Dr. Michael Welton

Tel: (780) 675-6179
Email: michaelwelton@shaw.ca

After teaching at Dalhousie and Mt. St. Vincent Universities for twenty years, Michael and his wife, Carmen, moved to the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island in 2003 where we enjoy the vibrant cultural life and incredibly diverse natural environment. Much of our leisure time is spent beach combing and walking on the boundless trails nearby. Carmen teaches nursing at North Island College, Courtenay, B.C. and is strong advocate for the mentally ill and persons with AIDS.

Both of us share a deep passion for social justice in our world. This passion has been at the core of my research and teaching agenda in the various places that I have taught in Canada and abroad. My scholarly work, which continues actively, pursues two interconnected trajectories. In my historical scholarship, I have written many articles that probe the struggle of Canadians, in different times and places, to gain mastery over their life situations in contexts often consciously designed to prevent them from becoming knowledgeable and active citizens. I am particularly interested in how men and women learn in non-formal learning sites (such as in public spaces and social movements).

I have written extensively about the Antigonish Movement in Nova Scotia, accomplishing this primarily through biographical studies of Fathers Jimmy Tompkins and Moses Coady.

My most recent book, Designing the just learning society: a critical inquiry (2005), is my first book length attempt to present an historically attuned and critical theoretical inquiry into the discourse of the learning society, providing a coherent framework for understanding how adults learn in the key domains of human interaction: state, civil society, and workplace.