FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE AS OPEN ACCESS BOOK! The European Union is now a key player in making lifelong learning and adult education policy: this is the first book to explore a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives researchers can use to investigate its role. Chapters by leading experts and younger scholars from across Europe and beyond cover the evolution of EU policies, the role of policy ‘actors’ in what is often seen as the ‘black box’ of EU policy-making, and the contribution state theory can make to understanding the EU and its relations with Europe’s nations. They consider what theories of governmentality—drawing on the work of Foucault—can contribute. And they demonstrate how particular methodological approaches, such as ‘policy trails’, and the contribution the sociology of law, can make. Contributors include both specialists in adult education and scholars exploring how work from other disciplines can contribute to this field. This is the first book in a new series from the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults, and draws on work within its Network on Policy Studies in Adult Education.

" With the first volume of Bochum Studies in International Adult Education we are launching a new series of publications from the Chair of Adult Education at the Ruhr-University of Bochum. BSIAE addresses not only researchers, university teachers and students of adult education but also those from related disciplines. While not explicitly addressing practitioners, except for providing them with up-to-date research overviews, each issue will also address politicans and policy makers. Each volume will be organised around one topic or issue which is of interest, importance or of particular relevance for adult education in general. This particular topic will be considered from various points of view, i. e. comparative, historical, gender, socio-political and cultural. The first volume of BSIAE intends to look closely at the topcis Language - Mobility - Identity and attempts to discuss these issues from the point of view of adult education. The intention of this volume is to create a compilation of different viewpoints and critical analyses on the three topics which together form an overview of their interrelation and their relevance for European development, adult education and adult's learning. "

Contemporary adult education policy development and lifelong learning practice are experiencing an autonomy loss imposed by the dominant neoliberal economic paradigm. As a consequence, in many countries, especially those that depend economically from supranational organizations and donors, the critical approach and its adjunct idea of emancipation have been sacrificed in favour of ambiguous developmental goals like employability, flexibility and adaptability. On the other hand, in many countries, adult education as a social movement is deeply rooted in the conviction that learning is an essential process related to personal transformation and social change. The result of this conflict between the external pressure for policies in favour of the labour market and the internal assumption about the value of emancipation has led to interesting insights that have produced policies and practices that attempt to reconcile these two forces of development. In this volume, we offer a consideration of the above paradoxical situation, and the critical view of adult education policy and practice in the region of Southeastern Europe. Some chapters in this volume present also positive lifelong learning practices, policy development analyses and conceptual understandings that highlight the efforts to develop adult education within a framework of the dominant neoliberal forces that shape European and international adult education policy.

This book explores the formation and development of the cross-national patterns of adult learning systems between 1989 and 2019 in four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. Drawing on the approach of the political economy of adult education and historical institutionalism, the book closely examines (1) how the institutional settings in these countries have formed, evolved and contributed to overall participation in adult education and training, (2) how they have shaped patterns of participation and unequal chances to be involved in this social activity, as well as (3) perceived barriers to access organized learning and related governmental policies. This book offers a contemporary overview of key findings regarding adult learning systems. It delves into the factors that influence participation in adult education and training. Through the utilization of the novel framework, GALS (Global Adult Learning Space), the book not only highlights a crucial distinction among adult learning systems within the region but also presents in-depth case studies of these systems in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia spanning a 30-year period. Despite these countries sharing similar institutional backgrounds and societal challenges, the book reveals that their adult learning systems have undergone divergent trajectories over the past three decades. This book will be useful to researchers and scholars in the fields of adult education, comparative education, welfare policy, sociology of education, and European studies.

The system of vocational and adult education and training in Europe offers young people and adults the opportunity to learn to play an effective part in the workplace and elsewhere in society. Vocational and adult education and training is increasingly seen as crucial to the maintenance of employment, economic growth and the social integration of disadvantaged groups. In an economy and a society which are increasingly based on knowledge and information, these tasks can only increase in importance. This book brings together contributors from different disciplines and the different countries in Europe to look at current developments and debates in the development of European education and training, including the relation between markets and institutions, learning and organisations, different programmes and sectors and the economics of education and training. The book will be of interest to students, researchers and policy makers concerned with the future of education and training in Europe.

This book contributes to the setting out of a new, better informed and complex basis for discussions about the relationships between the State, the civil society and the citizen in distinct European countries and regions. It will be useful to researchers in the field of adult education, as well as social scientists interested in topics related to civil society, such as NGOs, social economists, and practitioners concerned with the trends that are forcing adult education to recontextualise its aims and practices.