Citizenship classes are often taught directly to the test. Creating meaningful dialogue within the confines of a set vocabulary list, 100 questions, and a time limit can often prove difficult. Creating not only new citizens but citizens who are connected to their community and who are leaders/advocates for the people in their community is the main…

This systematic review of the literature on emotional abuse and women's experiences in higher education explored current and foundational literature to gain a better understanding of how nontraditional female adult learners who previously experienced emotional abuse manage their journeys in higher education. No literature was found specifically…

Research on social emotional learning (SEL) and employability skills has shown positive outcomes for learners over the past three decades. They both represent skills and competencies that are important for adult learners in gaining workplace success. However, rather than focusing on each set of competencies separately in instruction, adult…

The US is experiencing extreme social and political polarization not seen since the Civil War. This divisiveness is causing civil unrest and governmental dysfunction which threatens the stability of the nation. Four major causes of the current state are party realignment, the deregulation of news broadcasting, algorithmic personalization of…

Background & Purpose: Primary prevention of COVID-19 has focused on encouraging compliance with specific behaviors that restrict contagion. This investigation sought to characterize engagement in these behaviors in U.S. adults early during the pandemic and to build explanatory models of the psychological processes that drive them. Methods: US…

For decades, many countries have kept refugees in settlements separated from local populations, making 'integration' a chimera. More recently, however, governments and international organizations have advocated for greater refugee integration and framed education as key to this process. For adult refugees, education in the place of asylum often…

Informal learning constantly happens all around us. Informal learning approaches often stand in stark contrast to school practices and standards, receive little attention in the formal study of education, and present a great deal of untapped opportunity to support learners. Mendoso Community Library (MCL) is a particularly interesting illustration…

Over the past thirty years there has been an increase in the study and practice of service-learning in graduate education. As a form of experiential learning, service-learning integrates academic coursework with service or community engagement through purposeful and structured course design and reflection. Despite the fact that the primary reason…

Background: Executive functioning (EF) is a complex neurocognitive concept that grew from the field of neuropsychology and has been explored through various avenues. The most accepted theoretical organization of EF includes a three-factor model that is comprised of inhibition, updating, and shifting. The three-factor conceptualization can be…

This comparative study examines patterns of inequality in participation in two different types of adult learning and education (ALE) -- job-related formal ALE (JFALE) and job-related non-formal ALE (JNFALE) -- as related to social origins at the micro-level and three categories of social inequality at the macro-level at the macro level (economic,…

In the context of the popular Women's March on Washington and sister marches elsewhere, we analyze the tension between the marches as a valuable political act and a perpetuation of feminism as a space for white, middle-class women. We present short narratives of our own varying experiences with the Women's March--and with white…

To investigate how readability affects the way adults who are learning to read evaluate health information, a mixed methods research study was designed based on a sociotechnical framework and using theories of everyday life information seeking. The study analyzed a corpus of consumer health information documents (N = 501) using the CohMetrix text…

Research shows that educators' perceptions of learning are limited due to a variety of factors which include: a lack of neurobiological- and language acquisition-informed content and information incorporated within teacher preparation programs, educators' learning experiences grounded in familiarity, and confusions between common educational…

Functional adult literacy interventions have been regarded for many decades by policy makers as an effective way of imparting health knowledge. Supported by research on the statistical relationships between women's literacy rates and health indicators, this dominant policy discourse is based on assumptions that non-literate women lack…

Social determinants of health are conditions, such as physical and social environments, which contribute to health outcomes. People with disabilities face more health inequities than their nondisabled peers, including disparities in social determinants of health. Although research indicates people with disabilities face a number of disparities…