Working the Planning Table: Negotiating Democratically For Adult, Continuing, and Workplace Education,
Ronald M. Cervero and Arthur L. Wilson: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Reviewed by Eric Grosse, Dean, Academic Development and Training, Strayer University

I must confess at the outset that I'm a Ron Cervero fan.  Having read several articles he has authored or co-authored, I eagerly awaited an opportunity to review his latest book, Working the planning table: Negotiating democratically for adult, continuing, and workplace education.  For the most part, I was not disappointed, even though I approached my task with some trepidation.  Will this book—as suggested by its title—be  a long diatribe against the establishment, perhaps in the same vein as Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the oppressed and Pedagogy of liberation—or maybe in the mode of Eduard Lindeman?  Were that the case, my hunch was that far fewer adult educators would read the book than might otherwise be the case.

Please, if you share my concerns, put them aside and read the book.  Cervero and Wilson construct a well-reasoned and thoroughly plausible—if a bit overdone—argument for this notion, as succinctly stated on pp. 182-83: "By illuminating the positionality of learners, instructional leaders, and other stakeholders in socially and organizationally structured power relations—including race, class, gender, and sexuality…--democratic planning, though still precarious, becomes more likely."

Those who follow Cervero and Wilson will recognize this book as a follow-on to their 1994 text, Planning responsibly for adult education: A guide to negotiating power and interests.  That text, "…provided a vocabulary and a lens to see the social, political, and ethical realities facing planners; this book uses that lens to connect the technical and political decisions that people make at the planning table" (pg. vi).  Cervero and Wilson introduce and centralize an extended metaphor—the planning table (both virtual and real) at which decisions are made that guide the development, staging, delivery, and evaluation of all training activities involving adults.  The authors ask us to remember that, "the technical work of planning is also always political" (pg. vii).

It is wise that the book contains only two major sections—"Working the Planning Table: A Theory for Practice" and "Working the Planning Table: The Theory in Practice"—because the prose is heavily referenced and footnoted, occasionally obstructing the core argument being made at the moment.  But, again, this is a relatively minor complaint. 

The first section contains three chapters that serve as a vehicle for introducing three stories—arguably, a compelling strategy to involve inherently skeptical readers (such as myself) who see no practical utility in a Freire-type approach to our daily work.  The first story, "Management Education at the Phoenix Company" describes the struggles of Pete, a vice president for human resources, to understand and manage corporate power relations as he develops the company's annual retreat.  The second story, "Continuing Education in the Society for Valuation Professions (SVP)" told in the first person by Wilson, is about the development of a new continuing education program for a professional society attempting to redefine itself in a competitive market.  The third story, "Practitioner Inquiry for Adult Literacy Teachers" inserts Cervero and describes an actual state-funded project he managed for adult literacy teachers.

In all three stories, the authors focus on two concepts they believe to be central to the planning table metaphor: social and organizational power dimensions, which refer to those dimensions that structure social life in general (such as race, class, gender, and hierarchical position), and democratic planning, which refers to "the ethical commitment to ‘substantively democratic planning'…undertaken in the face of structured inequalities created by social and organizational power relationships" (pg. 3).  Significantly, the theory recognizes that structured inequalities "not only keep people away from the planning table, but also generally allow a ‘token' rather than a ‘substantive' representation for those people with little power who are present at the table" (pg. 3). It was at this point I realized the authors were talking to me.

Chapters four through nine in the second section are a re-adaptation of the classical adult education planning model: Chapter 4, needs assessment; Chapter 5, program objectives; Chapter 6, instructional design and implementation; Chapter 7, administrative organization and operation; Chapter 8, formal and informal evaluation; and Chapter 9, "Working the Planning Table in the Struggle for Knowledge and Power."  As noted previously, core and supporting arguments are extensively footnoted and referenced—although many are to the authors' own previous texts or to those of colleagues with whom these authors share an ideological affiliation (such as Rosemary Caffarella and Stephen Brookfield).

While I learned much from Working the Planning Table, my most memorable "take-away's" are these: the four dimensions of the planning table (power relations, interests, ethical commitments, and negotiation—pp. 84-85); and the authors' characterization of the three negotiation environments typically in play in adult education decision-making (consultation, bargaining, or dispute—pp. 94-96). 

For anyone who designs, develops, delivers, administers and/or evaluates training programs on an occasional or continuing basis, this book will be a valuable addition to an adult education library.