This article examines individualising processes in the context of Municipal Adult Education in Swedish for Immigrants (SFI). Demands to adapt education to individual students' needs are increasingly evident in adult education policies, requiring accountable authorities' active engagement in enacting effective organisational frameworks while…

National policy states that Swedish adult education should be flexible and individualized, based on students' needs. However, adult education in Sweden is a municipal responsibility with a high level of decentralization. Drawing on national policies, this study focuses on how the concepts of flexibility and individualization are enacted locally…

Addressing the worldwide challenges threatening humanity today, such as the global pandemic and climate change, requires learning and action at scales including and extending far beyond personal development. The concept of andragogy popularized by Malcolm Knowles focuses on the individual and does not attend to wider social contexts and collective…

This article explores how the Swedish policy of municipal adult education (MAE) is interpreted, translated, and enacted in study and career counselling. The data consists of semi-structured interviews with adult education leaders and study and career counsellors. Swedish MAE is characterised by extensive marketisation, with many different…

In Germany, continuing education (CE) is, to a large extent, controlled by municipalities ("Kommunen"). Municipalities have published an increasing number of education reports in recent years. These are intended as steering instruments for local education policy. Given that municipalities and the districts they represent differ in their…

Privatisation of public education is becoming more and more common across the world. As much current research presupposes causal links between the degree of privatisation and issues of competition and student's free choice, we see a need for research on other ways of organising the presence of private providers in public education. In this…

The aim of this study is to analyse how formal adult education in Sweden is enacted locally. For this analysis, the data consist of a nationwide survey sent to Swedish municipalities, background data on municipalities from public statistics and interviews with representatives of 20 municipalities. Swedish formal adult education, which includes…

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse how municipal adult education (MAE) in Sweden is enacted at the intersection of course organisation, student selection and course content. For this analysis, the data consist of a nationwide survey sent to Swedish municipalities, interviews with school leaders from 20 municipalities and in-depth…

This article focuses on how 'problems' regarding quality in adult education are constituted as particular sorts of 'problems'. The analysis takes its point of departure in a poststructural analytic strategy called 'What's the problem represented to be?'. The material analysed consists of various policy documents concerning contemporary Swedish…

Context: This study is about vocational education and training for adults within municipal adult education (MAE). Sweden has a long tradition of adult education, and has one of the world's highest proportions of participants in adult education. The Swedish education system is characterised by extensive marketisation with many private actors,…

'Quality' in education has become a global phenomenon, and is frequently discussed in transnational and national policy. In such discussions, 'quality' seems to be both worthwhile and demanded, but at the same time, the concept has also been criticised in previous research as it seems to have attained a 'common sense' status. In this context, the…

The first part of the study focuses on the characteristics and analysis of Zlín as an example of a company town. Life in the company town is characterised as a means of forming 'a new man' in Bat'a's Zlín. The second section analyses the aims of worker education in Bat'a's Zlín (in the so-called Bat'a school of work) and highlights the methods and…

The study was conducted on adult women who would run for village head. Because education is provided through adult learning in taking decisions and accompanied by spiritual guidance, adult educations were also required to increase college services to enter the community. The question researches were how women as candidate village head can make…

This regional dossier aims to provide concise descriptions and basic statistics about minority language education in a specific region of Europe. Lithuanian is a Baltic language that belongs to the Indo-European family. Most of the Lithuanian-speaking minority in Poland is confined to three municipalities near the Polish-Lithuanian border.…

An increasing number of mayors are adding 'learning' to traditional city responsibility for sewers, roads, parks, garbage and dog-catching. However, just like in the 1970s, there is uncertainty about what is meant by 'learning' and considerable variance embedded in the notion of 'city'. Some Learning City advocates look to UNESCO's Faure and…