Abstract:Researchers asked 17 participants in a job-training program to describe their personal struggles following an economic restructuring. Examined through a critical theoretical lens, findings indicate that the learners enrolled in the program to reclaim security, dignity, meaningful work, and caring relationships. Program planners at community colleges are therefore urged to employ democratic program planning models, ask learners about their educational needs as they see them, and listen compassionately to their responses. Article:Community colleges have been recognized for their agility in responding to the needs of local constituents through new and innovative educational programs. For community college educators involved in planning such programs, assessing the needs of learners is an essential task (Boone, 1997). Our objective in conducting this analysis was to assess the educational needs of 17 community college learners who have struggled emotionally, physically, spiritually, and economically with personal realities in the emergent service economy. This needs assessment is unique in that it was informed by critical theory (Freire, 1970;Fromm, 1956;Habermas, 1984;Horkheimer, 1982). By critical theory, we refer to the somewhat heterogeneous body of social thought that originated with the Frankfurt School, which involves analyses of the social forces that bear on our lives. Critical theory differs from other theoretical orientations in that its concern is not simply to document or describe social life but instead to change it; hence the term praxis, a concept that may be summarized as action guided by theory. In short, the aim of critical theory is "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them" (Horkheimer, 1982, p. 244).Operating from this orientation, we provided a space for learners to construct personal meaning of their struggles within the service economy and to describe their hopes for the future--a future enabled, in their view, by participation in a job-training program at a suburban community college in the southern United States. We interpreted the data from a critical theoretical lens (Fromm, 1956;Habermas, 1984; see also Brookfield, 2005), and our conclusions indicate that learners in this study chose to enroll in the community college as a means of reclaiming security, dignity, meaningful work, and caring relationships. This study has implications for policy and practice in that the findings reveal broad sociocultural needs that are deemed important by learners who participated in a job-training program in the service economy. We conclude the study with four key recommendations for program planners who seek to address both the economic and extraeconomic needs of community college learners.