Stephen Brookfield


Stephen Brookfield is a scholar in adult education who has held positions at the University of British Columbia, Teachers College Columbia University, Harvard University and the University of St. Thomas.

Education

Brookfield earned his Ph.D from the University of Leicester in 1980 and wrote a thesis on independent adult learning.

Career

In his teaching career, Brookfield has worked in England, Canada, Australia, and the United States, teaching in a variety of college settings. He has written nineteen books on adult learning, adult teaching, critical thinking, , critical theory as well as critical pedagogy and . His overall project is to help adults learn to think critically about the dominant ideologies they have internalized and how these can be challenged. Influenced by the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and American Pragmatism he has written extensively on how to use methods of critical reflection and discussion based teaching to uncover ideologies such as white supremacy and patriarchy. His twentieth book titled Creating an Anti-Racist White Identity will be published by in 2021.

Awards

Brookfield has three honorary doctor of letters degrees; from the University System of New Hampshire in 1991, from Concordia University, St. Paul in 2003, and from Muhlenberg College in 2010. He won the Cyril O. Houle six times, as well as the 1986 , all awarded by the . At the University of St. Thomas he has won the award for as an exemplary scholar-teacher and the university's Diversity Leadership Teaching and Research Award. His work has been translated into several languages including Korean, German, Finnish, Japanese, Danish, Polish, Persian and Chinese. In 2001 he received the Leadership Award from the for "extraordinary contributions to the general field of continuing education on a national and international level", and in 2008 he was awarded the , awarded by the . In 2009 he was inducted into the . He won the 2014 awarded by the for his book .

Selected bibliography

Books