In response to recent shifts in the global economy, there has been a growing academic interest in adult education and training (AET), enabling adults to meet the ever-changing demands of the workforce. However, empirical findings offer nuanced evidence on the most influential factors among various aspects. This study aims to reexamine the…

As more adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities move into inclusive settings in the community, it is essential to address budgeting and finance issues to avoid real concerns of financial exploitation. Adults with intellectual and developmental disability often comprise the "working poor", even if they are among the 20%…

Motivation plays a crucial role in adult learners' decisions to enroll in educational programs. This study aimed to evaluate the motivations for adult learners who enrolled at adult high schools in Riyadh as well as the potential gender and age differences for their motivations. The Education Participation Scale (EPS) A-Form was administered to…

This article presents the findings of a comparative study of values-based adult learning and education (ALE) fields; specifically, in Austria, critical-emancipatory adult basic education; Scotland, learner-centered, community-based adult learning; and South Tyrol, Italy, the "Winterschule," a radical-critical popular education format. We…

Applying Culture and Appreciative Education lenses, this qualitative study, eliciting detailed descriptions, examines six North American adult and higher education scholars' lived learning experiences and insights gained from their academic collaborations in and with the East. Our findings indicate that participants hold unique international…

Adult basic education (ABE) scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have long debated the purpose and outcomes of federal ABE policy. Although the current policy, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), became law in 2014, there is no comprehensive analysis of the diverging perspectives on WIOA implementation. This integrative…

Participation in adult learning and education requires the availability of, and accessibility to, learning opportunities provided by educational institutions. One fundamental element is time. Adult learning and education participation can only be realized by successfully matching individual time-availabilities with the temporal organization of…

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…

This article presents a framework for ethics for radical and transformative education. Taking as a starting point ethical perspectives by which educators of adults are justified in imposing upon, coercing, and manipulating adult learners in the name of social justice, this article highlights the necessary connection between pedagogies and learning…

Digital literacies are critical for adults from migrant and refugee backgrounds as they settle in a new country. However, institutions, leaders, and teachers often feel uncertain about how to teach digital literacies. Using the notions of digital literacy practices and assemblages, this article reports on a qualitative case study and explores how…

The federal adult education program serves over 2 million eligible adults who seek basic literacy and English language skills. Using administrative student-level panel data, this study provides the very first assessment of the relationships between adult education teacher characteristics and student achievement using hierarchical linear modeling…

Despite increasing demand in distance education, relatively little is known about the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as basic skill levels of adult distance education participants at the national level in the US. This study analyzed the US data from the 2012/2014 and 2017 Program for International Assessment of Adult…

In this article, I argue that critical discourse in Mezirow's theory of transformative learning is a constructionist, ontological act that serves to support an individual's critical reflection, which, in turn, is a constructivist, epistemological act. The notion of onto-epistemology is helpful in bringing to the fore the entanglement of these two…

Language skills are central to refugee integration and the availability of language courses could thus be a limiting factor. We explore how the most important provider of language courses in Germany, adult education centers (VHS), adapted their course supply to the refugee wave of 2015/2016. Our results highlight two channels through which the…

Adult basic education (ABE) programs in the United States serve millions of students annually to help them achieve high school equivalency, English proficiency, and other skills. These skills are necessary for upward mobility and competitiveness in the labor market, which is important for ABE students who are disproportionately affected by…