Adult education instructors frequently attend both required and elective professional development events and seminars to gain and maintain proficiency. However, as prospective learners, do instructors know exactly what the training will be about? Are the takeaways, or training outcomes, clearly stated beforehand? The answer seems to be, sometimes.…

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…

Some adult learners are self-directed, but most benefit from ongoing guidance and support from educators--even more so in technology-rich environments. The purpose of this column is to explore ways to leverage digital tools to enhance collaborative learning experiences among adult educators and learners. Rather than aim for mastery of a digital…

In this chapter, we provide a snapshot of critical theories with salience for adult education to illuminate their enduring efficacy within the discipline, including critical feminism, queer theory, and race-based critical theories. Critical theories seek to make individual change while dismantling the structures that suppress freedom and…

This article highlights the multiple crises experienced since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 that have encouraged adult educators to rethink and revitalize their professional practices to respond to learners with understanding and care as they work through their own challenges. The reflections and perspectives shared inform our own…

This article discusses the interwoven disruptions caused by the multiple crises of the COVID-19 pandemic, violent incidents against persons of color, social justice concerns, and political and civil unrest. Discussion will center on how these crises impacted and continue to affect careers, schools, workplaces, and personal lives. The chapter will…

This special issue calls us to examine the dictatorship of capital. The rule of capital in the labor/capital relation has always been a form of dictatorship. Therefore, we need to consider the particularities of this relation as they manifest today. In recent decades, the nature of the labor/capital relation, or capitalism, has generally been…

This paper examines the experiences of one adult educator's engagement with Freire's praxis through teaching horticulture. The principal belief of the paper is that engaging in critical dialogue and reflexive action is an evolving journey of unlearning and hope for both learners and educators. The paper suggests that trusting in Freire's…

This article provides a critical analysis of adult educators' cherished notion of "experiential learning" and of the ways in which our assumptions limit our ability to respond effectively to a world of "truthiness" and "alternative facts."

This conceptual article provides a comprehensive overview of the current status of Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration and its influence on adult education. It discusses generative AI technologies and their potential applications in adult education settings, examines the opportunities and ethical challenges associated with integrating AI, and…

We live in a society wherein anti-Black racism is pervasive. It infiltrates every aspect of life, including work life spaces. In spite of the recent call for higher education to become antiracist, a tall order for an institution literally and figuratively built on racist attitudes and behaviors, higher education continues to be a cesspool for…

The benefits of informal mentorship have been robustly documented. This article makes an argument for formalizing mentorship as professional development in the adult education space so as to capture the advantages of informal mentorship for the success of classrooms, programs, organizations, or institutions. It offers examples of two types of…

Adult educators are often seen as proponents of social justice but what does it really mean to be an advocate for racial justice in and outside the classroom? Draconian policies implemented by the Trump administration have placed additional hardships on Americans. The increasing attacks on education have clear ramifications for adults in formal…

This article documents weaving as a decolonizing epistemic tool for feminist futures that emerges from the work of our collective -- the Feminist Imaginary Research Network. As a collective of feminist adult educators who work in both the academy and women's museums, weaving challenges the centrality of rationality over other ways of knowing and…

Racism is not an anomaly, rather it is an ordinary feature of our world and is a symptom of white supremacy. This article draws from critical race theory and critical pedagogy to make sense of this assertion and to contemplate possible responses. Using an autoethnographic research paradigm, we draw from our own contrasting experiences and…