COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on higher education globally and has heralded times of rapid and often confounding change. Academics struggle to maintain their life balance and well-being alongside championing equity in higher education and providing a student-centred pedagogy of care which is much needed in these times. This article…

The focus of this paper is ageing creativity: in community participation settings, in the street and parks, in homes, in residential care, living into medical and allied health functional health maintenance and rehabilitation teaching. Creativity, inherited and absorbed from culture/s, emerges during babyhood for whole of life. We enquire about…

Literacy as a unified concept is no longer valid or useful for today's complex world, where globally we face many challenges and contradictions. Adult literacy is shifting rapidly, and the human need for visually communicating meaningfully and relationally -- beyond 'reading and writing' -- is vital for addressing wicked problems and difficult…

While the higher education institutions around the world grapple with a systematic dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and targeted attacks on social justice measures, social work education remains a ray of hope. With its deeply embedded principles of empowerment, the profession is positioned to foster advocacy. And…

This timeline focuses on the main developments in the field of Adult and Community Education (ACE) in Australia from the formation of the first national association, Australian Association of Adult Education, (AAAE) in 1960 to the present association, Adult learning Australia (ALA). It is based primarily on documentary evidence available in the…

This article discusses the contribution of craftivism to climate justice learning through the practices of Australia's Knitting Nannas Against Gas and Greed (aka KNAG or the Nannas). Framing activist adult learning as social movement learning locates environmental and climate justice struggles within lifelong learning practices. Established in…

Adult education has the power to change lives, and in Australia has always been made up of educators and providers capable of adapting to the changing environments around them. Today, however, there is declining support for adult education at a time when there is growing public disenchantment with the political system, an uncivil public discourse,…

This article considers higher education's role in climate crisis, reflecting on the potential of action-oriented pedagogy. As a reflection on practice, the authors consider a new postgraduate course, Climate Crisis and Action (CCA), launched in 2022 as one of a suite of new courses using inside-out pedagogy in one of the oldest (and most recently…

Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) is currently the principal mechanism for fighting poverty and achieving social inclusion among a plethora of social policies in the European Union (EU). In GMI, education and vocational training hold a major role in fighting social exclusion and promoting social cohesion. The first part of the paper discusses the…

The three of us met in 2014 through our shared interest in adult literacy. We are colleagues as practitioners and as researchers; altogether, we have been in the field of adult literacy in Canada since the 1980s. Our experiences working with learners come from our role as volunteer tutors and paid staff in provincially funded programs and…

The origins and focuses of adult education across Western countries are often about meeting adults' needs, and for purposes they have nominated, not those compelled by others. Unlike other sectors (e.g. schools, vocational colleges and universities) that were mainly initiated and sustained by church or state, adult education has long been grounded…

This paper recounts the authors' journey of changing practice from teaching adult literacy to helping other teachers by creating digital and printed learning resources and tutor training materials to support a foundational literacy program designed to help those who teach English speaking adults to read and write.

The idea of learning throughout life has been present in educational thinking since Plato. However, as a guiding principle for integrating educational efforts, it is a much more recent development. This paper canvasses the rise of interest in lifelong learning internationally as a policy initiative, an umbrella under which other learning policies…

This article reflects on the developmental process of a case-based experiential learning model: the Federation University model, in an undergraduate community and human services program at a regional university. There is abundant literature that addresses the use and need for introducing experiential learning at the subject/unit level in community…

This article is based on our two narratives through which we explore how Freirean thought had an impact on our respective praxis as academic activists in apartheid South Africa. We reflect specifically on the influence the work of Freire had on informing and advancing our respective struggles against apartheid education. This article therefore…