With the U.S. adult education system providing education services to millions of immigrants annually, understanding the unique skills and assets among adult immigrant learners is important. Using data from the U.S. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, this study used data on immigrants (n = 1,873) to identify latent…

The ongoing economic crisis in Europe raises fundamental questions about the European Union's ability to harmonize educational policy across its member states. With evidence that European unity is clearly faltering, many educational goals, including lifelong learning, are in trouble. In this book, the contributors work toward a greater…

"Research messages 2011" is a collection of summaries of research projects published by National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) in 2011. The publication also has an overview essay that captures the themes and highlights from the research for the year, including: (1) the initial education and training of young people and…

In March 2006, Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged that the situation in the Chinese countryside is desperate and claimed new resources would be devoted to healthcare and education. This announcement should have pleased architects of the Chinese "learning initiative" who are building learning cities and villages. The authors describe why…

Human and social capital discourses attempt to explain New Zealand's brain drain. Solutions related to each discourse involve offering incentives for returning or creating links so that expatriates can contribute to their homeland from abroad. Establishing such "diaspora networks" might be the role of adult education. (Contains 43…

The article presents a comparative analysis of educational policy and provision in Sweden and Australia, with particular emphasis on the relative investment in continuing and further education in both countries. The authors investigate the extent to which further education opportunities provide a "second chance" at learning for adults…

This article is based on empirical research conducted in Scotland between 2000 and 2002 into the New Deal for Musicians (NDfM)--a UK government training scheme for unemployed musicians which forms part of the "Welfare to Work" initiative. It argues that while the NDfM forms part of a wider lifelong agenda within current adult education…

Although it is true that education is an investment, there are risks associated with relying too strongly on the metaphor of education as investment. The main problems with the investment metaphor are as follows: (1) it pushes aside the notion of education as a consumption good that people want for its own sake; (2) the human capital approach can…

More than 30 years after the Great Society initiatives, poverty continues to put large numbers of students at risk of school failure. The challenges to education and life success are most severe for children in the nation's poorest rural counties, the 535 rural persistent poverty (RPP) counties. This digest provides background on RPP counties and…

Individual and focus-group interviews explored barriers and motivations to lifelong learning among residents of a disadvantaged area of Glasgow (Scotland). Some participants were motivated to pursue adult education to improve employment opportunities, but motivations related to social and community networks were also important. The current policy…

The concept of social capital refers to the resources of networks, norms or shared values, and trust to which individuals have access as community members. A reason to consider intergenerational learning in the context of social capital is awareness of unequal access to positive social capital and the risk that social exclusion and disadvantage…

This booklet is compiled from all the Adult Learning Australia (ALA) Commentaries produced in 2000. Emailed to ALA members each week, ALA Commentaries are written by people in the field of adult learning in the broadest sense, usually in Australia, sometimes overseas, and designed to stimulate discussion. ALA hosts an online discussion forum about…

The socioeconomic contributions of adult learning to community were examined from a social capital perspective. The concepts of human capital and social capital were differentiated, and the relationship between learning, human capital, and social capital was explored. The relevance of social capital in describing the wider benefits of adult…

This book examines the relationship among education, work, and social capital at the beginning of the 21st century. The following are among the topics discussed in the book's 15 chapters: (1) necessity, work, effort, and leisure; (2) the economic and work-related aims of education, including liberal, vocational, and civic education; (3) the…

Trends that will influence Kentucky's future were examined along with policy options for responding to those trends. According to the analysis, the effects of the new economy on Kentucky has been mixed. Although many Kentuckians have benefited from the new economy, the state's least educated and poorest residents are falling further behind the…