Shawnee State University (SSU) founded Project BEAR: Building Emerging and Achieving Readers, an AmeriCorps program, to support literacy development and improve school readiness in the Appalachian region. After the first 2 years of program implementation, areas for growth including enhanced service member recruitment, member onboarding, and…

Based on research completed between 2018 and 2022 in the Republic of Ireland, this article examines how the distinctive ethos and relational pedagogy of adult literacy education have been impacted by broader changes in the field and wider society, with significant impact on its capacity to support learners. The learner-centred ethos, ways of…

High quality instruction is essential to producing developmental gains for young children and can mitigate risk factors such as family poverty and low parental education. Even in programs with highly qualified teachers, teacher-child interactions often do not provide the level of instructional support that children need to be well-prepared for…

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new urgency to chronic and interrelated educational challenges: the need to expand and equalize postsecondary access, reduce the sector's reliance on costly in-person instruction, and develop a cumulative science of adult learning. Current federal government college funding programs do not encourage schools to be…

In 2009, President Obama and his administration sought to overhaul the existing educational reform program and launched their initiative titled Race to the Top (RTTT). RTTT, a competitive grant program, comprised six priorities designed to help states reform their current educational systems. Priority five calls for states to evaluate their…

Access to higher education in the U.S-affiliated Pacific Islands is limited. The island nations and territories in this Pacific region are geographically dispersed and separated by thousands of miles of ocean. Although local and regional colleges offer undergraduate degrees (associate's and bachelor's levels), islanders who seek graduate-level…

The term "college kid" seems all but meaningless these days, given the rising numbers of adults on campus. The current economic downturn is funneling hundreds of thousands of over-25 Americans into postsecondary education--and that trend is sure to intensify as the global, knowledge-based economy demands workers with ever-higher levels of…

Increasing numbers of American adults are engaged in many types of learning activities; a significant part of these learning activities are organized and structured. Record-keeping about institutionalized adult learning is often scanty, however, or even non-existent. As the social goal of a "learning society" has been articulated, it has…

Adults cannot be induced to go "back" to school but they can be assisted in continuing their education. The school, the university, forums, discussion groups, libraries, newspapers, magazines, the radio, and the motion pictures all have roles to play in making education a continuing process for adults. The public forum demonstrations,…

Asset development is an emerging approach to promoting self-sufficiency for low-income workers. By promoting and rewarding savings, asset development strategies encourage individuals to set long-term economic goals. Asset development strategies can accomplish the following objectives: (1) give low-income workers the knowledge required to navigate…

This report presents the results of the first year of a 5-year project designed to investigate the impact of child care training programs on the employability of low-income women and assess the impact of such training on these women's parenting skills. The first year of the project was spent reviewing the literature. This report of the project and…

Although older persons are increasing both in number and as a proportion of the total American population, they are not taking advantage of educational opportunities. Barriers to their educational efforts include inadequate transportation, lack of money, poor health, program scheduling, and the attitude that learning is for others. Available…

This report provides an overview of the second year of the Family Education and Training Program, a project constructed to: (1) investigate the impact of a comprehensive child care training program on the employability of low-income mothers; and (2) assess the effect of training and support in parenting and job readiness on parenting skills and…

The Bitterroot Public Library (Hamilton, Montana) serves a county of 50,000-100,000 people. The Bitterroot Public Library conducted a project that involved recruitment, coalition building, public awareness, training, rural oriented, basic literacy, tutoring, employment oriented, intergenerational/family, and English as a Second Language (ESL)…

Approximately 275 Federal programs support some form of lifelong learning. While the majority of the lifelong learning programs are administered by the various agencies within HEW, a significant number of programs are run by such Federal agencies as the Department of Justice, the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, and the Smithsonian…