Striking a critical pose: andragogy ‐‐ missing links, missing values

The first part of this essay, entitled ‘The Andragogy Debate: Twenty‐five Years of Deliberation’, examines the evolution of North American andragogy. It presents the changing views of researchers in a chronological dismantling of andragogy as a theory of adult learning. It provides a brief account of Knowles's influences in order to place andragogy in perspective as a set of assumptions about adult learning made fragile by what is missing. To expose the linear nature of the andragogical model, this section addresses sociological, philosophical, and other contextual weaknesses. The second part, ’Democracy and Freedom Lost in the Malcolmian Soft Sell’, elucidates the distorted view of individual freedom associated with individualism in the Knowlesian sense. It considers the impact of organizational and societal structures in shaping individual freedom and constituting democracy. While noting Knowles's support of individual freedom, it accents the inability of the andragogical model to achieve this freedom.