Forty-second report of Session 2010-12 : Documents considered by the Committee on 12th October 2011, including the following recommendations for debate, financial services: prudential requirements; application of the Schengen acquis in Bulgaria and Romani

Drawing on the contributions of 75 leading authors in the field, this 2010 Edition of the respected Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education provides adult education scholars, programme administrators, and teachers with a solid foundation for understanding the current guiding beliefs, practices, and tensions faced in the field, as well as a basis for developing and refining their own approaches to their work and scholarship. Offering expanded discussions in the areas of social justice, technology, and the global dimensions of adult and continuing education, the Handbook continues the tradition of previous volumes with discussions of contemporary theories, current forms and contexts of practice, and core processes and functions. Insightful chapters examine adult and continuing education as it relates to gender and sexuality, race, our aging society, class and place, and disability.

Whether it is earning a GED, a particular skill, or technical topic for a career, taking classes of interest, or even returning to begin a degree program or completing it, adult learning encompasses those beyond the traditional university age seeking out education. This type of education could be considered non-traditional as it goes beyond the typical educational path and develops learners that are self-initiated and focused on personal development in the form of gaining some sort of education. Essentially, it is a voluntary choice of learning throughout life for personal and professional development. While there is often a large focus towards K-12 and higher education, it is important that research also focuses on the developing trends, technologies, and techniques for providing adult education along with understanding lifelong learners’ choices, developments, and needs. The Research Anthology on Adult Education and the Development of Lifelong Learners focuses specifically on adult education and the best practices, services, and educational environments and methods for both the teaching and learning of adults. This spans further into the understanding of what it means to be a lifelong learner and how to develop adults who want to voluntarily contribute to their own development by enhancing their education level or knowledge of certain topics. This book is essential for teachers and professors, course instructors, business professionals, school administrators, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the latest advancements in adult education and lifelong learning.

Since the mid-twentieth century, the environment in which we operate is in fact described as turbulent, i.e. characterised by an unprecedented amount, rate, intensity and complexity of changes. In such a volatile environment the survival of an enterprise, and the more so its development and maintenance of high competitive position, seem to be extremely difficult. On the one hand, changes can create opportunities and provide the enterprises with chances for the development, on the other restrict or even block the possibility of their functioning in the market. In the monograph an attempt was made at classifying the civilization changes the modern entrepreneurs have to face in the fight for maintaining high competitiveness of their enterprises. Good practices are presented, for example the economic activation of seniors for companies. This book is a scientific publication for the purpose of its drafting, a review of most recent scientific literature on enterprise competitiveness and innovation and the direction and pace of socio-economic changes, with a particular focus on demographic changes, was conducted. This publication was developed as part of the flagship project of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region “Innovative SMEs by Gender and Age (QUICK-IGA)”.

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.