The Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE) provides leadership, professional development, advocacy, and communication for the field of adult education. In our leadership role, we often have the opportunity to recognize exemplary work taking place at the state and local levels. Such was the case with a grassroots training that was developed to…

This article argues for the beneficial interconnectedness of adult basic education as an educational practice, community-based participatory research as a methodological approach, and the framework of transformative learning, for exploring and theorizing about adult learning and education. It is elaborated that these three approaches are connected…

The project review as outlined in this article explores the questions: What is transformative research and what is transformation as far as the community stakeholders are concerned? To what extent has the transformative research achieved its intended outcomes? The Bokamoso project (founded by Lesego Serolong as facilitator and investor) is an…

Since the Texas Legislature has mandated, via the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, to provide best practices for using technology for developmental education, we report on a solution used at College of the Mainland (Texas City, Texas) for satisfying that mandate. The solution was to use a common 'master' template in a learning management…

This article presents the findings of a comparative study of values-based adult learning and education (ALE) fields; specifically, in Austria, critical-emancipatory adult basic education; Scotland, learner-centered, community-based adult learning; and South Tyrol, Italy, the "Winterschule," a radical-critical popular education format. We…

This article describes process and outcome evaluations of a blended Cyber ESL program for native Spanish speakers in Chicago who could not use regular ESL classes. The outcomes measured against before and after scores and several comparison groups showed large gains in English language proficiency. 58% percent of students from the cohorts which…

Adult learners enrolled in adult basic education (ABE) classes at community colleges who were hesitant to take high school equivalency (HSE) exams prevented themselves from progressing to college, new career opportunities, or achieving their academic goals. This narrative case study explored three students' educational experiences and…

Objective: In the first study of its kind, the impact of excluding noncredit enrollments in calculations of spending in community colleges is explored. Noncredit enrollments are not reported to Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), but expenditures for these efforts are. This study corrects for this omission and provides new…

This article analyzes experiences of racialization in stories of adult learners with refugee experience who attend a basic education program at a Finnish community college. Throughout a two-year ethnographic study, several students shared stories and thoughts on racialization and racism with the white researcher on site (the author). This article…

Forty-one percent of U.S. adults ages 25 and older have no more than a high school education, and 26.5 million people in that age bracket--12 percent of them--lack even that. Today, many adult basic education (ABE) programs are run by the local K-12 school district, but academic courses and career training are frequently lumped together with…

Little research has been conducted to examine the participation and persistence of adult basic education students in northern and rural Canada. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study was conducted with adult learners to address this research deficit. The study consisted of questionnaire and interview phases. Using thematic analysis, five…

A recent study found that one in three Americans between the ages of 16 and 65 lack the skills needed to succeed in middle school math, let alone math at the high school or college level. In some instances, states or colleges have raised standards for developmental courses and routed students who score below the minimum skill level for…

The Department of Education, Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation, is preparing this report in response to the Skilled Iowa and Job Creation Fund for the state appropriation for Adult Basic Education and Adult Education Literacy (AEL) Programs (260C.50). This report was coordinated by the department with the assistance of…

The focus of each Technology Solutions for Adult Basic Skills Challenges column begins with a common challenge facing adult basic skills practitioners. This article examines a technology solution to two large and related challenges: student engagement and student persistence, which, from a program or school perspective, is often described as…

The Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA) is designed as a set of appropriate measures to determine how well community colleges are serving students. Lack of commonly accepted, appropriate performance measures has often led to misperceptions and frequently an underestimation of community college effectiveness and contributions. It has also…