Explore the vast range of titles available.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), launched by the United Nations in 2015, established ambitious targets to be achieved by 2030, including in education. SDG 4, which focuses on ensuring “inclusive and equitable quality education and promot[ing] lifelong learning opportunities for all”, attracted attention from the adult education sector for the role that adult learning and education (ALE) can play in its realisation, and the potential for the SDGs to boost the visibility and support of ALE. This article reports on a study that explored the role of ALE in lifelong learning in eight case study countries (Australia, Brazil, India, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine). It explores the literature and examines the supports for and challenges of ALE to better understand its potential in helping to realise SDG 4, using a mega-, macro-, meso- and micro-level theoretical framework. Twenty-seven experts in ALE from across the eight countries were interviewed, and data analysis was undertaken using a grounded theory approach. The findings indicate that while SDG 4 was not a strong driver for ALE activities in these countries, initiatives were focused on the same issues targeted by SDG 4. The analysis also points to the unequal policy support given to formal and non-formal ALE activities, and the critical role that ALE networks and associations can play in addressing some of the most ambitious SDG 4 targets.

This article provides an overview of major dimensions of the professional development of adult educators identified in European policy documents, relevant reports and research. The author reviews the relevant policy visions of the past two decades, aiming to determine the extent to which professional development of adult educators is visible in European policy documents, how it is conceptualised and under which terms it is discussed. The author argues that adult educators play an essential role in adult education and society in general, are an important factor for securing quality in the sector, and are considered to be a critical pillar of adult education. To perform this role well, they require specialised, targeted and systematic professional development programmes in a changing environment which affects both their learners’ and their own position as educators. However, the analysis of the policy documents shows that despite a consensus about the importance of quality adult education, over the past two decades little attention has been given to the initial training and continuous professional development of adult educators in practical terms. Due to a lack of opportunities, their professional development seems weak and still faces many challenges.

This qualitative research study explored motivational teaching techniques used by instructors of distance learning programmes (DLPs) to assist adult learners in achieving learning outcomes that meet their educational goals. The authors investigated how 11 instructors in a DLP at a large university in Ghana, Africa, applied the techniques, as well as the challenges they faced. The instructors were purposively selected for face-to-face individual interviews and classroom observations. Data were analysed using content, constant comparison and thematic approaches. The findings revealed that in their teaching of adults, the instructors used different motivational techniques, described in this research as patching, resting, piecemealing, shared learning and opportunity to try. Although the choice of techniques overlapped among the instructors in the sample, they each applied them differently to help their adult learners to learn effectively. The instructors also encountered challenges (teaching frustrations), such as learner absenteeism, unwillingness to accept change, disrespect and the lack of preparedness. These findings led to the conclusion that indisciplined learner behaviour can cause underperformance. Given that the instructors faced diverse challenges, the authors recommend that open and distance learning (ODL) instructors in Ghana take advantage of professional development opportunities to keep up to date with techniques for managing complex adult learning environments and issues. Internationally, the findings of this study highlight the need for ODL providers around the world to regularly review their services to ensure that the challenges instructors and learners are facing are addressed in a timely manner. This will ensure that ODL remains a viable alternative mode of education, especially during exceptional circumstances like COVID-19 lockdowns.

In view of the growing number of people with a migration background, continuing education organizations are faced with strategic tasks of intercultural opening. These tasks require leaders to initiate and expand integration-promoting teaching work, to promote the intercultural sensitization of the members of the organization, and to develop an intercultural culture. This is a wide issue and concerns leadership action regarding funding, regular and special course programs, training for staff and lecturers, intercultural training, etc. In this qualitative study, the types of intercultural openness adopted by the management of adult education centers were categorized into proactive, reflexive, ambivalent, and symbolic types of openness. Using the procedure of exploratory sequential design, hypotheses were tested with the aim of gaining information that would facilitate broader statements about the field of adult education providers. The quantitative distribution was analyzed using a data set called 'wbmonitor' and a regional data set.

Context: The article contributes to a discussion of how patterns of employment and qualifications are modified by the ongoing industrial transformation, called Industry 4.0. Although this transformation is said to be a global phenomenon, scholars increasingly discuss the national differences in the wake of Industry 4.0. Our article aims to intervene in this debate by analysing the industrial transformation of a small island situated at the West coast of Norway. We notably investigate the technological renewal by means of Computerised Numeric Control (CNC) and robotics in a network of mechanical firms. Findings: It is informative to use the heuristic concept 'pre-cluster agglomeration' to characterise how the nine firms under scrutiny are interacting, while being assisted by a forward-looking industrial association and supported by an active local community. The municipality and the county to which this agglomeration belongs, provide training services and other infrastructures that support the firms when they recruit new employees and upskill their staff, - notably by setting up a CNC training centre attached to an upper secondary school. Conclusion: Our case does not support off-the-shelf narratives of robotisation implies job cuts. In the same way as previous technological transformations were not solely driven by their inherent technical opportunities, the ongoing robotisation is nuanced by the social shaping of technology. There is room for strategic choices when new technology is integrated in work organisations. The extent to which the workforce should be (re-)trained is subject to decisions and negotiations. (DIPF/Orig.).

Planning Programs for Adult Learners, Third Edition covers the development of adult education programs in clear, specific detail. This popular step-by-step guide contains information on every area of program planning for adult learners, from understanding the purpose of educational programs to obtaining suitable facilities to incorporating technology appropriately. For educators and practitioners for whom planning programs is a full-time responsibility or only a part of their jobs, as well as volunteers in a variety of organizations, will find this book to be an essential tool. Grounded in a variety of program planning models, the new edition includes: new refinements to the interactive model, updated exercises and examples from new settings, new material on the practical application of technology, discussion of instructional and program evaluation, a focus on critical managerial tasks, a new chapter on exploring the foundational knowledge of program planning, a new chapter on the ethical issues related to program planning. (Verlag).

This article explores the role of the European Union in defining an adult education policy and the way European countries appropriate those guidelines and implement them in their realities. These policies have been widening and diversifying adult education, creating the necessity of qualifying educational professionals. With the implementation of some adult education political measures, new educational practices were developed and new professional activities were born. This investigation is about the qualification of adult educators working in the processes of recognition of prior learning.

Continuous participation in further education activities is considered to be a driving factor for the professionalism of adult educators. However, especially in this field, the decision to participate is often embedded in a context of disadvantageous socio-economic living conditions and atypical employment, which is described as precarious in research on continuing education. For this reason, we are studying the influence of precarious employment on the participation of adult educators. In doing so, we focus on the uncertainty in planning one’s professional career, which is typical of precarious life situations. Based on a modification of the classical theory of subjective expected utility, we formulate the assumption that uncertainty in the evaluation of one’s own career development opportunities reduces participation in continuing education. To test our hypothesis, we use data from the wb-personalmonitor and estimate linear and logistic regressions using an inverse-probability-weighted regression-adjustment. The results show that uncertainty reduces the number of continuing education courses attended.

This book provides clear guidance on how to approach initial teaching experience, how to plan effective sessions, how to work well with your mentor and how to make the most out of your new career. Through focusing on the real life experiences of both in-service and pre-service trainee teachers, it offers the opportunity to reflect on and learn from an array of diverse teaching practice experiences from a wide range of vocational areas including construction, hair and beauty, early years, psychology, performing arts, law, English, Skills for Life and engineering. (Verl.).

The paper aims at analyzing how coordination of action is conceptualized and researched in the context of adult education. Selected perspectives from organization theory are explored with regard to their conceptualizations of coordination of action. Based on a narrative synopsis of studies from adult education research, the paper then shows that there are various actor constellations, coordination mechanisms and influencing factors marking coordination of action as a multi-faceted, multi-level and multi-perspective research phenomenon. Following, key parameters of a research program focusing on multiple coordination of action in adult education organizations are presented.