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This study explores the impact of adult basic education programs aimed at enhancing social inclusion for immigrant learners in the Netherlands. Basic literacy skills are vital for performing everyday tasks and building human capital, which in turn facilitates employment and skill acquisition. Low adult literacy is often associated with social exclusion and poverty, which can have detrimental effects on mental health and further reinforce marginalization. We analyzed two adult education programs (N = 171) conducted in 2019, within the context of lifelong learning policies designed to support adults with low literacy skills. Our findings confirm the positive effects of these educational programs on social inclusion outcomes. Through logistic regression and moderation analyses, we examined how participants' sociodemographic backgrounds influenced their social inclusion outcomes following the program. Key pre-training conditions, such as prior education and employment status, influenced how participants engaged with a positively perceived learning environment. Assertiveness emerged as a significant outcome, affecting changes across various aspects of social inclusion. These results suggest that acquiring new skills empowers participants to reshape their self-perceived literacy identity. This study adds to the body of literature on adult education by emphasizing the importance of training design and sociodemographic factors in fostering social inclusion for immigrant learners.

In Pakistan, adult literacy programs are offered to enable learners to function effectively to attain individual, family, and social sustainability, but these programs are continuously reporting low participation. This study aimed to explore the reasons behind low participation, employing a descriptive phenomenological design to examine the challenges experienced by adult learners, literacy teachers, and administrators. Forty-five participants (30 learners, 10 teachers, and 5 administrators) were selected by using a purposive sampling technique. Data were gathered through focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, and a thematic analysis was conducted. Numerous challenges were found, including less attractive, non-relevant literacy content, inappropriate presentation methods, lack of proper mechanisms for teachers' training, and learners' evaluation. Based on the evidence, practical implications were proposed, with a particular emphasis on adult learners and literacy teachers.

Motivational research identifies utility value, or the importance of a learning task to future goals, as central to motivation to learn. This study analyzed survey data (N = 86) collected from adult literacy learners to examine their utility value of writing improvement in grammar and spelling skills, word processing skills, and planning, drafting, and revising skills. Findings revealed that participants had a high utility value of improving writing in all three skill areas and possessed a variety of underlying motivations, including obtaining further education, seeking future employment, and personal reasons. Participants' age, educational attainment, and reading levels showed relationships with utility value of improving grammar and spelling skills, and age showed an additional relationship to utility value of improving word processing skills. This work extends research on motivation in this population and supports the application of expectancy-value theory to both adult motivation and writing motivation.

At Literacy NJ, the decline in our basic literacy services has caused us to reevaluate and reinvent our program. The cornerstone of our new plan is to offer an 8-week vestibule program called Steps to Success for new basic literacy students, focused on goal setting, crucial digital skills, and the development of independent learning strategies. We intend to implement Steps to Success statewide as a way to rebuild our capacity to serve basic literacy students. Ultimately, we believe this will allow us to serve many more students and increase their retention in the program by improving their learning experience.

The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has developed two methods of working with low-literacy students. One is testing for accommodations for GED testing. The other is integrating the STAR literacy program for adult readers.

Many adult English learners enroll in U.S. Adult Basic Education programs every year. The federally defined goal of these programs is to increase adult learners' skills to enable them to enter the workforce, but it is not clear whether this purpose matches learners' own motivations for entering these programs. Using the lens of self-authorship theory of adult development, this small qualitative case study investigated learning motivations among three adult ELs in an Adult Basic Education college and career preparation class. Data included two qualitative interviews per participant, demographic questionnaires, and reading scores. Interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory approach to qualitative interview analysis. This study presents findings unique to three learners in this study, which was part of a larger cases study investigating learning experiences of nine adult learners from an adult developmental perspective. The three learners in this study constructed meaning from a developmental perspective growing toward self-authorship, characterized by orienting to an internal authority and self-defined goals. This article discusses these distinct self-authored learning motivations and offers implications for adult education programs to respond to the self-authored learning motivations of adult English learners.

This article is written by two researchers and a teacher involved with the development and implementation of a web-based intelligent tutoring system for adults reading at elementary levels. A description of the tool is provided, followed by some of the challenges faced in designing, developing, and using the tool in adult literacy classrooms.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO, 2022) Fifth "Global Report on Adult Learning and Education" (GRALE) highlights that vulnerable groups such as rural populations, migrants, prisoners, people with disabilities, and indigenous peoples are among those who would benefit from adult basic education. This article explores how educators of adult basic education might enhance sensitivity to trauma and resilience from a multicultural perspective through the implementation of teaching and learning strategies that reflect an understanding of how culture and trauma intersect in the classroom. [For part 1 of this Forum on supporting mental health, see EJ1389837. For part 2, see EJ1389835.]

This exploratory mixed data study investigated the role of technology in adult migrant language and late literacy education in Finland. In addition to an online pre-pandemic survey targeted at Finnish language and literacy teachers, four inservice teachers were interviewed during the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020. With means of qualitative content analysis an account of teachers' individual experiences and views of technology-equipped language and literacy learning was generated. Problematic issues were the use of devices for educational purposes, lacking user experience, inadequate provision of suitable devices, IT courses, and insufficient support for learners and teachers, causing inequality. Teachers reported of various ways to ensure and enable device access and learning opportunities, resulting particularly during pandemic times in high workloads. The emergency remote teaching circumstances during this global health crisis posed an enormous additional challenge for teachers and students. Findings raise questions about the pedagogical cost of the pandemic for adult migrant literacy education in Finland and call for discussions on post-pandemic changes on a national and international level.

This paper discusses adults who are dealing with limited financial means under the premises of disability and over-indebtedness. To this end, the authors examined the concepts of vulnerability, financial literacy and the numerate environment for systematising and presenting findings from a qualitative secondary analysis of qualitative data sets derived from two research projects, having explored the numeracy practices of adults with learning difficulties and of adults facing overindebtedness. By this, the learner's micro level of acting out numeracy is brought to the fore, revealing the multidimensional features of a numerate environment and of adults' numeracy strategies in order to handle financial matters in daily life. The analysis identified the common ground of the most significant competency domains of financial literacy according to both data sets (revenues, expenses and consumption, and budget management) and identified the numeracy strategies developed and used. In conclusion, the authors suggest further discussion of vulnerability as a relative and relational category that supports a pedagogical understanding of adult basic education and adult numeracy with a resource-oriented perspective.

Immigrant students are served in adult basic education programs across the country. This includes internationally trained professionals who often face nonrecognition of their foreign credentials and experience, leading to underemployment and a devaluation of skills. This article explores this issue from the perspective of a local program at Georgia Piedmont Technical College, where staff are attempting to create solutions to address the problem. Strategies implemented include credential evaluation, college and career pathway opportunities, and diverse funding sources.

The article discusses the concept of translanguaging, which refers to the use of multiple languages and language features to maximize communication. While research on translanguaging primarily focuses on K-12 learners and higher education contexts, limited research exists on adult language and literacy education. The article emphasizes the potential of translanguaging to support adult learners' literacy skills, empowerment, and language legitimization. It also highlights the need for further research and its potential to promote social justice and equity in adult language classrooms globally.

This article presents the findings of a comparative study of values-based adult learning and education (ALE) fields; specifically, in Austria, critical-emancipatory adult basic education; Scotland, learner-centered, community-based adult learning; and South Tyrol, Italy, the "Winterschule," a radical-critical popular education format. We studied the voices of experienced practitioners to understand their challenges and constraints and how they resisted changes that did not reflect their values. It highlights local practices to promote visibility, create dialogue, and strengthen the understanding and recognition of these fields in which practitioners are unequivocally committed to social justice. Our findings highlighted repertoires of resistance, affirmed pedagogy as a values-based endeavor, and elucidated practitioners' commitments to holistic approaches that re-negotiate ideas of social justice for people and the planet. Our analysis shows that when ideas of social justice are shared amongst allies, practitioners can effectively maintain their values-based approaches and thus re-affirm and protect democratic ALE practice.

This essay describes the decline in the number of participants enrolled in federally-funded adult basic education (ABE), adult secondary education (ASE), and adult English Language (EL) programs. Enrollment data since 1965 indicate a steep and consistent downward trend in the number of adults enrolling in these programs since the 1990s. Importantly, since program year 2000-2001, the first year reflecting standardized reporting, there has been a 65.8% reduction in the number of ABE/ASE students enrolling in federally-funded programs and a 49.2% reduction in the number of EL students. The purpose of this article is to highlight the long-term nature of these trends, ask critical questions, and promote further engagement with the topic.

This article identifies and describes several different approaches to using game-mediated language learning (GML2), drawing in particular on Reinhardt and Sykes' (2012; 2014) framework and related literature. The article concludes with a brief discussion of potential applications to adult literacy and basic education settings and learners.

When I began my career in adult education as an adjunct ESL teacher, I felt well-equipped with an understanding of second language acquisition and evidence-based teaching methods. At the time, I knew nothing about digital literacy. Once I began to understand its importance and the challenges that it posed in the classroom, I developed the Digital Literacy Action Plan, an instructional strategy designed to differentiate, increase learner agency, and address digital equity concerns. This article is written for adult basic education instructors who aim to integrate digital literacy skills into their instruction in a way that is meaningful to each learner and empowers learners to acquire digital skills autonomously.

For linguistically diverse students, the path to college is often defined by language. Depending on assessments and institutional policies, students may be placed into course sequences in developmental English, adult basic education, and/or English as a Second Language courses. The purpose of this study was to better understand developmental education, adult basic education, and English as a Second Language instructors' perceptions of how to best prepare linguistically diverse students for the literacy expectations of college courses. Ten instructors from Texas institutions were interviewed. Finding showed an overall lack of shared understandings of academic literacy across the three fields. Furthermore, there were tendencies towards deficit framings among developmental English instructors. Finally, findings showed a high level of animosity, particularly between English as a Second Language and developmental English instructors. Implications of these findings are discussed.

This article presents findings from a participatory evaluation of alumni groups--Think Tanks--affiliated with the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Think Tanks are cocurricular settings wherein participants develop and apply skills and capacities valuable within and beyond the context of meetings. Data come from nine focus groups convened in eight prisons located in five states. The article addresses the dearth of information about cocurricular programs in prison and outlines why they are important settings for professional and personal development. The analysis focuses on participants' concerns about their cocurricular program. Four themes emerged that indicate the relevance of structure, culture, and agency for cocurricular programs in carceral settings. Themes of concern include the following: challenges with the ability to convene, group consequences due to individual member misconduct, limited resources, and group disruptions from new member additions. The findings have implications for inquiries that assess practices that affect education prison program participation and engagement. Findings also suggest the need to complement curricular with cocurricular programs in carceral settings to advance maximum participant benefits in prison and postrelease.

Adult basic education (ABE) scholars, practitioners, and policymakers have long debated the purpose and outcomes of federal ABE policy. Although the current policy, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), became law in 2014, there is no comprehensive analysis of the diverging perspectives on WIOA implementation. This integrative literature review generates a synthesis of WIOA-Title II implementation and suggests implications for future research. Based on a thematic analysis of 35 publications (2014-2021), the paper elaborates on four themes: limited ABE funding and the need to use funds efficiently, WIOA-mandated coordination between ABE providers and workforce development partners, increased accountability requirements that narrowly focus on economic outcomes, and framing adult education for economic purposes. Future research on WIOA-Title II implementation should build on this foundation to inquire for whom WIOA works, where it works, and under what conditions it is or isn't successful in helping learners to flourish.

In the final article of the forum, the field of adult basic education has mounted a strong response to COVID-19's disruption of classes and educational practices. As educators begin to think about the long-term consequences of this disruption, it might be useful to consider the ways that these changes and innovations could be built upon. In the first place, some of the innovations developed by programs and institutions address important structural problems in adult education programming. Additionally, the pandemic will increase the need for adult education as so many more people have experienced interrupted or deficient education and some subset of those will remain disconnected from K12. In order to understand these issues, Judy Mortrude outlines some of the key policy issues that have become clear over the past year and then makes a plea to adult educators to resist inertia and the pull to go back to the way it was. She is hopeful that adult educators will be bold in reimagining their future program design. By building on what educators have learned during the pandemic, they can focus more resources on building practitioners' and learners' digital and uniquely human skills which can, in turn, support resilience within the family, at work, and in local communities. [For the second article in the series, "The COVID-19 Pandemic from an Adult Literacy Practitioner-Scholar Perspective: "Where We Were," "Where We Are," "and Where We Should Be Going," see EJ1304822.]

Teaching reading to adults who struggle with literacy learning is a difficult task, and there is a paucity of evidence-based programming designed especially for them. Three research teachers describe their experiences while teaching an evidence-based reading program to adult literacy students. This article provides an overview of the program content delivered to adult learners, an account of teachers' experiences teaching this program, a description of the learners' responses to the program, and a portrayal of what the learners' responses revealed about their educational needs. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED609699.]

The focus of each Technology Solutions for Adult Basic Skills Challenges column begins with a common challenge facing adult basic skills practitioners. This article examines a technology solution to two large and related challenges: student engagement and student persistence, which, from a program or school perspective, is often described as student retention in or completion of a program. The technology solution that is being explored for these two problems is Flex learning models, specifically HyFlex and BlendFlex. HyFlex and BlendFlex are new models of teaching and learning made possible by digital technology. They offer adult learners more control to make courses fit the demands of their lives, especially when they are complicated by pandemics or natural disasters, when in-person learning may be difficult or impossible, and when shifting from in-person to remote learning must be easy and seamless.

This essay tracks and expands upon critical exchanges with graduate students in a course for adult educators, highlighting conflicting perspectives among participants on the relative value of theory in enhancing practice. An underlying focus of the course consisted of comparing constructivist and cognitive perspectives on learning theory and their relationship to corresponding models of instructional design. To gain further insight on the theory/practice dynamic, the essay also highlights Dewey's functional theory of learning underlying his pragmatic philosophy of inquiry. Participants "implicitly" embraced practitioner research frames of reference, drawing out the insider perspective--atopic "explicitly" discussed below--as an essential counterpoint to an outsider stance, that typically orients academic research. The essay calls for critical intermingling of research traditions to facilitate collaborative approaches to problem solving in adult basic education.

Based on the dynamic nature of the Ghanaian society, teacher training has become a major concern for all. Successive governments have formulated policies to improve quality education at this level. One of such policies is the Education Act of 2008 that made provision for a Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) curriculum in the Colleges of Education (CoE). The study aimed to examine how this curriculum was transacted with emphasis on methods and approaches adopted by the tutors. So, a descriptive survey design was adopted for the study and drawn needed data from the College author principals, tutors, student-teachers and Regional Directors of Education by using tools such as questionnaires, and group discussion. The collected data from the experts were analyzed by using Mean and SD while data from the student-teachers were presented qualitatively. It was found that tutors use a variety of teaching methods to teach the various categories of courses viz., Educational and Professional Studies, Core courses and Elective courses. But a few of such teaching methods like Lecture and Brainstorming were inappropriate for teaching courses such as Physical Education, ICT and Mathematics. It was also found that teacher trainees were exposed to first-hand teaching experience through practice teaching in two phases. Thus on-campus practice teacher and out-campus practice teaching.