In Working the Planning Table, Ronald M. Cervero and Arthur L. Wilson offer a theory that accounts for planners’ lived experience and provides a guide for developing effective educational programs for adults.  The book presents three planning case studies that illustrate how power, interests, ethical commitment, and negotiation are central to planners’ everyday work.  These stories offer guidance on how to respond to the realities of practice and clearly point out that the technical work of planning is always political. Working the Planning Table reveals how people work to negotiate educational and political outcomes for multiple stakeholders.

Preface v

Working the Planning Table: A Theory for Practice

1. Seeing What Matters: Education as a Struggle for Knowledge and Power 5

2. Practicing Educational Planning: Three Stories 27

3. Negotiating Democratically for Educational and Political Outcomes 77

Working the Planning Table: The Theory in Practice

4. Negotiating the Program’s Needs-Assessment 107

5. Negotiating the Program’s Educational, Management, and Political Objectives 137

6. Negotiating the Program’s Instructional Design and Implementation 161

7. Negotiating the Program’s Administrative Organization and Operation 187

8. Negotiating the Program’s Formal and Informal Evaluation 213

9. Working the Planning Table in the Struggle for Knowledge and Power 241

References 269

The Authors 285

Index 289

Ronald M. Cervero is professor of adult education and head of the Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy at the University of Georgia. He is coauthor of Planning Responsibly for Adult Education, coeditor of Power In Practice (both with Arthur L. Wilson), and coeditor of Global Issues and Adult Education (with Sharan B. Merriam and Bradley C. Courtenay) all from Jossey-Bass, and author of numerous articles on the politics of adult education, program planning, and continuing education for the professions.

Arthur L. Wilson is professor of adult education and Program Leader of Adult and Extension Education in the Department of Education at Cornell University.  He is coauthor of Planning Responsibly for Adult Education, coeditor of Power in Practice (both with Ronald M. Cervero), coeditor of the Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education (with Elisabeth R. Hayes), and author of numerous articles on the politics of adult education, program planning, and historical and philosophical foundations of adult education.

 

 

"…the authors have done excellent research on the reality of the program planning." (PsycCritiques, 09/06/2007)

“This book doesn’t just tell, it shows how real-world politics oozes around the planning table. These case studies are gritty and complex—excellent for class discussion that gets beneath the usual gloss of program development.”--Tara Fenwick, associate professor, Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Alberta

 

“Cervero and Wilson recognize the need of practitioners for concrete advice about how to approach common planning tasks, but they also do a fine job of blending these practical concerns with a thorough and thoughtful political analysis of useful cases from their own planning experience.”--Thomas J. Sork, professor of adult education, University of British Columbia

 

“The authors’ unrelenting adherence to the real stories of planners as they negotiate interests and power cannot help but strike a responsive chord among practitioners for whom the political and ethical dimensions of planning can not longer be ignored.”--Tom Heaney, National-Louis University