristic for mapping and understanding internal tensions among three interconnected polarities in adult education: the policy system, adult learners and teachers of adults. It argues that the system, strongly influenced by neoliberalism, restricts adult education to measurable outcomes, employability and a focus on developing human capital. Learners bring a wide range of experience, aspirations, needs and exclusions, while teachers occupy an “in-between” position, mediating institutional imperatives and learner needs through delivering recognition and critical pedagogy. Drawing on Freire, Mezirow, Honneth and Irish literature, the paper proposes a rationale for using literature as an empirical resource for illuminating how social structures impact every-day lives of individuals. It introduces the idea that some stories recount incidents that act as “shut-up stories,” silencing learners, shutting down the capacity to question and undermining self-confidence. The paper recommends that adult education, provides not only routes to employment but pre-conditions for recognition, identity development, democratic participation and freedom. The paper calls for adult education to reclaim its critical and democratic purpose, with teachers actings as agents for revealing structural inequalities and imagining more just futures and social freedom.