Low-educated adults participate less in adult education than higher-educated adults. In this study, we analyze psychosocial barriers to learning while acknowledging that barriers for low-educated adults may be different from those of medium- and high-educated adults. An extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior is used to study training…

One of the most worrying issues in Spanish education is the high school dropout rate, especially for those students who leave compulsory secondary education with no qualifications. Some of these students re-enter the system via adult education centres (AECs), where they can obtain the minimum qualification required by the labour market (the…

The term tertiary education has gained prominence in recent policy debates in the UK [Morgan (2023). "Labour 'would review whole landscape' of tertiary education." "Times Higher Education," 28 November. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/labour-would-review-whole-landscape-tertiary-education]. This paper presents…

This paper investigated teacher wellbeing in a rapidly expanding educational context of Universities of the Third Age in China. Based on the analysis of 48 metaphors innovatively elicited from 27 teacher participants, important cognitive, affective and social aspects of teaching and learning that configure teacher wellbeing have been outlined. It…

This paper analyses how teacher identity is shaped by professional standardisation and regulatory apparatuses in the context of English Further Education from a specifically spatial perspective. We focus on how these apparatuses erode teachers' sense of identity and, paradoxically, quality by establishing what anthropologist Marc Augé (1935-2023)…

Purpose: This study aims to reflect on "good practices" in doctoral research supervision and transfer the author's experience to other academics. The author explains the sources of his approach to doctoral research supervision drawing on traditional practice in adult learning and some reference to phenomenology as a "meeting of…

This paper describes and analyzes the social relations that emerged from an ongoing adult education internship/community-based garden project in Montreal. I employ institutional ethnography to explore and uncover how adult education internships in community gardens and gardening programming can work to produce disproportionate outcomes for adult…

Many years of lived experience supervising PhDs and other research-based higher degrees provides the contextual background to reflections on practice and conceptual underpinnings to a specialised branch of adult continuing education for professional managers within industry contexts. Special Attention is focused on the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)…

The "Memorandum on Lifelong Learning" was launched in October 2000 by the European Commission and has been debated ever since in all member states of the European Union, leading to the publication of a follow-up document in 2001 which promoted a "European area of lifelong learning". The "Memorandum" was a unique…

The expanding field of affective neuroscience is redefining the role of emotions in cognition, reasoning, and judgment. This contradicts long-standing assumptions about cognition that consider emotions antithetical to learning. Emotions arose early in human brain development as essential to survival by directing the embodied brain toward…

This paper explores the phenomenon of premature learner exit from Adult Literacy (Learning) Service (ALS) courses from the perspective of seven ALS tutors working in three Education and Training Boards (ETBs) in Ireland. The findings highlight ALS tutors' insights into the situational, institutional, and dispositional barriers facing ALS students…

As the COVID-19 pandemic caused severe disruption to education enterprises throughout the world, the main response by educational institutions was to move to online learning environments. The purpose of this study was to understand better how instructors could improve online learning for a professional-level week-long short course in a highly…

Researchers and practitioners have long been interested in the role of learner agency in the emergence of learning opportunities. However, despite the growing number of studies, few of them have empirically been able to demonstrate how such moments can create learning opportunities. Based on 12 hours of videotaped data, this study describes the…

Within the broad, interdisciplinary field of adult education, affective aspects of experience and the roles they play in learning have, thus far, not been properly theorized or researched. This dissertation first explores how John Heron's whole person theory (WPT) conceptualizes feeling as an expansive affective capacity at the root of all human…

Since the John M. Belk Endowment (JMBE) launched NC Reconnect in 2021, Reconnect college leaders selected for the program have often organized kickoff events on their campuses to garner support and raise awareness for their efforts to recruit and retain adult learners. All five colleges in Cohort 4 -- Central Piedmont Community College, Haywood…