This volume presents a scientific and practical trend in lifelong education, which focuses on "human activity". This trend is particularly apparent in French speaking countries where a seminal tradition of ergonomics, born in the middle of the 20th century, produced studies about work and workers’ activity in various contexts. Results demonstrate that working activity, firstly, is always complex, creative and enigmatic despite the efforts done by the designers to create prescribing working environments and by managers to control production procedures, and secondly, cannot be understood without specific field studies about real work. This approach influenced adult educational researchers and trainers to develop programs in order to help trainers to better know human activity and its transformations in various social practices (and not only in working context). It also helps them to design learning environments accompanying human activity transformations at various time scales. The chapters in this volume present a range of original studies on human activity in various social practices, such as tourism, theatre prop-makers in opera, manual job environments, management in a small company, high level athletes illegal practices, school teaching and finally during teachers retirement ceremonies. These studies of the relationships between social practices and human activity and its transformations, give empirical and conceptual bases for designing programs aimed at emphasizing and accompanying specific individual and collective learning, and human development in a lifelong perspective. This book was published as a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education.

Special Issue: Soka Approaches in EducationVol 9 No SI (2020)

In spite of the day-to-day relevance of business communication, it remains underrepresented in standard handbooks and textbooks on applied linguistics. The present volume introduces readers to a wide variety of linguistic studies of business communication, ranging from traditional LSP approaches to contemporary discourse-based work, and from the micro-level of lexical choice to macro-level questions of language policy and culture.

This special issue of Youth Voice Journal examines recent scholarship tackling core aspects of elevating modern education and empowering young learners and brings together empirical findings across critical facets of education needing attention among today’s shifting realities. The studies contained in this issue provide well-timed data and recommendations to guide policies and teaching methods in line with 21st-century realities. The authors employ focused empirical research across contexts – from preschool to higher education – combined with analysis of past techniques. Findings shed light on improvements ranging from teacher professional development and student evaluation to virtual learning models and nurturing non-cognitive skills. Across diverse methodologies and populations, common threads emerge around building adaptable, supportive educational environments. The studies analyze challenges and opportunities emerging from evolving technologies, social contexts, and educational paradigms. While wide-ranging, the research collectively highlights changes needing proactive responses to better serve youth development. Additional scholarship building on these findings can further inform evidence-based policies and teaching methods. Guest Editor: Liudmyla H. Obek DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.12098.56005 To cite this issue: Obek L. H. (2023). Ways of modernizing education and improving the research skills of young people, Youth Voice Journal, Vol. I. ISBN (ONLINE): 978-1-911634-95-9

The basic aim of this special issue is to focus on the profound change of tendency in education that is taking place at both the national and interna tional level. At a time when education and lifelong learning are increasingly merging into one process, it is important to examine the ways in which edu cational policies and practices are evolving. Consequently, we invited a variety of contributors, both men and women, coming from different regions and encompassing both research and practice, to identify significant phenomena and trends that are indicative of the ways in which systems of education are responding to new social and cultural demands. We asked our contributors to show how educational reality in different countries is no longer confined within the temporal and spatial limits of institutional education, to indicate how models of educational practice are changing, to examine the extent to which the traditional cycles of human life are shifting their boundaries, and to describe how these changes are mani festing themselves in different national contexts in both South and North. We also asked our authors to pose questions raised by this educational revolution. We have included 17 contributions, some of the authors analysing par ticular national situations, others drawing questions and observations from their own experiences or taking a searching look at education from the perspective of a practical involvement in social iSl>ues or from a background of research into popular arts and traditions.

Over the last forty years, the International Journal of Lifelong Education has become a global leader in the field of research on adult education and lifelong learning. Drawing extensively on articles published in the journal, scholars from Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australasia and Europe reflect in two volumes on how the field has evolved over four decades, and on the strengths and weaknesses of its contributions to knowledge. The first of two volumes, this book offers rich insights into the nature of lifelong education, its development over the forty years of the journal (and more), and what challenges the field will be called upon to address in the future. Chapters cover global trends that have influenced lifelong education; the nature of the field as reflected in publications, based on detailed quantitative analysis; why connection with radical social movements justifies continuing optimism in the field’s capacity to help make a better world; the nature of ethical practice in the field; neuroscience research’s significance for transformative learning theory; international organisations’ role; the importance of critical social theory; and Paulo Freire’s significance for the field. The two volumes will appeal to researchers, teachers and professionals in lifelong learning and adult education, as well as to those interested in the development of knowledge in fields of science and practice.