Widening access to higher education is clearly part of the European policy agenda. Higher education ministers in the Bologna countries, as well as the European Commission, have all expressed a wish to make higher education more representative of national populations. This policy objective has been echoed at national level. One approach to widening…

Through presenting empirical research exploring the connections between popular culture and informal learning, we argue that, as predicted by concepts such as self-directed learning and transformational learning, the experience of transition has a meaningful impact on adult learning. Specifically, transitions encourage adults to engage in learning…

This paper discusses a pilot project held at Middlesex University to enhance students' writing skills through literature teaching. It argues that literature teaching can offer a profound contribution to work-based learning and lifelong education: first, by showing students how effective arguments are constructed; second, by inspiring students…

Mobile technologies are becoming ubiquitous in education, yet the wider implications of this phenomenon are not well understood. The paper discusses how mobile lifelong learning (mLLL) may be defined, and the challenges of forging a suitable definition in an ever-shifting technological and socio-economic landscape. mLLL appears as a ubiquitous…

This article provides a critical sociological analysis of trends and perspectives pervasive during the emergence of North American adult education (1919-1970). In discussing transitions during the first 50 years of what is considered modern practice, it draws on Webster E. Cotton's (1986, "On Behalf of Adult Education: A Historical…

This article draws on a participatory photography project conducted with 10 socioeconomically disadvantaged adult learners for six weeks within the framework of production pedagogy. Throughout the project, the participants took photographs about their lives in response to three prompts that I gave: (1) take photographs of people that are important…

This article describes and discusses the development of lifelong learning policy in two EU member states, Denmark and Portugal. The purpose is to show how different societal and historical contexts shape the development and implementation of lifelong learning policies, even though these policies have significant common elements. As a basis for the…

This paper presents preliminary findings of an extensive socio-legal research project, currently in progress, concerning the implementation of the European Union and the Greek institutional framework on lifelong learning (LLL) and exploring the social effectiveness of LLL policy. The main outcomes, based on testing two research hypotheses through…

There are a number of EU documents on the term and way of implementation of lifelong learning. However, the characteristics of learning from adult education perspectives are not sufficiently emphasized and are undertheorized in them. Numerous new, theoretical works have been published on adult learning in the related adult education literature…

Based on a Globally Structured Agenda for Education, this article presents the construction of the New Opportunities Initiative in Portugal. Thus, it analyses the relationship between the European Union and the Portuguese State with regard to the construction of this programme, identifying for this purpose the effects of governance processes.…

This article analyses the influence of the European Union's educational policies on the implementation of devices for the recognition and the validation of informal and non-formal learning within public policies on education and training for adults in European Union Member States. Portugal and France are taken as examples. The European…

This article is drawn from broader qualitative research on innovation in the field of professional adult training within the framework of European pilot projects such as the LEONARDO projects. This research aims at contributing to a general understanding of the phenomenon of innovation, in the context of European calls for projects, as an…

This essay examines one of the most intractable pedagogical problems of the Marxian revolutionary tradition: who will educate the educator and how ought the learning process to proceed. The solutions of Marx, Lenin and Habermas are critically examined towards the clarification of the emancipatory learning process. This learning process has three…

Learning in the circumstances of practice stands as the commonest and most enduring way occupational capacities have been learnt across human history, and, likely, are currently learnt. Yet, a comprehensive account of this means of learning remains absent, which limits the legitimacy of workplaces as sites of learning, the learning arising from…

This article deals with the relationship between adults' free time and further education. More specifically, the paper addresses the question of whether there are similarities and analogies between the leisure time that adults dedicate to non-formal educational activities and free time per se. A structured questionnaire was used to examine…