Synthesis question analysis and applications

Diversity in Adult Education

The issue of adult education that I found most personally engaging is the issue of student diversity, especially as it corresponds to and affects learning styles and methods. Strong links exist between learning and language style, and I believe that cultural differences reflect a wide array of learning styles and methods that is not always appropriately addressed.

The purpose of the study is to determine the issues caused by cultural diversity in adult education, with specific attention paid to issues relating to diverse learning styles and cultural resistance to or enthusiasm towards various learning styles and methods, and to analyze current strategies for handling these issues in terms of their effectiveness in promoting learning in adult education programs.

In our increasingly global economy and international community, the ability to understand and work with many others from a diverse range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds is essential to most endeavors. Such skills are especially necessary -- and perhaps especially lacking -- in the world of adult education. Without effective strategies for dealing with such diversity in the adult education classroom, students will be left without the full benefit of their education, in essence reducing their own participation in the multicultural world by limiting their ability to learn from and understand it. This study will help to rectify this loss first by determining the level of need for increased diversity awareness and specifying the specific areas of concern, and then by analyzing and suggesting remedies for current perceived adult education issues caused by lack of diversity preparedness.

The benefits of this study will be both to adult learners and to their educators. The benefits to the students should be obvious; though it will take time and further research to evaluate and implement the suggestions made by this study on a large scale, the needs of the students in a multicultural setting will be better met by educators who better understand the diversity of needs and styles that multiculturalism helps to propagate and condense in the classroom.