Low achievement in literacy for children entering kindergarten exists despite district-sponsored professional development (PD) in literacy pedagogy for prekindergarten teachers. PD has been shown to be important in improving teachers' instruction, so low achievement of children is unexplained. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to…

The 47th annual conference of the Adult and Higher Education Alliance (AHEA) was held online and in person in March 2023. This year's conference theme is "Workforce Development: Micro-Credentials, Badges, and CEUs." The proceedings are comprised of the following papers: (1) Investing in Adult Learners and Creating Learning Environments…

This article argues for the need to regard social origin as a complex phenomenon in order to better understand the determinants of individuals' participation in adult learning. It: (1) discusses the conceptualisation of social origin; (2) analyses how two of its components -- parental (both father's and mother's) class and education -- are…

The present study investigated whether adult learners of second language (L2) can automatically activate emotional connotation during emotional word recognition as compared native (L1) users and whether L2 use plays a significant role in it. The automaticity of activation was measured through the emotional Stroop task. In this task, emotional…

Democracy is not only a system of government, but also an overarching way of living together. It is through the social structures we live in and the resulting social relations, behaviors, and norms emanating from those structures, that we learn how to live together, democratically or otherwise. Adult education can promote the learning of democracy…

Within the context of second language (L2) writing, learner engagement with feedback has elicited significant theoretical and empirical interest (e.g., Zhang & Hyland, 2018; Zheng & Yu, 2018). Research has highlighted the dynamic nature of learner engagement with written corrective feedback (WCF), but the ways in which learner and…

The focus of this article is on the question of language and its relation to adult learning in what Peter Leyland describes as 'a post-modern way'. In other words, it is a pastiche or a multiplicity of ideas that he has been meeting with over a year working with adult students who are learning about different areas of poetry in his Worker's…

This paper draws on a national lifelong learning (LLL) strategy document to argue that not all EU member states are ready to give up on a more broadened social and community-oriented form of LLL, at least in their policy document discourse. They can appeal, in their policy interpretations, to the 'democratic imaginary' whereby learning, including…

This qualitative research report is a historical, instrumental, single, bounded case study, based on the concept of charisma, and charismatic leadership and authority in operation. It is based on Max Weber's ideal-type charismatic leadership model. The researcher examined the sociocultural climate of the 1960s and 1970s to find out how charismatic…

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Toronto Police Service was exploring how to increase access to higher education to its officers. The service saw higher education as salient to its organizational imperatives of professionalization, increased public legitimacy and credibility, and enhanced academic recognition of police professional learning.…

This article -- the first part of a two-part contribution -- considers the current and past state of research on the history of adult education in Britain. Although there has been a broadening of interest among historians of adult education, the field remains to an extent in the shadow of the "Great Tradition" of liberal education…

Enrollment in graduate programs continues to rise at a steady pace in the United States with a 9% increase over the past 10 years, a pace that is expected to continue through 2026. Among these students, 56% are "adult learners" between the ages of 25 through 39 years. With this in mind, instructors need to be mindful of the unique needs…

The guiding principles of the education of older adults have been stated in three landmark publications. In their statements of principles, the authors of those publications affiliated themselves with one of two older-adult learning philosophies: a humanist or a critical one. Thirty years since the first statement, the field of educational…

This study is about adult learning and empowerment in a challenging context. The data from this study comes from interviews with women non-operating landowners who attended a learning circle event designed to inform them about conservation opportunities on their land. The findings show there were several aspects of the learning circles that…

This investigation hypothesizes that the effects derived from the reintegration of adult wilderness education will connect adults in unique ways to nature landscapes. The study is based on two cases: a five-year wilderness program that the author designed in a remote part of Canada, and a Yellowstone wilderness program that occurs yearly. The…