In this open issue we present five papers covering different adult education and learning contexts across different geographical spaces, ranging from Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe to Canada. The topics of research range from young people to retired people, adult educators and men and women reading self-help literature

Almeida, António Fragoso de

Fejes, Andreas

European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults

English

In this open issue we present five papers covering different adult education and learning contexts across different geographical spaces, ranging from Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe to Canada. The topics of research range from young people to retired people, adult educators and men and women reading self-help literature.</p

Fejes, Andreas,

Fragoso, António,

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Editorial [Elektronisk resurs] : Open issue

Sapientia (Univ. do Algarve)

European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, Vol.6, No.1, 2015, pp. 7-8 ISSN 2000-7426 © 2015 The authors DOI 10.3384/rela.2000-7426.relae10 www.rela.ep.liu.se  Editorial :  Open issue     Andreas Fejes  Linköping University, Sweden (andreas.fejes@liu.se)   António Fragoso University of Algarve, Portugal (aalmeida@ualg.pt)     In this open issue we present five papers covering different adult education and learning contexts across different geographical spaces, ranging from Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe to Canada. The topics of research range from young people to retired people, adult educators and men and women reading self-help literature. In the article by Francesca Salva-Mut, Elena Quintana-Murci, and Danielle Desmarais, the focus is directed at young people and their participation in adult education and training. Using a biographical perspective the authors establish three different types of pathways regarding education, and they also study the main factors that exclude or include adults from participation in adult education. Despite the fact that these paths are marked by heterogeneity, a large number of the sample participate in adult education – mainly young adults with low qualifications, with the aim to improve their professional situation or to try to integrate into the labour market. It is, therefore, not surprising that these adults come from a situation of unemployment or economic inactivity. However, they experience a set of barriers to participation that can be institutional, situational or dispositional. The analysis of those barriers lead the authors to state that it is necessary to develop new equity policies and to introduce reforms to the adult education national system, which will allow a second educational chance for young adults.  Paula Thieme, Michael Brusch and Victoria Büsch direct their interest towards continuing employment in pensionable age, drawing on data from a German national survey. They illustrate how there are significant correlations between continuing training motivation and work ability and desire to work past retirement age. Their results show that training motivation is significantly high across all the studied groups of older adults. While some correlations proved not to be significant, there is no doubts that the stronger the culture of life-accompanying learning, the higher the ability and the desire to work after retirement. As positive experiences can increase training motivation, the authors suggest that new methods geared to the needs of older citizens should be developed. In the same line of reasoning, the training contents for older adults should be more application-oriented and eliciting positive effects – which will further increase motivation.  [8]  Andreas Fejes & António Fragoso Adult educators are the focus in Tetyana Kloubert’s article. She addresses the self-images of adult educators in exercising their professional agency in contexts of social transformation after the fall of the communist regimes. She has conducted 91 interviews with adult educators in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. The author tries to understand common trends that could illuminate changes occurring during the transitions—with these three countries being used mostly as examples. Adult educators see adult education as a way to attain a set of aims, including, for example, to preserve memory, resist state attempts to forge memories, foster therapy and healing, or to promote political and civic engagement. Thus, the adult educators functions goes beyond the traditional function to moderate and foster learning-building, including other dimensions such as the responsibility for the development of civil society. But Kloubert highlights the issues in Russia and the Ukraine, where adult educators dedicate themselves to dealing with the past much more in their personal engagement—and not as a part of a social demand. She concludes from her investigation that despite the fact that adult educators show an agentic capacity, there are a number of critical questions to be posed. For example, should the agency of adult educators focus on fostering and supporting individual growth, or renewal of society? Scott McLean and Brandi Kapell have conducted in-depth interviews with 134 men and women who read self-help literature. Their conclusions are, first, that women’s reading is more focused upon the enhancement of interpersonal relationships. Secondly, the gender differences regarding the reading relating to careers and health were modest. It appears that women have joined men in reading career-related self-help books, and men and women have comparable interests in reading about health and well-being. The authors claim that these differences are related to political-economic and cultural changes. They argue that women’s increasing necessity to work for wages makes career related reading just as important for men and women. The disproportioned responsibility towards domestic and emotional work would therefore determine women’s tendency of reading self-help books on personal relationships. A parallel could be outlined with women’s participation in adult or continuing education: regardless the motives, women feel a stronger responsibility to learning than men, thus explaining gender differences in participation.  In the last article, Reinhard Zürcher, proposes a model for the continuum between informal and formal learning connected to a teaching continuum. Drawing on sociomaterial theories, he argues that ‘performative, practice-based approaches are indispensable in order to investigate the low formalized section of the TLC [teaching-learning continuum]. The material aspect of sociomaterial theories enables us to argue for the (partial) symmetry of the teaching-learning relationship, for the equivalence of human/non-human action in TLP and to understand informal learning and in particular informal teaching in a new way’. 

Editorial: open issue

Fragoso, António

Universidade do Algarve

European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, Vol.6, No.1, 2015, pp. 7-8 
ISSN 2000-7426 
© 2015 The authors 
DOI 10.3384/rela.2000-7426.relae10 
www.rela.ep.liu.se 
 
Editorial :  Open issue 
 
 
 
 
Andreas Fejes  
Linköping University, Sweden (andreas.fejes@liu.se) 
 
 
António Fragoso 
University of Algarve, Portugal (aalmeida@ualg.pt) 
 
 
 
 
In this open issue we present five papers covering different adult education and learning 
contexts across different geographical spaces, ranging from Spain, Germany, Eastern 
Europe to Canada. The topics of research range from young people to retired people, 
adult educators and men and women reading self-help literature. 
In the article by Francesca Salva-Mut, Elena Quintana-Murci, and Danielle 
Desmarais, the focus is directed at young people and their participation in adult 
education and training. Using a biographical perspective the authors establish three 
different types of pathways regarding education, and they also study the main factors 
that exclude or include adults from participation in adult education. Despite the fact that 
these paths are marked by heterogeneity, a large number of the sample participate in 
adult education – mainly young adults with low qualifications, with the aim to improve 
their professional situation or to try to integrate into the labour market. It is, therefore, 
not surprising that these adults come from a situation of unemployment or economic 
inactivity. However, they experience a set of barriers to participation that can be 
institutional, situational or dispositional. The analysis of those barriers lead the authors 
to state that it is necessary to develop new equity policies and to introduce reforms to 
the adult education national system, which will allow a second educational chance for 
young adults.  
Paula Thieme, Michael Brusch and Victoria Büsch direct their interest towards 
continuing employment in pensionable age, drawing on data from a German national 
survey. They illustrate how there are significant correlations between continuing 
training motivation and work ability and desire to work past retirement age. Their 
results show that training motivation is significantly high across all the studied groups 
of older adults. While some correlations proved not to be significant, there is no doubts 
that the stronger the culture of life-accompanying learning, the higher the ability and the 
desire to work after retirement. As positive experiences can increase training 
motivation, the authors suggest that new methods geared to the needs of older citizens 
should be developed. In the same line of reasoning, the training contents for older adults 
should be more application-oriented and eliciting positive effects – which will further 
increase motivation.  
[8]  Andreas Fejes & António Fragoso 
Adult educators are the focus in Tetyana Kloubert’s article. She addresses the self-
images of adult educators in exercising their professional agency in contexts of social 
transformation after the fall of the communist regimes. She has conducted 91 interviews 
with adult educators in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. The author tries to understand 
common trends that could illuminate changes occurring during the transitions—with 
these three countries being used mostly as examples. Adult educators see adult 
education as a way to attain a set of aims, including, for example, to preserve memory, 
resist state attempts to forge memories, foster therapy and healing, or to promote 
political and civic engagement. Thus, the adult educators functions goes beyond the 
traditional function to moderate and foster learning-building, including other 
dimensions such as the responsibility for the development of civil society. But Kloubert 
highlights the issues in Russia and the Ukraine, where adult educators dedicate 
themselves to dealing with the past much more in their personal engagement—and not 
as a part of a social demand. She concludes from her investigation that despite the fact 
that adult educators show an agentic capacity, there are a number of critical questions to 
be posed. For example, should the agency of adult educators focus on fostering and 
supporting individual growth, or renewal of society? 
Scott McLean and Brandi Kapell have conducted in-depth interviews with 134 men 
and women who read self-help literature. Their conclusions are, first, that women’s 
reading is more focused upon the enhancement of interpersonal relationships. Secondly, 
the gender differences regarding the reading relating to careers and health were modest. 
It appears that women have joined men in reading career-related self-help books, and 
men and women have comparable interests in reading about health and well-being. The 
authors claim that these differences are related to political-economic and cultural 
changes. They argue that women’s increasing necessity to work for wages makes career 
related reading just as important for men and women. The disproportioned 
responsibility towards domestic and emotional work would therefore determine 
women’s tendency of reading self-help books on personal relationships. A parallel 
could be outlined with women’s participation in adult or continuing education: 
regardless the motives, women feel a stronger responsibility to learning than men, thus 
explaining gender differences in participation.  
In the last article, Reinhard Zürcher, proposes a model for the continuum between 
informal and formal learning connected to a teaching continuum. Drawing on 
sociomaterial theories, he argues that ‘performative, practice-based approaches are 
indispensable in order to investigate the low formalized section of the TLC [teaching-
learning continuum]. The material aspect of sociomaterial theories enables us to argue 
for the (partial) symmetry of the teaching-learning relationship, for the equivalence of 
human/non-human action in TLP and to understand informal learning and in particular 
informal teaching in a new way’. 


Andreas Fejes

Danny Wildemeersch

Directory of Open Access Journals

Editorial: cartographies of research on adult education and learning

Wildemeersch, Danny

Publikationer från Linköpings universitet

Editorial: Cartographies of research on adult education and learning

In this open issue we present five papers covering different adult education and learning contexts across different geographical spaces, ranging from Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe to Canada. The topics of research range from young people to retired people, adult educators and men and women reading self-help literature. (DIPF/Orig.

Fragoso, Antonio

Fachlicher Dokumentenserver Paedagogik/Erziehungswissenschaften

Editorial. Open issue

In this open issue we present five papers covering different adult education and learning contexts across different geographical spaces, ranging from Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe to Canada. The topics of research range from young people to retired people, adult educators and men and women reading self-help literature.</jats:p

António Fragoso

Crossref

Editorial: Open issue

Wildemeersch, Danny,

Editorial: Cartographies of research on adult education and learning [Elektronisk resurs]

The ambition of this thematic issue on cartographies of research of the field [of adult education] is to bring together a range of papers, participating in different ways to the construction of the field as it is shaped in contemporary times. […] The five thematic papers of this issue can be clustered in two groups: The first three provide bibliometric analyses of the field by focusing on journal publication and conference papers. The second group includes two papers focusing on specific research areas in the field of adult education. (DIPF/Orig.

Editorial. Cartographies of research on adult education and learning

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Publikationer från Linköpings universitet

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Fachlicher Dokumentenserver Paedagogik/Erziehungswissenschaften