This paper examines the role of arts‑based learning within a community of practice (CoP) of adult educators from my perspective as an insider practitioner‑researcher and a member of the CoP. Drawing on the concept of visual culture learning communities I explore how arts-based practices can be sustained within the constraints of increasingly standardised education systems. Using an interpretivist approach, I examine adult education tutors’ experiences of participating in an Arts-Based Learning CoP. My findings show that engaging in a CoP enhances the well-being and professional growth of tutors, with transformative potential for both educators and their students. I acknowledge the limitations of the research, including insider-outsider dynamics within the CoP and I consider the possibility that visual arts may not resonate equally with all learners. Nonetheless, the findings highlight the potential of arts‑based approaches to strengthen relational, reflective, and supportive professional communities in adult education.
Two researchers from the creative arts have come together in a conversational encounter to explore the educational legacy of Ann O’Donnell (1933-2019). O’Donnell was a jewellery designer, maker, entrepreneur and educator working in Leeds, UK during the late 1950s until 1993. During the time of O’Donnell’s employment in an art college, its archivists and librarians did not collect many papers, curricula or resources made by women educators, who often had part-time roles. This resulted in their contributions to the education field remaining invisible. In order to preserve O’Donnell’s legacy, conversations between the two researchers captured the pedagogic knowledge created by her experience and practice in creating a jewellery curriculum with her students. As O’Donnell was working at a significant time for the development of vocational qualifications in the UK (1970s-1990s) the conversation revealed O’Donnell’s pragmatism in interweaving a liberal and vocational education for the benefit of her students.
This paper examines how a Brussels-based NGO, the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA), engages in policy advocacy through less conventional and underexplored channels, such as participation in EU-funded projects and the cultivation of transnational networks. Empirical data were collected using network ethnography to map EAEA’s relationships through collaborative projects and to trace its funding sources between 2014 and 2024. Our findings indicate that EAEA has substantially increased its participation in EU-funded projects over the past decade, both as a coordinator and as a partner, often in collaboration with its ordinary and associate members. This shift reflects both a strategic emphasis on project acquisition and an increasing dependence on EU programmes. It further raises questions about autonomy and strategic direction. The study contributes to existing literature by exploring the role of project engagement as a vehicle for collaboration and policy advocacy among Brussels-based NGOs.
This article explores the professional identity transitions of second-career teachers (SCTs) through the temporal and rhythmic dimensions of narratives written during teacher education in French-speaking Switzerland. Based on a qualitative inductive-deductive analysis of eight experience-based narratives selected from a broader corpus, the study examines how SCTs make sense of career change and narratively configure continuity, rupture, overlap and transformation. The findings indicate that identity transitions involve changes in professional activities, skills and representations of self, teaching and learners. They also unfold through heterogeneous rhythms, ranging from gradual reorientations to abrupt turning points associated with personal, occupational or existential disruptions. The article argues that narrative writing constitutes a mediating space in which prior experiences are reinterpreted, legitimised and integrated into emerging teacher identities. It thus contributes to research on professional transitions by foregrounding temporality and rhythm as key analytical dimensions.
Teachers from Municipality Adult Education (MAE) have identified a need for hands-on teaching models supporting students in organising their studies, strengthening their self-regulation, and determining whether they are on track with the mathematical content taught. In this action research project, a team of researchers and experienced teachers in MAE explore a teaching model called mini-quiz. The model contains weekly automatically corrected digital multiple-choice quizzes with immediate feedback. Through semi-structured interviews with 30 students, mini-quiz was evaluated by examining students’ views on its use. The analysis, following thematic analysis, identified three main themes: Support for monitoring and evaluation, Support for planning, and Support for responsive teaching. The findings suggest that mini-quizzes increase students’ self-efficacy, help them confirm their understanding and plan their studies. Mini-quizzes also provide teachers with valuable insights to adapt their teaching at individual and group levels early, a factor important in complex educational settings like MAE.
This article explores the analytical and pedagogical potential of rhythmanalysis for interpreting contemporary socio-environmental crisis. Drawing primarily on Henri Lefebvre’s conception of rhythmanalysis, the study examines how systemic acceleration, work precarisation, educational disruption, and climate catastrophes can be understood as expressions of broader arrhythmic conditions characteristic of late modernity. Focusing on the Brazilian context, including the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul, the article highlights temporal asymmetries between rapid destruction and slow processes of reconstruction. By placing rhythmanalysis in dialogue with environmental education and adult education, it argues that education can cultivate critical rhythmic awareness capable of rendering crisis intelligible and fostering more just and sustainable forms of coexistence. Rather than proposing a closed model, the article advances a reflective approximation between these fields.
Where institutional pathways are unclear, responses to sustainability transitions are largely individualised, marked by subjectivity and complexity, thereby placing the burden of navigating social change on individuals. This article argues that engaging with temporalities – particularly through rhythms and the practice of rhythmanalysis – offers valuable support for making sense of life-course transitions under uncertain and contested social change conditions. Drawing on biographical narratives with adults in professional transition, the paper examines how individuals connect personal life-course transitions to broader sustainability challenges. Using rhythms as a conceptual lens, the analysis and the subsequent discussion explore processes of sense-making, complex thinking, and engagement with wicked temporalities. This approach is advanced as a relevant resource for adult education in the context of rapid socio-ecological change. In doing so, the article contributes to ongoing debates on rethinking learning by expanding how the unfolding of lives can be framed and understood under complex and uncertain conditions.
The paper examines public open spaces as sites of informal and transformative learning and engages with the frameworks of public pedagogy and the pedagogy of the unknowable. The study aims to understand how learning unfolds through unplanned, relational, affective and non-representational encounters with space, others and the self. Based on a qualitative case study conducted along the Path of Remembrance and Comradeship in Ljubljana (PATH), the paper analyses this urban memorial site as a multi-layered learning environment that evokes historical, symbolic and social dimensions. The findings suggest that such spaces not only harbour social interaction, but also actively shape reflective, critical and emotional learning processes that promote personal change and social awareness. By conceptualising the unknowable as a pedagogical condition, we foreground the unpredictability, openness and ambiguity inherent in learning in public open spaces and offer a conceptual rethinking of pedagogy beyond formal institutions.
Drawing on research into processes of individual emancipation in adult education, we examine how training may support transformative processes by establishing its own spatiotemporal dimension and bring into dialogue how French-speaking authors conceptualise emancipation, particularly within autoformation1. Training can operate as a secured spatiotemporal cocoon, aiding in regaining life control through transformative learning and anthropoformation. The study focusing on adults resuming higher education suggests utilising Galvani’s concept of kaïros2, Pineau's schizo-chrony, and Alhadeff-Jones's rhythmic approaches that emancipation addresses both spatial ('Where is my place?') and temporal ('What is my time?') questions. Within this secured spatiotemporal cocoon, learners reflect on experiences, addressing Mezirow's 'disorienting dilemma' and benefit from the gift of epoché. Engaging with training's rhythmic patterns, they redefine their present, constructing futures. We contend that educators’ role involves supporting transformation and emancipation while creating, maintaining, and defending this spatiotemporal cocoon. How might educators safeguard this transformative space?
This article is based on doctoral research conducted in the fields of environmental adult education and environmental geography as part of a participatory approach in the context of a territorial ‘sustainable development’ project. The framework elements of the qualitative case study in question situate the article and its proposed insights in the dialogical dynamics of the environmental way of knowing studied from an institutional discourse analysis perspective. A transcoding of statements occurs, which affects the participatory dynamics and engagement of the inhabitants-actors. The challenge of considering environmental temporalities highlights the formative temporalities relating to the environment and the emergence of an alternative agenda centred on the commons. Suggestions related to environmental adult education are made to establish a reference framework for the environmental transition currently underway.
This article argues for the urgent reorientation of Adult Learning and Education (ALE) from its dominant anthropocentric paradigm toward an ecocentric foundation. Adopting a critical and interdisciplinary approach, it engages with UNESCO global reports and prominent scholars from ALE and other fields of knowledge that highlight the need for fundamental shifts in educational paradigms. Drawing on environmental philosophy, decolonial thought, and ecological epistemologies, it interrogates the ontological and epistemological assumptions underpinning contemporary sociocultural and educational frameworks. Central to this discussion is the role of contemplative knowledge as a pathway to overcome disconnection, with attention to its assumptions, pedagogical approaches, and capacity to foster relational, embodied, and ecological awareness. The findings reveal emergent alternatives prioritising epistemic diversity, planetary wellbeing, and sustainability. By integrating contemplative practices with critical ecocentric perspectives, the article advocates a profound reimagining of ALE-one that transcends human exceptionalism, nurtures interconnectedness, and supports justice-oriented, sustainable, and resilient educational futures.
How should Continuing Vocational Education and Training (CVET) serve society – as a tool for economic adaptation or as a site of transformative adult learning and democratic participation? This article critically examines CVET discourse across seven UNESCO International Conferences on Adult Education (CONFINTEA) (1949-2022). Based on critical analysis of seventeen key texts and informed by Freirean pedagogy, Lima and Guimarães’ policy framework, and Biesta’s critique of ‘learnification’, three patterns are identified. First, economic priorities consistently overshadow humanistic aims despite periodic rhetorical reaffirmations. Second, the shift from ‘adult education’ to ‘adult learning’ individualises responsibility, transferring costs from states and employers to learners while obscuring structural inequalities. Third, comprehensive policy frameworks coexist with implementation gaps, exposing CONFINTEA’s limited capacity to counter neoliberal restructuring. Governance has shifted from public responsibility (1949-1960) to normalised public-private partnerships (2022). Realising CVET’s transformative potential requires binding mechanisms, political-economic engagement, and democratic mobilisation beyond declaratory commitments.
We live in appalling times, in which it is almost impossible to remain hopeful; for radical adult educators, it is difficult to know what we should do in response. In this article, I draw on two theorists for possible inspiration. Jack Mezirow's perspective transformation theory is one of the most widely used of all adult learning theories, but also continues to be critiqued as a theory of social change. Alain Badiou's theory of the event has not as yet been considered within adult education. I consider whether and how these might help us think through our role in current times.
This paper investigates aspects of informal and non-formal learning that emerge through adults' participation in collective actions and social movements. Drawing on qualitative data derived from interviews with members of social collectives in an urban area of Athens (Greece), the study illustrates how these spaces function as dynamic learning environments. Participants develop practical knowledge, social skills, critical awareness, and a deeper understanding of social issues. Moreover, engagement in collective actions also fosters emotional bonds, solidarity, and processes of personal transformation. The findings underline that learning is not confined to formal settings but emerges meaningfully through participation in civic life. The study highlights the pivotal role of collective action in promoting adult learning and self-awareness, contributing to the broader dialogue in the field of adult education by demonstrating how involvement in social groups constitutes a significant site for both individual and collective transformation.
Empowerment, as a goal of adult education, seeks to support people to critically reflect on structural settings and to take constructive action towards social equality and social change. This article analyses empowerment and adult education from a micro-, meso-, and macro-level perspective. The key assumption is that these levels cannot be considered in isolation. Drawing on Freire (2014) and Sen (1993), the article outlines how empowerment can be fostered through adult education at each level, while also analysing the interdependencies between them. We propose a heuristic model that identifies seven characteristics for assessing the promotion of empowerment through adult education, providing a foundation for empirical research: (1) knowledge and abilities, (2) active agency, (3) cultural realities, (4) pedagogical self-conception, (5) dialogic spaces, (6) representation of interests, and (7) educational mandate.
This article explores the social, educational, and participatory practices during the revolutionary period in Portugal (1974-1976), a historical moment marked by a combination of political rupture and grassroots mobilisation. By focusing on four key initiatives-agrarian reform, popular education, the MFA's Cultural Dynamization and Civic Action Campaign, and the Student Civic Service-this study sheds light on the diversity of popular educational experiences and social transformation movements of the time. It analyses how education and civic engagement were conceived and employed as tools for societal transformation. The results show that, during the revolutionary period, civil society, previously repressed under the dictatorship, played a crucial role in the democratisation of education. They also highlight the significant contribution of the popular classes and of popular education in the broader transformation of Portuguese society.
The falsification of the results of the 2020 presidential election in Belarus produced a movement of peaceful civil disobedience and resistance. Civil activism furthered radical change embracing broad democratic participation and created new political subjects. Biographical interviews conducted with Aliaksandra, a young Belarusian adult, look at the learning situation of the individual and open a space in which the search for individual meaning-making in times of biographical transition can be heard. The interviews showcase interactions in time and space between an individual and her wider out-of-frame interactions, and on the effects of social and political conflict and crisis on her biographical narrative. The concept of 'biographicity' is employed to describe the dynamics of ongoing biographical learning, and Raymond Williams' understanding of the processes of social transformation provides the theoretical backdrop of the transformation of lived lives in this paper.
This study investigates continuing vocational education and training (CVET) in three institutional contexts: Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Drawing on PIAAC Cycle 1’s unique questions and transparency, we analyse institutional regimes and socio-economic gradients in CVET participation. Barriers to and engagement in CVET is embedded in educational, labour market, and welfare state institutions. Results show that Sweden’s universal-collectivist regime fosters the highest participation with minimal disparities, while Germany’s corporatist regime shows lower participation and higher stratification. The UK’s liberal-individualist model exhibits moderate participation but sharp socio-economic inequalities, emphasising financial and employer-related barriers. Resource constraints such as time and money are prominent barriers across institutional contexts. Our exploratory measurement of CVET interest opens pathways for future research that was not thought possible with existing PIAAC data. These findings contribute to long-term institutional analysis and theory, and inform policy interventions to reduce barriers, increase interest, and support disadvantaged groups.
This article argues for the urgent reorientation of Adult Learning and Education (ALE) from its dominant anthropocentric paradigm toward an ecocentric foundation. Adopting a critical and interdisciplinary approach, it engages with UNESCO global reports and prominent scholars from ALE and other fields of knowledge that highlight the need for fundamental shifts in educational paradigms. Drawing on environmental philosophy, decolonial thought, and ecological epistemologies, it interrogates the ontological and epistemological assumptions underpinning contemporary sociocultural and educational frameworks. Central to this discussion is the role of contemplative knowledge as a pathway to overcome disconnection, with attention to its assumptions, pedagogical approaches, and capacity to foster relational, embodied, and ecological awareness. The findings reveal emergent alternatives prioritising epistemic diversity, planetary well-being, and sustainability. By integrating contemplative practices with critical ecocentric perspectives, the article advocates a profound reimagining of ALE – one that transcends human exceptionalism, nurtures interconnectedness, and supports justice-oriented, sustainable, and resilient educational futures.
