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Context: This study is about vocational education and training for adults within municipal adult education (MAE). Sweden has a long tradition of adult education, and has one of the world's highest proportions of participants in adult education. The Swedish education system is characterised by extensive marketisation with many private actors, particularly in adult education. The focus of this article is on the enactment of the market orientation in vocational adult education, with the purpose of showing how vocational adult education is organised in different ways in Swedish municipalities and how national adult education policy is enacted in local VET practices. Methods: The data consist of documents presenting relevant national policies for adult education, in particular on vocational education, and semi-structured interviews with adult education leaders in 20 municipalities. Findings: The findings show that MAE in Sweden has a clear labour market focus on offering education that corresponds to working life's labour requirements. Most municipalities have a shortage of staff in elderly care and childcare, which is why they offer a large number of training places in these professions. Many immigrants choose these training programmes to get a job. It is also common for municipalities to offer these training programmes in combination with SFI (Swedish for immigrants). This means that MAE fulfils an important function for integration. VET in MAE is offered as school-based training, apprenticeships or distance education. Offering VET at a distance makes it possible to provide a wider range of training programmes, and enables people who have difficulties participating in on-site training (due to commitments such as work or young children) to take part. Apprenticeship training provides work experience and often leads to employment. However, a weak interest in apprenticeship training among students and difficulties finding apprenticeship placements are examples of reasons why the number of apprenticeships is often very limited. Conclusion: Swedish MAE is characterised by flexibility and a broad supply of courses. However, there is a clear focus on certain vocational areas -- mainly within the municipal organisation. This gives reason to question whether publicly funded VET for adults should mainly prepare participants for publicly funded labour-market sectors, or whether other sectors could also benefit from newly trained adults. Since vocational training within MAE is of great importance for immigrants' establishment in the labour market, there is a risk that unilateral investments in certain vocations will limit immigrants' career opportunities.

The aim of this study is to analyse how formal adult education in Sweden is enacted locally. For this analysis, the data consist of a nationwide survey sent to Swedish municipalities, background data on municipalities from public statistics and interviews with representatives of 20 municipalities. Swedish formal adult education, which includes general, vocational and Swedish for immigrants courses, is a responsibility of the municipality, but courses are not necessarily organised internally by the municipality. The results show how adult education is enacted in different ways. There are systems for outsourcing courses to various other providers, typically private training companies. There are thus both private and public providers, but courses are paid for by the municipality, which is also responsible of quality assurance. The quality assurance is typically enacted with a focus on students, via surveys and statistics on outcomes, but quality measures also target providers. Swedish adult education is characterised by extensive marketisation with many private providers and a broad supply of courses, but the municipalities are experiencing quality problems among providers, and some municipalities are considering extending their internal provision. There is also a labour-market focus where training programmes to improve adults' employability are prioritised.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse how municipal adult education (MAE) in Sweden is enacted at the intersection of course organisation, student selection and course content. For this analysis, the data consist of a nationwide survey sent to Swedish municipalities, interviews with school leaders from 20 municipalities and in-depth interviews with school leaders from six municipalities. The findings show that the supply of MAE courses is clearly governed by policies concerning what municipalities are obliged to offer according to the Education Act, but in many other ways, MAE policies offer a high degree of freedom for interpretation and translation. On a general level, MAE is organised in three different ways: school-based education, apprenticeships and distance education. However, the courses included are enacted in different ways in different municipalities. How the courses are enacted is governed by factors such as using external education companies, resources, the number of students and collaboration with working life. The selection of MAE courses has a clear labour market focus, where employers' needs for labour are set higher than students' wishes and needs. A central aspect of this focus is labour market integration of migrants.

Context: Teachers in vocational education and training (VET teachers) have specific conditions for their continuing professional development (CPD). They have a background in an initial occupation, in which they now teach and train the next generation. Thus, as VET teachers, they are expected to master the knowledge and skills of that occupation, even if they have now crossed the boundary from the community of their initial occupation to the community of the school. This study explores the perceived values among VET teachers of different activities that may contribute to their CPD in teaching subjects/initial occupations. The study examines VET at the upper secondary level in Sweden. Here, the VET teachers have the main responsibility for students' vocational learning in the vocational subjects, including the work-based parts. In the latter parts, the teachers are supplemented by supervisors at the workplace. Approach: We argue for the duality of a VET teacher identity with a professional competence that comprises two intertwined parts -- teaching skills, and knowledge of the teaching subjects based in the teachers' initial occupations. Our study is based on a situated learning perspective, and the empirical findings particularly concern values created from learning through participation and boundary crossing. CPD activities typically include some form of participation in and/or boundary crossing between school and work-life practices. In the analysis we also include the possible influence of institutional, situational, and dispositional drivers and barriers for participation in different activities. The research question was: what factors can explain the variation in perceived values created by participation in different CPD activities among VET teachers? The study was conducted as a survey of 886 Swedish VET teachers. Focus was put on the values created through different types of activity, values for the teachers' vocational knowledge, for networks in working life, and for teaching. The data were primarily analysed using logistic regression modelling. Findings: Dispositional drivers, the teacher's sex, and regular performance of the activity are important for the perceived value. The dispositional factor is the one most commonly retained, and it has a consistently positive effect. Factors such as educational background and vocational training have weaker influence, which suggests that individual driving factors are important when VET teachers assess the value of CPD activities. Conclusions: The study covers a general challenge for VET teachers, but is of particular relevance in systems with a high degree of school-based VET, full-time employed VET teachers, and VET teachers who are responsible for students' vocational learning. Here, the values for vocational knowledge, for networks, and for teaching that are created through different activities are important for the VET teacher identity. They are also interrelated, and together they provide professional development in relation to the initial occupation, and for the occupation as a vocational teacher.

Changes in working life require development in vocational education and training (VET) to retain industrial currency. VET teachers are key actors in VET, and their continuing professional development (CPD) in vocational subjects is central to the currency of VET. This study is situated in Sweden, with a mainly school-based VET system where VET teachers have the main responsibility for students' school-based and workplace learning, and they typically have a background in an initial occupation which they now teach their students. The study applies a situated learning perspective, with a particular focus on boundary processes between VET schools and working life, and how the modes of identification of engagement, imagination, and alignment are enacted and influence the identity formation and CPD of VET teachers. The findings are based on interviews with 30 Swedish VET teachers. The qualitative study shows how different forms of boundary encounter between VET teachers and working life, brokering of occupational knowledge, and reconstruction of occupational practices at schools provide opportunities for teachers' CPD and influencing vocational teaching. It is important for the quality of VET teachers' CPD to include and integrate the different modes of identification, to allow for updating of different aspects of the occupational identity.

The qualification of adult educators is a central aspect of the quality of adult education. However, within current policy discourses and adult education research on the professional development of prospective adult educators, little attention is paid to teacher qualification when compared to other fields of education and training. In this study, we analyse the qualification paths, or learning trajectories, of prospective adult educators in Sweden and Denmark. The analysis is based on narrative interviews with 29 students in training to become adult educators. The career paths of adult educators are often long and winding roads. Becoming an adult educator could be their primary desire, but it could also be their "Plan B", a second choice. Individual motives and external demands interact in the professionalisation process. A shift in focus from teaching subject and methods to teaching context and the relation to the learners is part of the professional development. Finally, we argue that both academic studies and hands-on work in the adult education community are crucial parts of the adult educator's qualification path.

Purpose: Work-place learning takes place in many settings and in different ways, resulting in knowledge and skills of different kinds. The recognition process in the work place is however often implicit and seldom discussed in terms of recognition of prior learning (RPL). The aim of this paper is to give examples of how the knowledge/skills of employees get recognition in the workplace and to discuss what the consequences of such recognition processes might be. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a study in two companies and two municipalities, where 21 interviews were conducted with human resource managers, team leaders and union representatives. The research questions concerned the ways skills were recognised among employees and how the logics of these actions could be understood. Findings: The findings show that both companies and municipalities have their own ways of assessing knowledge/skills, mostly out of a production logic of what is needed at the workplace. However, certain skills are also made "unvisualised" for the employee. This employer-controlled recognition logic is important to understand when RPL models are brought to the work place in order to obtain win-win situations for both employers and employees. Practical implications: It seems important to identify an already existing system for assessment of knowledge/skills at the workplace when bringing RPL processes to the workplace. Originality/value: The approach to understand assessment processes in these companies and municipalities from an RPL perspective has not been widely covered before.

Despite claims that prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) can act as a transformative social mechanism and a means of social inclusion, this study reports that PLAR has become a serious barrier to adult learning rather than a facilitator. Drawing from Foucault's concept of governmentality, the study examines the difficulties that immigrant professionals have experienced in having their foreign credentials and work experience recognized in the contexts of Canada and Sweden. Using document analysis and interviews, the study analyses how PLAR has created a system of governing through technologies of power and technologies of the self which work as dividing practices in discounting and devaluating immigrants' prior learning and work experience. The study concludes that PLAR has become a technical exercise and a governing tool rather than a form of social transformation.

This article discusses the relation between experience and learning in the context of recognition of prior learning (RPL) and from an experiential constructivist perspective. The study is based on a case of in-service training, based on RPL, in the care sector for elderly people. The data consist of interviews with actors in this process, which have been analysed with a qualitative interpretative approach. The results show how prior learning plays a central role in the training process, both on an individual and a collective level. The participants' prior learning is taken as the starting point, particularly in learning conversations where prior learning is made visible and used, and where participants learn from each other. Further, new learning is taking place as a consequence of the recognition process, and the study particularly highlights how prior experiences could be the basis of new learning in a process of reflection and discussion.

The recognition of prior learning (RPL) has been a part of adult education policy and practice for a long time, but in different ways and in different times and places. In Sweden, RPL has been an explicit part of the policy since 1996. This policy analysis starts with the current Swedish policy concerning RPL. The figures of thought expressed in official policy texts are traced in, and compared to what is expressed in, the (discursive) practice of a case of local policy and development initiatives. The objective of the analysis is to see how the policy in official texts is reproduced and transformed at the local level. The theoretical starting point is the Foucauldian concept of "governmentality", and RPL is seen as a technique for governing adult education, the adult learner and also adult learning. The analysis focuses particularly on the governing of adult education, expressed in the "salvation narrative" of RPL, and in ideas of what RPL is and how it should be organised. Indirect as well as direct techniques of governing are identified in the governing of and through RPL.

This article focuses on the recognition of prior learning and the figure of thought it represents in Swedish policy on adult education. It can be seen as a technique for governing the adult learner and a way of fabricating the subject. We are tracing this thought back in time to see how it has changed and what it consists of. The material analysed consists of Swedish official documents published between 1948 and 2004. We draw on two concepts from the Foucauldian toolbox: genealogy and governmentality. The result shows that this technique for governing and fabricating the adult subject is not new. It has been present during all periods analysed. However, there is a difference in how the ideas of competence and knowledge are stressed. Today the focus is on the subject's specific experience, which means competence. You are constructed as an adult with experiences that are to be evaluated. During the 1960s and 1970s the focus was rather on general experience. There was also discussion concerning the subject's ability to study. During the 1950s this figure of thought focused on ability was dominant. Those with the talent/ability to study were to be accepted for adult education.

Swedish municipal adult education has many providers. The overall responsibility for this service still lies with the municipalities, entailing the enactment of national policy with respect to providers. This study puts focus on the discursive enactment of policy concerning quality in adult education. Five discourses on quality are identified through interviews with school leaders, teachers, and students, namely that quality is about formal demands and processes, that it is a matter of student focus, that it is about teachers’ competence and working conditions, that it is about teaching, and that quality depends on the student group. School leaders focus on formal and organisational aspects of quality, while teachers and students focus on actual processes in the classroom, connecting to their own work and lives. Compared to national policy, the local discourses are limited mainly to studying, teaching, organisation, and short-term outcomes, while long-term aims in national policy are less prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents and discusses findings from a qualitative study of Swedish adult education, with focus on meetings between counsellors and students and how counsellors translate and enact different expectations from policies and ethical guidelines, as well as from adult students. The results show that counsellors have an important role in the marketised and complex system of adult education in Sweden, both to guide people during the encounter with adult education and to guide and support them as students. A policy enactment emerges where counsellors are in conflict between different guidelines and are forced to compromise between the ethical ideal that they, as counsellors should always start from individual needs, and policy requirements concerning e.g. skills supply and labour-market integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National policy states that Swedish adult education should be flexible and individualized, based on students' needs. However, adult education in Sweden is a municipal responsibility with a high level of decentralization. Drawing on national policies, this study focuses on how the concepts of flexibility and individualization are enacted locally and what consequences this has for teaching and learning. Starting from a teacher perspective and based on qualitative interviews with 50 teachers, the article analyses how policy requirements for offering flexible and individualized adult education are being enacted, and what the consequences of this are for teaching and learning. The findings show how flexibility and individualization are put into practice through measures such as a fast study pace, continuous admission of students, and pressure on municipalities to maintain a broad course offer, often by turning to distance education. This enactment makes it easier for adult learners to fit education into their lives, but it also has consequences for the quality of teaching and learning. It is causing fragmentation, a learning environment where interactions mainly occur on an individual basis, an instrumental view of education, and teachers experiencing high workloads and low autonomy in making pedagogical decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the Swedish policy of municipal adult education (MAE) is interpreted, translated, and enacted in study and career counselling. The data consists of semi-structured interviews with adult education leaders and study and career counsellors. Swedish MAE is characterised by extensive marketisation, with many different providers, which makes the education system complex. The findings show that a study and career counsellor is characterised as a key person for both the students and the organisation, with a role as a marketer and 'map reader' for applicants, in addition to responsibilities in admissions, the validation and mapping of students' knowledge, and quality work. The counsellor becomes a hub in a system that applicants and students find difficult to navigate and fulfils a vital function in the marketing of adult education and quality work. Thus, this complex system requires more resources for counselling to function to the benefit of the individual student. However, there is no clear regulation for how counselling should be organised, which means that counselling is organised in different ways in different municipalities with different providers. This in turn means that the availability of adequate counselling may depend on the municipality in which you live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article focuses on Swedish folk high schools' participants with disabilities, and their learning environment within adult education. Facilitating factors are presented and discussed, as well as developmental factors regarding the adjustment of the learning environment The basis for this empirical study is data from Statistics Sweden and a selfdesigned online questionnaire with respondents representing the folk high schools (N=212). Theoretical reference is given to concepts such as adult education and inclusive education. The results show there are an increased number of participants with disabilities in Swedish folk high schools. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the meaning of pedagogics with a personalized, individualized approach, and highlights a need for further education of adult educators about disability. The conclusion is that a stronger inclusive-education perspective with focus on learners' diversity reflects only one side of practice, as this practice is also challenged by welfare system-steered processes that may conflict with an ideal of adult education as empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including recognition of prior learning (RPL) and education of adults.

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze how recognition of prior learning acts as a dividing practice and a technique for inclusion/exclusion of immigrants in their vocations in Swedish working life. It is a qualitative study of three pilot programs in Swedish urban centers, and the data consist of interviews and documents pertaining to these programs. The theoretical starting point of the analysis is three Foucauldian concepts: order of discourse, dividing practice, and technology of power. The results show how recognition of prior learning acts as a dividing practice; in the process of recognition, the targeting of certain vocations for assessment, the degrading of competence in the process, and the differing opportunities vis-à-vis further training and the labor market are part of the process of inclusion/exclusion in/from the orders of the labor market. Technologies of power—surveillance, observation, and examination— are part of this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initiatives in the recognition of prior learning (RPL) have been taken in Sweden in recent years, mainly focusing on prior vocational learning among immigrants. The government started different projects to find methods for recognising a person's prior learning in the field of vocational competence. This article presents a study of how these projects were organised and their starting points. Differences are identified concerning whether they were integrated with, or parallel to, the school system, and whether the starting point was a few vocations or a number of different vocations (depending on the background of the participants). The article then looks at some problems that arise when trying to recognise prior learning. We find that knowledge of the Swedish language is essential in this process, but that the demands are flexible and the criteria informal. The article also discusses the relationship between RPL and the educational system, where most of the projects had problems in not being too influenced by the school tradition where the main documentation of competence is grades. Finally, the article discusses conditions for the development of trust in RPL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]