While considerable research exists on school availability, education deserts, and school choice, "geography of opportunity" emerges as a theoretical framework to support new solutions towards equality. Intersections between Freirean theory and discourse analysis surface in existing evidence-base, as "availability" emerges as…

This article presents findings from an inquiry at the nexus of three areas of adult education scholarship: critical pedagogy, university-based professional education, and popular culture. I am investigating how the incorporation of popular culture into professional education can foster students' engagement with theory and thorny issues. Such…

Second Chance Schools (SCSs) have been operating for twenty-five years in Greece, that provide basic education to adults (18 years of age and older) who have not completed the compulsory nine-year education but have a primary school leaving certificate (six-year study). This study reports and analyses the participation factors of young adults…

Distance education has received a lot of attention in contemporary policy as something that makes it possible for more students to participate, but also involves a certain set of challenges. When it comes to distance education, Swedish municipal adult education (MAE) stands out with its long history of flexible education, often provided on…

This article explores the framing of youth and adult education (YAE) policies in two Latin American countries, namely Chile and Peru. It takes their participation in PIAAC as a contextual starting point to unravel the problems explicitly or implicitly framed in YAE policies and their root causes, as understood by key policy stakeholders. We found…

Despite the attention devoted to situational and institutional barriers in studying participation in adult education, psychosocial barriers are often overlooked in research. However, low-educated, and non-participating adults are more likely to experience them. In this study, we examine low-educated, both participating and non-participating,…

Professionalism in the context of public sector professions is a changing concept, which is subject to different interpretations. The sociologist Julia Evetts has developed two models, occupational and organisational professionalism, which are useful conceptual tools which help us to understand from a wider theoretical perspective the changing…

The rapid development of digital technologies and their increasing application in many areas of everyday life challenge all citizens to continuously learn digital skills. This also applies to older adults, among whom digital literacy is on average less well-developed than among younger adults. This article investigates why retired older adults…

This article is written from a pro-choice perspective. Through a radical, inclusive feminist lens, I examine educational aspects of the Irish repeal movement; a 35 year long, grassroots movement that forced the hand of reluctant politicians into calling a referendum to repeal the eighth amendment. I draw from websites and media interviews, my own…

The theory of transformative learning and its notion of freedom, that we are not trapped by one way of looking at the world or being in the world, fosters a fundamental re-ordering and radical questioning of how one thinks or acts. As a theory of adult learning, it emerged from the women's movement in the US, echoing what it means to become a…

I have often felt ashamed of the disabled aspect of my masculine identity. Reflexive, autoethnographical practices help me to ask why? These practices facilitate a reorientation of my frames of reference, from shame to acceptance, by examining attitudes which coalesce around what has been described as the dilemma of disabled masculinity. This…

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…

This article narrates the rise and fall of a notable adult education programme at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada. The Centre for Adult Education and Community Development was established in 1951, replacing the External Service for Social Education. In the 1950s, the Centre gained an international reputation for excellence in adult…

How to improve older adults' ability of survival, promote their social participation and self-fulfillment, and enhance their quality of life are the challenges of the ageing society. As a contributor to active ageing, later life learning is applied as an effective strategy, and empowerment has been increasingly recognised as important variable in…

Mining development often threatens rural areas with dispossession, but these processes foment learning and opposition by locals, their grassroots organisations, and transnational solidarity campaigns/movements. Emergent solidarity nexuses are sites of knowledge production and amplify grassroots struggles. This article explores how a local…