Global Perspectives on Adult Education and Learning Policy

Most observers regard both adult and higher education as key for citizenship and democracy yet the worldwide contexts, appearance and expression of adult education and lifelong learning have changed significantly during the past 20 years. Focusing on ten countries (Scotland, Czech Republic, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Botswana, Ghana, Palestine, South Korea and India) and five international organisations, this book explores recent changes in their overall contexts and policies about adult education, how such policies intersect with developments in higher education and how they may contribute to debates on citizenship and democracy. It highlights several significant shifts: increased awareness of the role of adult education/lifelong learning in enhancing economic growth and social cohesion and mobility, challenging economic and social exclusion and inequality, and developing human and social capital; increased involvement of transnational bodies; pressure for increased global and national co-operation and competition between educational sectors and institutions; and demand for more integrated, accessible, relevant and accountable educational systems and processes.

Marcella Milana is Associate Professor at Aarhus University in Copenhagen, Denmark. A joint Editor of the International Journal of Lifelong Education, her work deals with the politics of adult education in a globalised world. She is co-editor (with John Holford) of Adult Education Policy and the European Union: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives.

Tom Nesbit recently retired from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada where he was Associate Dean of Lifelong Learning. A former editor of the Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, his most recent book is Building on Critical Traditions: Adult Education and Learning in Canada (co-edited with S. Brigham, N. Taber and T. Gibb).