A plethora of scholars investigate how policies spread globally. This paper establishes an analytical framework to structure empirical macro-quantitative research on global education policy spread and enable this analysis to be more comprehensive. Different theories and concepts of drivers for education policy are structured into three distinct…

In 2015, the Government of British Columbia (BC), Canada, reversed a long-standing mandate to provide tuition-free Adult Basic Education (ABE) to all adults. Drawing upon internal government policy documents and inter- and intra-ministerial communications obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) tools, key policy documents, social media…

This technical assistance paper provides policy and guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. The Florida assessment policies and guidelines presented in this technical assistance paper are appropriate for state and federal reporting. Therefore, guidance and procedures regarding the selection…

Career Technical Education (CTE) calls upon states to lead with an equity lens, which requires vigilance to quality expectations while also ensuring that CTE programs and interventions intentionally meet the needs of learners with the greatest need, including justice-involved learners--the human-centered term that refers to a person who has…

This paper contributes to debates that shaped a special issue of "Discourse" in 2017 by taking the debate about "responsibilisation" in education into the realm of Foundations Skills in Australia. The difficulties that many Australian adults experience with low levels of language, literacy and numeracy skills (Foundation…

This qualitative study examines how six Adult Basic Education (ABE) students perceived success in their personal and academic lives. Policy discourses concerning ABE learners offer perspectives on success, and these discourses influence, correspond with, and contradict learners' discourses on success in various ways. However, the organizational…

The United States needs strong collaboration among adult educators and all social service agencies that support the linguistic, economic and civic integration of refugees and immigrants. Such collaboration can make possible holistic support required to create linkages between English language education and other non-educational support services.…

Adult literacy and literacy education have long been a global agenda. China's literacy education has been developing amid the backdrop of international commitments and goals of adult literacy. Since the founding of new China in 1949, adult literacy policy in China has been continuously evolved within the changing political, economic and social…

In the United States, adult and workforce education (AE) seems to be located, simultaneously, both everywhere and nowhere in particular. Ongoing shifts in national economic demands and changes in requirements for training and education have brought learning in the adult years into the federal public policy arena. Sometimes referred to as lifelong…

In the final article of the forum, the field of adult basic education has mounted a strong response to COVID-19's disruption of classes and educational practices. As educators begin to think about the long-term consequences of this disruption, it might be useful to consider the ways that these changes and innovations could be built upon. In the…

This essay describes the decline in the number of participants enrolled in federally-funded adult basic education (ABE), adult secondary education (ASE), and adult English Language (EL) programs. Enrollment data since 1965 indicate a steep and consistent downward trend in the number of adults enrolling in these programs since the 1990s.…

Objective: In the first study of its kind, the impact of excluding noncredit enrollments in calculations of spending in community colleges is explored. Noncredit enrollments are not reported to Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), but expenditures for these efforts are. This study corrects for this omission and provides new…

In this commentary, the authors review one area of federal policy, adult basic education policy, since its inception in the 1960s as an example of how educational policy can drift from its broad purpose as it responds to political, social, and economic forces. The authors argue that its current narrow focus on workforce development underestimates…

Federal accountability policies requiring rapid, measurable outcomes have increasingly shaped the nature and type of public literacy services available to adults. However, little empirical research has explored the impact of accountability policies on program practice in adult basic education, and almost no research has focused on the effect on…

This paper analyses research that has impacted on Australia's most recent national policy document on adult literacy and numeracy, the National Foundation Skills Strategy (NFSS). The paper draws in part on Lingard's 2013 paper, "The impact of research on education policy in an era of evidence-based policy", in which he outlines the…