The Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE) of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) provides a forum for the discussion of international issues related to adult education in general, as well as adult education in various countries around the globe. These "Proceedings" are from the Commission of…

Each year in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people enroll in adult basic education (ABE) classes but leave before completing a level or accomplishing their goals. The persistence of this phenomenon may indicate that it is a feature of the system, rather than an unforeseen outcome. Research on other types of social service provision…

This article offers a close analysis of a 90-minute teaching sequence in an English as a foreign language classroom of an adult basic education program for refugee-background learners in a Finnish community college. The White European-heritage teacher, the author of the article, researcher on-site, and substitute teacher at that point, taught a…

This exploratory mixed data study investigated the role of technology in adult migrant language and late literacy education in Finland. In addition to an online pre-pandemic survey targeted at Finnish language and literacy teachers, four inservice teachers were interviewed during the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020. With means of qualitative…

Adult Basic Education (ABE) is a critical part of the educational landscape in the United States; its aim is to improve the basic reading, writing, and numeracy skills of the very diverse population of adults in America who lack proficiency in these skills, and more often than not, a high school graduation credential (U.S. Department of Education,…

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…

This article analyzes experiences of racialization in stories of adult learners with refugee experience who attend a basic education program at a Finnish community college. Throughout a two-year ethnographic study, several students shared stories and thoughts on racialization and racism with the white researcher on site (the author). This article…

In the technology solutions column of this special issue of Adult Literacy Education, that focuses on Broadening the Lens on Adult Literacy Education Outcomes, the author wants to challenge the field to expand the view of digital literacy. Of course, basic digital literacy skills must be included, but the field needs to look beyond to the digital…

This quantitative study examined the current level of literacy skills of three cohorts of learners after they completed a non-formal basic literacy programme in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The purpose of the study, conducted in late 2019, was to identify major factors that influenced the maintenance of their levels of reading and calculating skills. The…

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…

Like English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) teachers, adult basic education (ABE)/high school equivalency (HSE) teachers of U.S.-born, L1-English-speaking learners must deliver instruction that effectively addresses a range of culturally influenced needs, perspectives, experiences, and knowledge in their classes. For this reason, several…

Adult education and training (AET) was always a neglected part of South African education. In the mid-1990s, the South African government sought to change this by introducing a number of policies that prepared the way for adult basic education (ABET) to become part of the formal educational system, and to attain its official status as a formally…

The focus of the Technology Solutions for Adult Basic Skills Challenges column begins with common challenges facing adult basic skills practitioners, expressed, for example, in the LINCS Integrating Technology group for which I am the moderator, in other LINCS groups, in my national and state conference or webinar presentations, or privately in…

Collaboration is a practice that many providers say they are doing but rarely do we see it translated into the actual work that staff connected with our learners--our customers--do. Our customers face multiple barriers in their desire to succeed and move forward. Leadership with a focus on creating partnerships to address the multiple barriers of…

In 2017, a mathematics education intervention in the Doña Ana County Detention Center, Las Cruces, New Mexico, was begun by two retired professors of mathematics as a volunteer project. The program now provides internship and master's thesis opportunities for students in the Department of Criminal Justice at New Mexico State University. The…