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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the didactic landscape of adult education. To meet clients' ongoing demand for support, adult educators had to expand their didactic toolkit and enhance digital literacy. Relying on data gathered during a training series on digital adult education, this paper will examine the following questions: (1) How did adult educators manage to adopt digital methods despite pressing issues and hurdles in regards to the change? (2) Which conditions support efficient training of adult educators, aiming at 'nudging' digitalisation in adult education for families? To gain insight into this didactic transformation, we systematically analyse both quantitative and qualitative data collected during a training series fostering digital literacy such as technology handling, online counselling and the usage of social media. These events attracted 1,250 participants that specialise in parenting programmes, family counselling and institutionalised family welfare. Findings include how practitioners with different backgrounds and levels of digital skills assess different methods and didactic choices. Further, we will examine how providing accessible and applicable information can act as a nudge to spark intrinsic motivation for further learning and as a starting point for new ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores learning trajectories in becoming 'rural women' in Sweden, by using a biographical and socially-situated learning perspective. The data is based on in-depth biographical interviews with three young women who moved between rural and urban areas, and finally decided to return to a rural area. The findings show three learning phases: the mythical, the questioning and the self-positioning phase. Furthermore, the paper identifies four types of learning spaces of urban and rural areas: an imagined, a career-related, a cultural-emotional and a biographical learning space. The paper offers valuable insights about everyday life learning and identity development in young adulthood, and how stereotypes of rural areas negatively impact on young adults' views of themselves and their life choices.Keywords: young female, rural/urban dived, countryside returnees, learning space and trajectories, biographical learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitisation represents one of the key directions of adult education and training in the post-COVID-19 times, but direct empirical evidence of its scope among learners is rather scarce after 2021. Therefore, the general aim of this article is to investigate the current state of the use of online learning platforms and resources in adult education and training throughout Europe. For this purpose, we utilise data from a dedicated survey in the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (n = 4,000) from 2022, which cover a wide range of digitalisation as measured by the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). Our findings are consistent with DESI in the overall levels of online learning across the four countries. Beyond this, we provide two main findings. First, the patterns of digitalisation are different in formal (FAE) and non-formal adult education (NFE). We identify two corresponding modes of platformization based on how and how much online learning platforms and resources are used. Second, factors of participation in online learning differ in some regards from factors of participation in AET in general. Therefore, online learning seems to constitute a new layer mediating participation in AET, possibly introducing new forms of inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuing professional development (CPD) is a substantial, but hitherto largely unappreciated component of lifelong learning and education (LLL/LLE). CPD encourages analysis of the LLL/LLE of those with high education in early years. It draws attention to the influence of particular organisations, professional associations and regulatory bodies, not only as suppliers of LLL/LLE, but also as facilitators of perpetual cycles of learning and in so doing connect lifelong learning with individual identities as professionals. This study highlights the importance of bringing a sociological perspective into understanding participation in LLL/LLE through consideration of a wider range of stakeholders. Data is presented on these organisations' CPD policies from a large-scale survey carried out in the UK triennially between 2003 and 2018, in addition to interviews, focus groups and other surveys of employees of these organisations in the UK, as well as in Australia, Canada and Ireland reported in many publications. The development path of CPD and the changes this has led to for the exercise of professionals' lifelong learning and for the functioning of these organisations themselves is analysed. CPD policies and programmes are portrayed as a structured system distinct from university continuing education and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to examine what learning capabilities and ways of learning may be possible for women in their third age. The study addresses cognitive aspects of real-life learning of older women who are experienced learners. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 women aged between 60 and 81 who hold either a PhD or a MA. Despite reports of memory decline, the findings show that the interviewees perceive their current learning not only as not showing decline, but rather as of a better quality than the learning they had experienced in previous periods. Examples of the features used to describe the current quality of learning include: (a) improved learning strategies; (b) connecting prior conceptual knowledge to new learning processes as a way of making meaning and interpreting new knowledge; and, (c) the outcome of the learning processes is deep knowledge and understanding that may be applied for achieving practical goals. The findings show that in learning that is geared towards real-life needs and goals, the older women who participated in this study adopt active, deep learning, leading to generative knowledge. The implications of these findings for the pedagogies used in educational institutions for older adults are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports an empirical case study of a community self-help group (chama) in Western Kenya, utilising the study circle model promoted by a Swedish non-governmental organisation. Methodologically, it is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and participant observation for data collection. The results show that the study circle idea was transferred and translated through a locally pre-existing social infrastructure for learning, i.e. a farming collective organised and based on the widespread Kenyan tradition of chama. When the chama embraced the study circle and made local sense of it, they did so by mainly sticking to the same form of meetings and activities they previously had. The added value of referring to the activity as a study circle was that it expanded the group's networks and increased its chances to invite specialists for consultation. Also, some increase in status for the group compared to other (non – study circle) chamas was noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept and practices associated with learning in later life provide a broad context for understanding the articles published in the IJLE. The main aim of this review is to identify dominant aspects in discourses on older learners in the IJLE and how they have changed over the decades. Hence, we identify and briefly discuss historical trends in the lifelong learning/education literature before focusing on emergent themes from IJLE articles from 1982 to 2020. In the first part, we present an overview on the development of research on later life learning to provide a historical frame for the contributions dedicated to that topic. In comparison with the international development of research on later life learning, this topic has been somewhat delayed in the IJLE. Selected articles are discussed in the second section to illustrate and analyse the different approaches to learning in later life, as represented in the IJLE. The analysis shows that aspects of inclusion and exclusion – social marginalisation, exclusion from paid work, health resources, digitisation – are very central in many contributions. Thus, we identify different aspects of inclusion and exclusion in later life and discuss the role of education and learning in this context within the IJLE contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on lifelong learning policy making. Topics include highlighting the renewed importance of skills development and lifelong learning as the key enablers of human development for ensuring full, productive, and freely chosen employment; and right to education needs to be broadened in encompassing lifelong learning and the right to information, culture, science, and connectivity.

Activism and engagement with real-world climate crises, within particular contexts, are prerequisites for learning about climate justice. I draw on my experience as an imbedded activist researcher living and learning through two recent 'crises' in Cape Town, to deepen my understandings of 'climate justice'. I followed a case study approach to investigate learning within two 'crises', the 2017/2018 drought and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Cape Town is a significant context within which to explore climate justice as it is a 'city of islands' with 'so much beauty, yet a tremendous amount of violence and suffering'. It is a microcosm of the inequalities and socio-economic injustices in the world. Through the study, ecofeminism is identified as a significant framework for understanding 'climate justice' and deep, just transitions towards its attainment. It places at the centre of concern marginalised poor, Indigenous, black, peasant women. Climate justice is about foregrounding those people who have contributed least to climate catastrophes and are most affected by them. As climate justice is about systems change, social movements and social movement learning (SML) are key vehicles towards deep transformation. SML importantly confronts knowledge hierarchies and middle-class biases in crisis responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future of work requires continuous upskilling and reskilling of workers for full labour force participation and productivity that has led to growing importance of learning agility. However, research on this subject is still in its infancy. This study aims to investigate the effect of ageing on learning agility and mediating effects of perception of learning. The study also examines the moderating role of technology leverage on the relationship between perception of learning and learning agility. Partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM) approach was used to analyse the data using SmartPLS 3.0 software. The data was collected from 377 working professionals using the snowball sampling technique. The results suggested that ageing and perception of learning has a significant positive impact on learning agility. However, there is no significant mediating effect of perception of learning on learning agility. The moderating effect of technology leverage was found to be insignificant on the interaction between perception of learning and learning agility. The study will be useful for learning platforms and human resource practitioners and managers to develop effective strategies for upskilling and reskilling their workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]