The literature regarding the social organisation of 'adult' learning opportunities throughout the life course postulates different significations of policy concepts such as 'lifelong education', 'permanent education', 'recurrent education', and 'lifelong learning' in the 1970s. This paper examines policy formation processes in France during the…

This paper uses the personal histories of two men, born in the same decade and both involved in the field of adult education in Scotland, to illustrate contrasting responses to the social and political changes taking place in the early 20th century. In methodological terms, it draws on recent writing on the relationship between biography and…

The history of Adult Education (AE) graduate programs spans almost a century, yet many programs have experienced significant challenges in recent years to remain viable. The purpose of this paper is to understand the struggles AE graduate programs encounter in building, maintaining, and growing programs in North America. We conducted two separate…

This book examines the development of British post-Second World War short-term residential adult education, through the lens of the Shropshire Adult Education College (1948-1976) and the tenure of Sir George Trevelyan as its first warden. Trevelyan is acknowledged as the godfather of new-age spiritualism in the UK and is credited with the…

Raising a child engages parents/caregivers in learning knowledge and skills needed for effective, healthy parenting. The field of parent and family education furnishes a variety of approaches and resources intended to assist and guide those raising and working with children. The Diffusion of Innovations Theory presents a clear framework for…

This paper charts the historical and political contexts for the evolution of Chinese adult and continuing education over the past 40 years, focusing on the national adult education reforms and relevant policies, and establishing the national lifelong education system. The progress and transformations of Chinese adult education, including how…

Work-Based Learning (WBL) in higher education is a field of study established in the UK that has developed since the early 1990s. The possibility for this development came when several universities across the UK were awarded a grant in 1992, from the then Department for Employment, to develop learning from work, in the curriculum. The 1992…

In this article, we direct our focus on some of the recent activities undertaken by popular education institutions in Sweden in relation to the refugee challenge in 2015. The aim is to analyse how these popular education activities are shaped as specific communities of practice, through the ways they are described by those who organised these, and…

No undergraduate or postgraduate programmes currently exist for the professional education of informal educators. The authors outline the development of previous programmes and consider the emergence of informal education as a discrete concept. The article then highlights some key failings in the professional education of informal educators and…

In South Africa, with few exceptions, scholarship on the modern labour movement which emerged after the Durban strikes of 1973 tends to focus on trade unions that constituted the labour movement, strikes, collective bargaining, and workplace changes. While all these topics covered by labour scholars are of great importance, there is less emphasis…

Intergroup dialogue (IGD) is a program for facilitating conversations about social identity, institutionalized and systemic oppression, social conflict, and social justice. This article examines how IGD can contribute to adult education's socially just goals by facilitating transformative learning. An initial review of the literature, followed by…

In many parts of the world, recognition of prior learning (RPL) is considered to be an important means of improving access to VET qualifications. In Switzerland -- the country with arguably the highest rates of company-based VET at upper secondary level -- adults with work experience of at least 5 years have had the option of accessing VET…

This article -- the second part of a two-part contribution -- offers a number of suggested directions for the historiography of adult education in Britain. It identifies opportunities to address longstanding areas of neglect that have been overshadowed by a focus on the "Great Tradition" of adult education. Although a key theme of recent…

World-renowned educational theorist Paulo Freire has a decades-long legacy reaching all corners of the world. In this reception study, we ask, is there a Nordic Freire, that is, have the Nordic educators and scholars recognized Paulo Freire's works in the past decades? Our reception study's purpose is not to go into depth to Freire's thinking but…

The first part of the study focuses on the characteristics and analysis of Zlín as an example of a company town. Life in the company town is characterised as a means of forming 'a new man' in Bat'a's Zlín. The second section analyses the aims of worker education in Bat'a's Zlín (in the so-called Bat'a school of work) and highlights the methods and…