News

Special Issue of Studies in Adult Education

Resilience in Adult Education

SCUTREA has historically worked closely with the journal Studies in the Education of Adults, a scholarly international refereed journal that theorises and critically examines the education of adults. We are pleased to promote a call for a special edition on Resilience in Adult Education.

Call for Papers

Recent decades have witnessed significant changes in the global adult education landscape. The space for providing adult education for personal growth, community development, active citizenship and social movements has been steadily squeezed as learning for employability and skills has come to dominate. This has resulted in the restructuring/closing down of institutions and departments offering adult education and/or the refocusing of provision to skills-based courses as well as lack of investment in community-based adult education. However, spheres of resilience to the narrowing focus of adult education do exist. Space for a form of adult education in its broadest sense has been able to maintain a presence, albeit often in smaller and/or restructured form. These processes have not been without challenges as attempts to navigate the policy and funding contexts attest.

For the Special Issue, the Editors are interested in submissions:

• from researchers and practitioners in adult education who have adopted different forms of resilience

• that showcase how beyond institutional educational contexts, other spaces have been reclaimed and groups have formed as a means of providing opportunities for ‘learning for learning’ and fostering democratic and civic participation.

• that give voice to those individuals who have been able to maintain a presence in some educational institutions, albeit often in smaller and/or restructured form.