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The paper analyses distance learning material used in the ‘Continuing Education & Lifelong Learning’ module of the Open University of Cyprus and the ‘Adult Education’ module of the Hellenic Open University. For this purpose, the Bernsteinian concept of framing, involving hierarchical and instructional rules was used in order to reveal the type of pedagogical practices promoted within the two institutions. Results of analysis reveal tensions between the principles of distance education and adult education, with the former implying explicit and rather ‘tight’ direction of study, and the latter advocating flexibility in adult learning.

The study presented explores aspects of adult learning on digital literacy in the context of a lifelong learning programme for social cohesion in Greece. The article outlines the framework of the digital literacy subject and underlines its associated objectives regarding adults’ knowledge and competence in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The exploration draws upon the experiences and perceptions of eight adult ICT educators. The findings reveal that the educators tried to use flexible instructional practices that were adjusted to adult learners’ needs and interests. Common effective instructional practices used were: ICT competence sessions, interdisciplinary and multi-literacy lessons, ICT-based projects, individual instruction sessions. Additionally, the article reveals the difficulties that adults faced in the course of developing ICT literacy skills. The article ends with implications for the design of adult digital literacy courses in lifelong learning programmes, and for the preparation and development of the ICT educators in the years to come.

The volume offers a current stock-take of central areas of adult education in Cyprus. Maria Gravani and Alexandra Ioannidou have compiled large amounts of data and information on institutions, financing, offers, participation, personnel, quality assurance and certification. The authors furthermore take into account the political, geopolitical and cultural context which influences developments in adult education, as well as the economic situation of the island state Cyprus. This book offers a great starting point and good orientation for getting to know the Cypriotic system for adult and vocational further education. Der Band liefert eine aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme zu zentralen Bereichen der Weiterbildung in Zypern. Maria Gravani und Alexandra Ioannidou haben vielfältige Daten und Informationen zu Institutionen, Finanzierung, Angeboten, Teilnahme, Personal, Qualitätssicherung und der Zertifizierung zusammengestellt. Darüber hinaus berücksichtigen die Autorinnen auch den politischen, geopolitischen und kulturellen Kontext, der die Entwicklungen im Bereich der Erwachsenenbildung mitprägt, sowie die wirtschaftliche Situation der Insel Zypern. Dieses Buch vermittelt einen schnellen Einstieg sowie eine gute Orientierung über das System der Erwachsenen- bzw. Weiterbildung in Zypern

This chapter reports on debates on adult education actions in the 1950s and 1960s in France. The collective or individual dimensions of the actions constituted the core of disagreements. Drawing on sources from archives, this chapter identifies first political, then pedagogical arguments for a collective dimension of adult education. In conclusion, it questions the decline in intensity of these debates within the framework of European lifelong learning, as well as their evolution or transposition into other social spheres.

The chapter focuses on the capacity of adults to shape their lives and give a meaning to experience and learning. Adaptation, flexibility, and key abilities – the main points of adult education practices and policies in Europe – are too oriented toward the future and the market and oblivious of individual trajectories. Good learning occasions entail other competences: reflexivity, agency, and critical thinking. They sustain adults in becoming strategic actors in the institutional and social world, making sense of it, and finding their own way to adaptation. Autobiographic education leads learners toward understanding, recognition, and strategic positioning. Moreover, it builds a more complex – lifelong and lifewide – idea of learning and knowledge, connecting different contexts and levels, private/public, formal/informal, conscious/unconscious and composing different parts of life, different identities.