Convergence: Volume 36 Number 1

Convergence, the journal of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), has a new home base in the United Kingdom, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). This change does not affect the ownership, sponsorship, policies or procedures of the journal. What NIACE will do is help ICAE with more efficient production, international promotion and distribution of the journal. Manuscripts for publication should continue to be sent directly to the Editor. The International Council for Adult Education has also transferred its Toronto office to Montevideo under the coordination of Celita Eccher, the new General Secretary, and maintains a Secretariat office in Montreal. However, all journal activity has been moved out of these offices.

We hope you will be challenged by the strength and diversity of the ideas presented in this issue. Zwierzynski’s article on Global Wisdom foreshadows our future special issue on the World Social Forum. While his analysis of empire centers on macro analysis, Summer, Rafi and Plumb concern themselves with micro analysis, as it occurs on the ground in social change. Each is concerned with how activity directed towards liberation can be diverted.

Finally, we have descriptions of three educational programs. Osorio and Doll discuss education for the so called “third age” or older adult in Spain and Brazil respectively; Romano is concerned with the struggle for proletarianising of the Italian university that he sees being carried out through the inclusion of adult education.

I wish to personally thank Stephan Dobson for his excellent work as Managing Editor and especially for his help in breaking me in on my job. This issue represents his last work for ICAE. We welcome David Shaw from NIACE who takes up these duties.