Previous research has revealed how mature students are more likely to drop out of university education, achieve poorer degree outcomes and have greater family, financial, caring and work commitments to contend with than their younger peers. In response to calls for further empirical work on mature students' university experiences and informed…

This paper argues that a shift in discourse about the nature and purpose of Further Education is under way in England. A recent White Paper, 'Skills for jobs: lifelong learning for opportunity and growth', issued by the UK government, is couched in terms which suggest that a prior reliance on the ideology of neoliberalism is now moving towards the…

This article details our exploration of the ways in which gender, militarism, and learning intersect in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe. We outline our theoretical framework of feminist antimilitarism, grounded in adult education; discuss research about museums in general and war museums in particular; and, explain our methodology of…

This paper draws on sociological and critical educational frames, particularly Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, in order to contest the dominant model of literacy education that is driven by the premise of a 'knowledge economy'. Instead it foregrounds the political, social, and economic factors that marginalise learners. Data from two…

The field of Adult Literacy and Numeracy (ALN) has an evidence problem. This paper analyses that problem through the lens of three overarching types of evidence available to researchers and policymakers: Type 1 evidence, which provides descriptions of the scope of social problems; Type 2 evidence measuring the impacts of programmes addressing…

Existing evidence shows that the higher the level of education the higher the likelihood to participate in workplace training. However, we know little about training participation of individuals educated to the secondary level, and whether this may vary by the type of qualification attained, i.e. vocational or general. Vocational qualification…

The article proposes a new way of analysing and understanding blended learning and contributes to current debates about adult learner motivations for study. It argues that, whilst the validity of the Andragogical Model has been criticised, it has provided a useful framework of analysis in the context of blended learning to meet the needs of adult…

The drivers of learning for mid-career workers with few initial qualifications from the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy and Poland are examined. The focus in this article is upon the learning pathways and experience of the low-qualified drawn from empirical research which gathered and analysed the strategic career and…

This paper reflects upon Peter Jarvis's contribution to comparative scholarship and the linked fields of comparative education and comparative adult education. Both have their own historical developments, literatures, issues and concerns; both have been influenced by Peter's substantial works for close to fifty years--a period in time when the…

This article analyses policy and practice in social and cultural education for adults in England in the post Second World War era, beginning with the flowering of municipal adult education and the expansion of university extra-mural provision. It tracks the emerging policy focus on extending participation to under-represented groups, and on…

Peter Jarvis is a towering figure in the study of adult and lifelong education and a leading and original theorist of learning. This paper sets out his intellectual and professional biography, maps the main contours of his work and introduces fourteen papers by leading scholars devoted to his work. Five broad phases in Jarvis' life are identified:…

Peter Jarvis emphasised relationships in education: people in the West assumed we were born as individuals but we are relationally embedded from the outset and learn to become social beings. This paper is concerned with how we learn democratic sensibilities with a prime focus on "liberal" workers' education in the United Kingdom and the…

Numbers of people with dementia are projected to grow to 682 million globally by 2050. However, despite this escalation, the widely-promoted positive vision of lifelong learning throughout all ages does not extend to people with dementia. Constructions of learning for those with dementia are predominantly limited to the management of symptoms. The…

This paper examines the ways in which learning in higher education can influence a person's modus vivendi or way of life. The cases of three individuals following transition to higher education from an apprenticeship in England are presented. Data from individual interviews were analysed according to approaches to reflexivity. In all three cases,…

Easing access to higher education (HE) for those engaging in lifelong learning has been a common policy objective across the European Union since the late 1990s. To reach this goal, the transition between vocational and academic routes must be simplified, but European countries are at different developmental stages. This article maps the…