This article reflects on the implementation of lifelong professional development for teachers in Taiwan based on our analysis and understanding of the participation of elementary and secondary school teachers in the Teacher Professional Development and Evaluation (TPDE) programme. This qualitative account is established based on 34 in-depth…

Third-age learning is a subset of lifelong learning enjoyed by individuals in the stage of retirement, and often 60 years or older. Community art education (CAE) for learners in the third age commonly occurs in recreational settings, nursing homes, museums, libraries and places of worship. In addition to these informal learning sites, there are…

Recent developments in Europe show that policymakers acknowledge the role of qualitative research in evidence building. A number of qualitative research studies, including narrative inquiry, have been contracted out to gather information into selected policy issues. The management of career transitions and lifelong learning has become a focus of…

American popular culture romanticises relationships between sex workers and their customers; novels, films and television depict prostitutes as innocents in need of rescue by a wealthy or powerful man. Miss Laura's Social Club, a restored Victorian brothel in Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA, functions both as an informal house museum and the visitor…

Although burdened by legacies of elitism, exclusion and paternalism, some public museums are attempting to respond to the socio-environmental problems currently facing our planet by developing critical non-formal educational activities to foster consciousness and change. This article explores one such response; a six-week non-formal course…

This article outlines the results of a qualitative study, which investigated the adult non-formal education and education (NFET) centre linkages with external role-players in providing post-training support for the employment of graduates. The concern that informed this article is that adults who face long-term unemployment remain unemployed after…

This article uses the concept of bounded agency to interpret the findings of a study that explored the training and job-seeking activities of a group of older adults. A qualitative, phenomenological approach was used to obtain personal and nuanced accounts of their experiences. A series of semi-structured interviews was conducted with eight adults…

Higher education is a means by which human capital is mostly developed and awareness is created in people to think of themselves as active citizens willing and able to have influence in public life, and with the critical capacity to weigh evidence before speaking and acting. The rationale behind the paper is to address the low access to higher…

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…

Active citizenship is increasingly being framed in the context of lifelong and life-wide learning. However, research on young people's participation in and experience of different forms of civic practice, particularly in informal settings in different sociocultural contexts, is scarce. Consequently, little is known about how these experiences…

What is the role of knowledge in the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) in Higher Education? This paper presents the findings of empirical research at a Canadian university. A position of knowledge differentiation located in a social realist sociology of knowledge is adopted. This is not an obvious or usual position for scholars of RPL, because…

Using qualitative interviews, focus groups, storytelling and collective journaling, the life experiences of people in a local village community, in South Westphalia, Germany, born between 1930 and 1945, were analysed collaboratively. The research intention was to give the younger generations in that region access to these experiences and insights,…

Students from refugee backgrounds face unique challenges within higher education. This article reports analysis from a systematic review of qualitative research which aimed to explore these students' experiences. Four databases were searched, inclusion/exclusion criteria applied and the remaining studies subjected to a quality assessment, leaving…

The proposed benefits of participatory arts for older adults continue to attract empirical attention, but how informal group participation aids personal enrichment is not yet fully understood. This qualitative case study of a University of the Third Age 'outdoor sketching group' explores the meanings its members attach to art-making in retirement…

The objective of this qualitative study was to establish motivations for participation of non-traditional students (NTS) in university education. The findings are drawn from empirical data collected from 15 unstructured in-depth interviews with NTS of the School of Computing and Informatics Technology at Makerere University, and analysed with the…