The concept of the ideal student is one that has generated much research across many disciplines across the globe and continues to stimulate debate about teaching and learning within higher education. This paper explores the concept of the ideal student in relation to the experiences of mature female students enrolled onto a Foundation Programme…

VET researchers and policy-makers have historically displayed a keen interest in the future. Two assumptions link VET to the future. The first is that there is a singular object called VET and, secondly, that it can influence a forthcoming state of reality. This relationship is investigated through a rarely utilised post-structuralist discourse…

In Ireland state funded support services provide Continuing Professional Development for teachers and school leaders. These services are staffed with teachers seconded from their schools on an annual basis for a maximum of five years. This study investigated the learning and experience of teachers seconded to a national support service, the…

This essay addresses the transformation of Korean higher education (HE) that has occurred since COVID-19, with a focus on the digitization of teaching and learning. Digitization has impacted both remote and traditional universities and colleges. While remote higher education institutions (HEIs) have been quick responding to the changed situation,…

This article reviews LGBTQ literature in US-based adult education journals and proceedings. Categories focused on workplace issues, identity, health, learning climate, educational methods, and research. Key themes included (1) harassment, isolation, and discrimination, (2) meaning-making in a heteronormative society, (3) a call for inclusion, and…

Recent debate has highlighted the Important significance of social partnership in further education for developing new approaches to English vocational education and training (VET). There is international evidence of the contribution that well-established social partnerships between employers, unions and government can make to deliver VET…

This article analyses the governance of VET for adults and its development from a historical-institutionalist perspective. It takes a look at the collective skill formation system of Switzerland, in which the federal government and private companies (or the associations representing them) play integral roles. The article argues that the…

Adult literacy and literacy education have long been a global agenda. China's literacy education has been developing amid the backdrop of international commitments and goals of adult literacy. Since the founding of new China in 1949, adult literacy policy in China has been continuously evolved within the changing political, economic and social…

In transnational policy, directives on how to improve "quality" through auditing flourish. However, more research is needed about how these quality audits affect school personnel in local contexts. This paper has scrutinised the discursive effects of how "quality" is construed in school personnel's comments during a quality…

This article looks at how social movements in francophone Belgium shaped the institutional contours of adult education 'from below'. It focuses on the integral role played by progressive social movements in the creation of a regional state-based system of adult education in 1976, known as the "Service de l'Éducation Permanente" (SdEP).…

This compendium presents comprehensive information from the surveys for the full report "Linking Adult Education to Workforce Development in 2018-19: Early Implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act at the Local Level. Evaluation Report. NCEE 2023-001r" (ED626771), and serves as a supplement, which provides in-depth…

Privatisation of public education is becoming more and more common across the world. As much current research presupposes causal links between the degree of privatisation and issues of competition and student's free choice, we see a need for research on other ways of organising the presence of private providers in public education. In this…

In this essay, I argue that our recent pivot toward digital learning, in addition to the social discontent and economic turbulence exacerbated by the pandemic, requires a re-imagining of how we "do" adult and workforce education (AWE) policy. First, I briefly describe the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA) policy.…

Further education policy across the UK has diverged significantly over the last decade. While in both countries colleges have been subject to a programme of restructuring and rationalisation, Scotland now has a largely 'nationalised' sector while England has adopted a more market-led approach which has been characterised in some quarters as a…

In 2019, German folk high schools -- "Volkshochschulen" (vhs) -- celebrated the centenary of their inclusion in the Constitution of the Weimar Republic in 1919, an era when they founded local centres in many parts of the country. Ever since, they have played an important part in the adult learning and education (ALE) sub-sector of the…