Lifelong learning young adults and the challenges of disadvantage in europe john holford

Lifelong Learning, Young Adults and the Challenges of Disadvantage in Europe

John Holford

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Lifelong Learning, Young Adults and the Challenges of Disadvantage in Europe

Edited by John Holford Pepka Boyadjieva

Sharon Clancy Günter Hefler

Ivana Studená

Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning

Series Editors

Marcella Milana

Department of Human Sciences

University of Verona

Verona, Italy

John Holford

School of Education

University of Nottingham

Nottingham, UK

Tis series explores adult education and lifelong learning, emphasising the tensions between universal models and approaches that value local cultures, traditions, histories, and mutual understanding between diverse communities. Contributions to this series contribute original knowledge and insights in adult education and lifelong learning, based on original empirical research and deep theoretical analysis, and stimulate debate on policy and practice. Books are geographically broad, drawing on contributions from within and without the Anglophone world, and encompass research-based monographs and edited collections, thematic edited collections addressing key issues in the feld, and trenchant overviews designed to stimulate intellectual debate among wider audiences.

John Holford • Pepka Boyadjieva

Sharon Clancy • Günter Hefer

Ivana

Studená

Editors

Lifelong Learning, Young Adults and the Challenges of Disadvantage in Europe

Editors

John Holford

School of Education

University of Nottingham

Nottingham, UK

Sharon Clancy

School of Education

University of Nottingham

Nottingham, UK

Ivana Studená

Institute for Forecasting, CSPS

Slovak Academy of Sciences

Bratislava, Slovakia

Pepka Boyadjieva

Institute of Philosophy and Sociology

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Sofa, Bulgaria

Günter Hefer

3s, Vienna

Austria

ISSN 2524-6313

ISSN 2524-6321 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning

ISBN 978-3-031-14108-9

ISBN 978-3-031-14109-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14109-6

© Te Editor(s) (if applicable) and Te Author(s) 2023. Tis book is an open access publication.

Open Access Tis book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

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Te publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Te publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional afliations.

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In memory of Professor Robert (Bob) John, whose enlightened learning and enlivening comradeship showed social scientists that computer science can be humane too.

Foreword

Adult learning and related eforts to arrange and organise opportunities for adults to continue learning throughout life are deeply embedded in our societies. Tey can be linked to a diverse range of stakeholders in different contexts, each with diferent views and objectives, and hence to diverse opportunities for diferent purposes. If approached from a systemic view and coordinated—with sustained and collective efort among stakeholders to achieve goals of inclusion and quality on the one hand, and to continually defne and redefne their purpose, functioning and efectiveness, on the other—these organised adult learning opportunities have the potential to act as a powerful corridor of communication in the face of complexity. Tey also allow for coping with systematic communicative distortions arising from the unequal social distribution of power and resources.

Individual success aside, at collective levels, the ability to govern and to adapt efectively to change depends, to a large extent, on learning and the opportunity structures for learning. Change is a defning feature of modern life, particularly in dynamic market democracies, and eforts to arrange and organise adult learning opportunities efectively for all are worthwhile. Tey have an important role to play, contributing to advanced and democratic forms of communication and governance and involving the daily renewal of political, social, and cultural negotiations.

Despite such potential for adult learning, and despite paying lipservice to wider aims, the strategic rationality of steering mechanisms of power and money—as manifested through commodifcation, markets and the administrative apparatus of the state—over-emphasise the economic dimension of adult learning in policy and practice. Scholarly empirical-analytic and hermeneutic eforts which attempt to move us beyond these narrow forms of interests—such as collected in this book— are of immense value to help policymakers and other stakeholders reach a more synthetic view and understanding of adult learning as being a core element of a vibrant civil society. Tis includes the capacity of civil society to hold power to account vis-à-vis both stated goals and aspirations associated with freedom and justice.

Tis more synthetic view and understanding implies the need to encompass and emphasise adult learning’s role in enabling the interpretation of meanings that defne practical reason. In so doing, it helps guide action and moral deliberation in social and cultural life—and not least in working life in both public and private sectors. Further, it implies the need to embrace the critical-emancipatory purpose of adult learning: to engage with knowledge about power and the associated normative issues of freedom and justice, which are so central to liberal democratic governance and human rights (e.g. as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Of course, these are not mutually exclusive and together may be indicative of quality in terms of what counts as efective organised learning, including for working life.

Tis book engages thoroughly with a synthetic view of adult learning and its potential role in market democracies. At the same time, it provides a rich source of empirical-analytic knowledge about conditions and circumstances surrounding adult learning in various contexts and at different levels of analysis. In so doing, for example, by enriching the concept of bounded agency, it reveals the complex role of policy and institutions in structurally enabling and/or constraining individuals to learn. It raises key questions and issues, as well as alternatives to consider,

in manoeuvring the complexity vis-à-vis stated goals from policy and practice perspectives. Foremost, it elucidates the messy processes involved and, most importantly, the necessity of treating citizens as human beings with fundamental rights and as the key agents of social change in democratic societies.

Department of Education

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Richard Desjardins

Preface

Not so long ago, Europe was ‘the future’: in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the European Union ofered not only a new home for emerging democratic market economies, but a new kind of international organisation combining democratic governance, social welfare, tolerance and the rule of law. Tirty years on, the European project faces multiple challenges. Te employment problem remains. Economies may have recovered—just about—from the post-2008 crash, but technological change gathers still more pace, and the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic remains unclear. Migration continues—within the EU and from beyond its borders. Artifcial intelligence threatens even the most skilled workers. Labour markets, welfare systems and political institutions seem ill-prepared for the challenges. Inequality grows. One of the European Union’s largest member states (the UK) has turned its back on the project. Forms of authoritarian, nationalist ‘populism’—unparalleled since 1945—are on the rise: several EU member states are now governed by such politics.

Tis book focuses on the role of lifelong learning in Europe’s present and future. From the early 1990s, the European Commission has woven a new thread into the EU’s fabric: lifelong learning. First deployed for its potential contribution to competitiveness and solving the ‘employment problem’, by the turn of the millennium, it was being ofcially

promulgated as ‘essential’ to ‘the development of citizenship, social cohesion and employment’.

Plainly European lifelong learning has not achieved what its advocates hoped for two or three decades ago. Few thought lifelong learning was a panacea, but even the tempered optimism of the 1990s now seems exaggerated. Tis book asks why. Its empirical base is fndings from the Enliven project.1 It poses such questions as: What has European lifelong learning in fact achieved? In what ways has it fallen short? How efective are current policies? How should they change?

Of course, the EU has achieved a lot. Expanding to east and south, its population grew from 350 million to over 500 million, though it has fallen back since the UK’s departure. Shepherding 28 or 27 countries— with very diferent histories, cultures, populations and wealth—in roughly the same direction has proved far more complex than governing 12 relatively wealthy western European countries. Since 2000, it has developed a remarkable suite of multinational coordination mechanisms—applied to lifelong learning as well as other policy areas.

Yet the problems remain. Lifelong learning is not solving them. In fact, Europe’s weaknesses in lifelong learning in many ways refect the Union’s social and political challenges. Te dominant response to lifelong learning’s apparent inability to deliver the hoped-for economic and social returns has not been to ask fundamental questions about aims, but rather to look for improved methods of policy implementation or ‘delivery’. Te challenges involved in maintaining some intelligent overview of policy across so many diverse countries are intense.

Te increasing availability of ‘data’ has encouraged a belief that many answers lie in information technology and artifcial intelligence. Tis view is subject to several profound critiques. Attempts to govern by the quantifcation of outcomes inevitably over-simplify the complexity of social reality. When targets or measures are set, social actors prioritise what can be measured. And although technological sophistication has greatly expanded the range of quantitative data available about social

1 Enliven: ‘Encouraging Lifelong Learning for an Inclusive and Vibrant Europe’. Te project and the open access publication of this book were supported by the European Commission under its Horizon 2020 research programme (Grant No. 693989).

behaviour, they remain skewed. In particular, there are much larger (and probably more reliable and comparable) datasets about economic activity than about other aspects of social life. Nevertheless, the quest for technological solutions continues.

Te main focus of this book is young adults—especially those relatively less-advantaged young adults who, on leaving school, do not enter full-time higher education. Tis group has been a central EU policy concern in recent years—not least because, in the wake of the 2008 crash, one in every four Europeans under 25 was unemployed (in some countries, one in two). Unemployment among the young is known to generate long-term ‘scarring’, not to mention social exclusion and disafection. Tese threaten economic competitiveness, social cohesion, and the European project as a whole.

However, we approach the education of young adults from the perspective of adult education. Tis means it takes a particular normative position. We do not see education and training for young adults as ‘preparation’ for adulthood: we view education as integral throughout the life course. Education is taken to relate to the full breadth of human life and experience—‘life-wide’ as well as ‘lifelong’—and so the contributors are sceptical of a narrow policy focus on ‘employability’ and workplace skills. Education throughout life is seen as fundamental to democratic societies. And the education of free citizens is seen as a process to which citizens must contribute freely: they should not be the passive recipients of education designed by their ‘superiors’ but must be able to participate actively and democratically, on a basis of equality, in shaping what and how they study and learn.

From this perspective, ‘making policy’ for lifelong learning presents particularly intractable challenges. Social policy is inevitably the product of contributions at multiple levels, and by diverse ‘actors’, even within a single country. Tis is still more true in a complex multinational polity such as the EU. At many of these levels, policy is subject to formal shaping by ‘democratic’ institutions of various kinds: these establish principles and objectives, modes of operation and regulation, and organisations and institutions, for education. Yet adults participate in education not merely as the objects of policy, but as citizens who are—and perhaps more importantly, often feel—entitled to be active subjects in shaping how they learn

and are to be educated. Tere are, of course, also actors who think their expertise, professionalism, or bureaucratic role make their contribution to policy particularly important or more legitimate.

Tis book therefore examines lifelong learning in Europe from a critical perspective. It argues, on the basis of a major multinational research project, for the strengthening of informed debate about how lifelong learning should be organised and what Europe’s aims in it should be.

Around the turn of the millennium, a critical perspective emerged within the European Commission about its own governance. Te very term ‘governance’ was used to refer to an attempt to reshape EU institutions to address problems of growing distance between the European project—as represented in institutions such as the Commission and the European Parliament—and its citizens. Te Commission’s then president spoke of the EU needing ‘a new, more democratic form of partnership … between civil society and the other actors involved in governance, … consulting one another on a whole range of issues; shaping, implementing and monitoring policy together’. Democracy should be ‘much more direct, more participatory’. Tis was necessary ‘to make a success of [EU] enlargement’, and so that ‘democracy and respect for human rights as well as sound economic policies become the norm’ (Prodi, 2000, emphasis in original; see also European Commission, 2001). However, in the same speech, he warned that there was ‘no established method of preventing the European agenda from being hijacked by the strongest and most vocal lobbyists’. So it proved: rather than Europe being ‘built by the citizens for the citizens’, corporate advocates of neoliberal markets took control of the Lisbon strategy.

European adult education traditions and experience show that lifelong learning cannot be restricted to delivering a workforce with requisite skills—even if leavened with aims of equity and social inclusion. Rather, learning in adulthood is an essential part of enabling citizens to play a full and active role in shaping Europe as an educated democracy. We believe our contributors’ positioning as adult educators enriches the book. Adult education is seen not simply as the product of policy development by governments but as the outcome of initiative by emancipatory social movements, including educational social movements, many associated with labour and the working class. Te contributors take the view that

one of the weaknesses of the EU’s approach to lifelong learning has been its conscious distancing from the critical, emancipatory, and often anticapitalist heritage of adult education.

In the book, we also apply an innovative theoretical perspective: ‘bounded agency’. Tis provides a theoretical basis for marrying analyses of the behaviour and preferences of individuals with the institutional structures which comprise the societies in which they live. Tis is particularly important if we are to explore the viability of Artifcial Intelligence(AI-) based policy modelling in lifelong learning. Behavioural approaches (e.g. from economics and psychology) are often seen as providing a suffcient basis for modelling and accurately predicting human behaviour— particularly when combined with computer-based technologies. Many computational social scientists recognise that the use of AI in addressing social problems is at an embryonic stage, while ‘real world’ events, such as the fnancial crash, not to mention the recent pandemic, periodically expose the limitations of behaviourally based models (MacKenzie, 2011, MacKenzie & Spears 2014). Te present book is informed by an attempt to apply AI in lifelong learning policy, but to do so on the basis of interdisciplinarity, informed by social structural as well as behavioural perspectives. Lifelong learning research has shown that institutional and social structures across the nations of Europe are both persistent, pervasive and diverse, and also structure how participation in learning and motivation to learn difer within and between social groups.

Bounded agency enables us to locate behavioural data within an institutional-structural framework, making policy debate and decisionmaking more realistic, grounded and relevant to the diverse stakeholders in European societies. Agency is seen as socially situated, infuenced but not determined by social structures and environments (Evans, 2002, 2007; Rubenson & Desjardins, 2009). Te concept sees actions in the contingencies of the present moment as infuenced by past habits, by what people believe to be possible for them in the future, but also by subjective perceptions of the structures they have to negotiate, the social landscapes which afect how they act (Evans, Schoon, & Weale, 2013). Bounded agency is used in various ways across the research: for instance, in analysing policy, we have applied it through the method of policy

trails, which allows us to see both the agency of actors and the structures within which they act.

Te book is organised in four parts. Te frst, ‘Lifelong Learning for an Inclusive and Vibrant Europe’, comprises two chapters, sets the scene and outlines the main concepts and approaches used. Te second, ‘Policies, Programmes and Participation’, is made up of seven chapters. Tey explore how European policies have conceptualised young people (especially those regarded as ‘vulnerable’), and why and to what extent diferent groups participate in lifelong learning in Europe. Tey also include chapters on adult education and empowerment from the perspective of the capability approach, on how media use of PIAAC data has shaped debate about lifelong learning, and about some of the challenges faced in using artifcial intelligence to inform policy in this area. Te six chapters in Part III, ‘Young Adults’ Learning in the Workplace and Beyond’, explore how workplaces contribute to lifelong learning, especially for young adults: they show that how employing organisations shape the workplace plays a vital part in who has an opportunity to learn, and what they have an opportunity to learn. Tey also show that what people learn in the workplace is important not only for what they do at work: it also afects the character of social and political life. Te fourth part, ‘Conclusion’, consists of a single chapter: ‘Adult Education, Learning Citizens, and the Lessons of Enliven’.

Te research on which this book draws, and the costs of open access publication of this book, were supported by the European Commission; we acknowledge this with warm thanks. Te project was conducted by teams from ten institutions. Most of these were in Europe, but colleagues from the University of Melbourne, Australia, were also invaluable. Te research also received rich contributions from three Danish scholars. Our work was also enriched and challenged by an advisory board comprising experts from the scientifc and policy communities. Te members of the Enliven team and advisory board are listed in Appendix 3. Without their professionalism, expertise and general enthusiasm, neither the project nor this book would have been completed: our gratitude cannot be suffciently expressed.

Tough it seems invidious to single out individual members of such a strong team, we conclude by mentioning two. Ruth Elmer proved an

exceptionally able project administrator, guiding our work throughout, ensuring that we fell into none of the legion pitfalls that European funding regimes present; and she did it all with good cheer.

One of the challenges the Enliven project faced was that of combining the talents of two very diferent scientifc tribes. Social scientists and computer scientists seldom talk: we were to discover that when they do, they often fail to understand one another. Fortunately, our team included Professor Bob John, not only a leading computer scientist but a gifted communicator. Sadly, this charming, committed and congenial man— who grasped what matters in adult educational research and enriched our work—was to die shortly after attending the project’s fnal conference. We dedicate this book to his memory.

Nottingham, UK

Sofa, Bulgaria

Vienna, Austria

Bratislava, Slovakia

References

John Holford

Sharon Clancy

Pepka Boyadjieva

Günter Hefer

Ivana Studená

European Commission. (2001). European Governance: A White Paper. Ofce for Ofcial Publications of the European Communities.

Evans, K. (2002) Taking Control of Teir Lives? Agency in Young Adult Transitions in England and the New Germany. Journal of Youth Studies, 5, 245–271.

Evans, K. (2007). Concepts of Bounded Agency in Education, Work and Personal Lives of Young Adults. International Journal of Psychology, 42(2), 1–9.

Evans, K., Schoon, I., & Weale, M. (2013). Can Lifelong Learning Reshape Life Chances? British Journal of Educational Studies, 61(1), 25–47.

MacKenzie, D. (2011). Te Credit Crisis as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge. American Journal of Sociology, 116(6), 1778–1841.

MacKenzie, D., & Spears, T. (2014). ‘Te Formula Tat Killed Wall Street’: Te Gaussian Copula and Modelling Practices in Investment Banking. Social Studies of Science, 44, 393–417.

Prodi, R. (2000). Towards a European civil society. Speech to Second European Social Week, Bad Honnef, 6 April. (SPEECH/00/124.) Available at: http:// europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-00-124_en.htm. Accessed 29 June 2018.

Rubenson, K., & Desjardins, R. (2009). Te Impact of Welfare State Regimes on Barriers to Participation in Adult Education: A Bounded Agency Model. Adult Education Quarterly, 59(3), 187–207.

Notes on Contributors

Maite Aurrekoetxea-Casaus is Associate Professor in the Faculties of Social and Human Sciences and of Law at the University of Deusto, Spain, and a member of the Social Values Research Team. She holds a PhD in Sociology (University of Westminster) and an MA in Behavioural Science Research (National Distance Education University, Complutense University of Madrid and Autonomous University of Barcelona). She is an expert in the application of qualitative methodology and her research focuses on equality and vulnerable groups. ORCID: 0000-0003-30477355

Ellen Boeren is Professor of Education at the University of Glasgow, UK. She holds a PhD from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and specialises in participation studies in lifelong learning. She is an editor of the Adult Education Quarterly and of UNESCO’s Fourth Global Report on Adult Learning and Education. Her book, Lifelong Learning Participation in a Changing Policy Context (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), won the Cyril O. Houle award in 2017. ORCID: 0000-0002-2285-5814

Pepka Boyadjieva is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Honorary Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on higher education, educational inequalities and lifelong learning. She is a member of the NESET and principal investigator

in the project ‘Dynamics of Inequalities in Participation in Higher and Adult Education: A Comparative Social Justice Perspective’ (2020–2024).

ORCID: 0000-0002-0561-6942

Ulrik Brandi is Associate Professor of Organisational and Workplace Learning at Aarhus University’s Danish School of Education, Department of Educational Studies. He is director of the research programme on Learning, Innovation and Sustainability in Organizations (LISO). His recent research has focused on workplace learning, innovation management, organisational learning and sustainable development. ORCID: 0000-0001-7361-8432

Sofe Cabus is a research lead at the Brussels ofce of international organisation VVOB – Education for Development, and an afliated researcher with Universities of Leuven and Maastricht, Belgium. In 2013, she obtained a PhD in the Economics of Education at Maastricht University. She focuses on evidence-based research in education and lifelong learning in OECD and low- and middle-income countries. ORCID: 0000-0001-6719-5824

Sharon Clancy is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Management at the University of Nottingham, UK, and was a senior research fellow on the Enliven project 2016–2019. She is also the Chair of the Raymond Williams Foundation and completed her PhD in 2017, examining a historic adult residential college. Her writing focuses on class, culture, critical and political education and social justice issues. ORCID: 0000-0001-7350-905X

Jolien De Norre is a sociologist and has worked on numerous projects in the feld of education and lifelong learning in the Research Institute for Work and Society (HIVA), a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in scientifc policy-oriented research at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. ORCID: 0000-0002-4725-7220

Fernando Díez is associate professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Education, a member of the research team on Education, Regulated Learning and Assessment (ERLA), and Director of the Agency for the Promotion and Management of Research and Publications, at the

University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, and Deputy Director of the Deusto Foundation. His research is in leadership, human resource management, organisational behaviour and education. ORCID: 0000-0002-7522-5189

Iciar Elexpuru-Albizuri is a professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Education and a member of the education research team (eDucaR) at the University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain. Her research focuses mainly on the development of human values and on improving teaching and learning. ORCID: 0000-0003-3138-7650

Ana Estévez is Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the Department of Personality, Psychological Assessment and Treatment at the University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain. She directs the master’s degree programme in general health psychology and has received several international and national research awards. ORCID: 0000-0003-0314-7086

Denisa Fedáková is Director and a senior researcher at the Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology and her research interests are in worklife balance, gender studies and social attitudes. She has been the national coordinator of the European Social Survey since 2018. ORCID: 0000-0001-6816-1802

Günter Hefer is a senior researcher and project manager at 3s (www.3s. co.at), Vienna, Austria. His research includes cross-country comparative studies on lifelong learning and continuing vocational training and the impact of Europeanisation on education and employment policies. He is author of Taking Steps: Formal Adult Education in Private and Organisational Life (2013). ORCID: 0000-0002-7716-2601.

John Holford is Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education at the University of Nottingham, UK, and was coordinator of the Enliven project. He is an editor of the International Journal of Lifelong Education. A sociologist, he has been an adult educator in England, Scotland and Hong Kong. His recent research has focused on the politics of adult education in the European Union and the UK. ORCID: 0000-0003-16664525

Petya Ilieva-Trichkova is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She holds a PhD from the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. Her research interests cover educational inequalities, lifelong learning and graduate employability. Her recent publications include Adult Education as Empowerment (Palgrave Macmillan 2021). ORCID: 0000-0002-2889-0047

Alesia Khadatovich is graduate student in sociology at the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia. She holds a degree from Belorussian State University in international relations. Her research interests include theoretically informed critical analysis of working conditions and employee empowerment, and culturally specifc social constructions and spatial meanings of death in the context of burial grounds.

Vassil Kirov is Professor of Sociology (Digital Transformation and the Future of Work) at the Institute of Philosphy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and a visiting professor at Sciences Po, Paris, France. He specialises in the sociology of work, employment relations, labour markets and digital transformation. He has been a researcher in several large EU-funded research projects, a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on the Digital Transformation of Labour Markets and an external expert for the ILO, Eurofound and Cedefop. His recent publications include Policy Implications of Virtual Work (Palgrave Macmillan 2017). ORCID: 0000-0001-9004-1604

Gosia Klatt is an Associate Professor in the Continuing Vocational and Educational Policy hub at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. Her published work covers youth transitions, vocational education, education system transitions, education policy and governance across secondary schools, vocational training and adult education. She is particularly interested in decision-making processes within multi-level governance systems such as the European Union and Australia, and in how policy decisions and discourses are shaped within such complex systems. ORCID: 0000-0002-0207-2548

Anne Larson is Associate Professor of Educational Sociology at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her main

research interests are education policy, lifelong learning and adult education, including the relationship between transnational and national policy and practice; what infuences the political agenda in relation to (adult) education; and social inequalities and adult education, combining a background within political science and educational sociology. ORCID: 0000-0002-2950-8583

Alan Mackie is a Lecturer at the University of Dundee, Scotland, where he teaches community education. Alan’s primary area of research involves seeking to understand the lives of marginalised youth, working at the interface between youth sociology, education and community engagement. ORCID 0000-0002-3724-1313

Concepción Maiztegui-Oñate is a tenured Lecturer in the Department of Social Pedagogy and Diversity, Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, and senior researcher in the Intervention: Quality of Life & Social Inclusion research team. Her research areas focus on social participation, non-formal learning and citizenship, migration and social justice issues, and participatory methodologies. ORCID: 0000-0001-9366-2983

Liisa Martma is an early stage researcher and doctoral candidate in the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia. She is participating in the Horizon 2020 project ‘Technological Inequality: Understanding the Relations Between Recent Technological Innovations and Social Inequalities’. Her research topics are vocational education, labour market outcomes and lifelong learning. ORCID 0000-0002-9703-0606

Marcella Milana is an Associate Professor at the University of Verona, Italy, Honorary Professor of adult education at the University of Nottingham, and Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Lifelong Education. She researches the politics, policy and governance of adult education and learning, from comparative and global perspectives. Her recent publications include Europe’s Lifelong Learning Markets, Governance and Policy: Using an Instruments Approach (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). ORCID: 0000-0002-3068-3530

Álvaro Moro Inchaurtieta is a Lecturer at the University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, where he teaches research methods in the Faculty of Psychology and Education and is a member of the Quality of Life & Social Inclusion research group. His PhD was on educational innovation and lifelong learning. He works with the Deusto Institute for Drug Dependency on the experiences, expectations and challenges of people in diferent situations of vulnerability. ORCID: 0000-0003-0167-6048

Claire Palmer was a postdoctoral research fellow for Enliven in the School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, UK, she is now a Research Associate at Loughborough University. Her interests include computational social science, artifcial intelligence, knowledge-based decision support systems, knowledge acquisition and data mining. ORCID: 0000-0002-4139-1373

Edurne Bartolomé Peral is an Associate Professor at the University of Deusto’s Department of International Relations and Humanities. Most of her research and publications have been on the study of political culture, political values and attitudes in comparative perspective, political support and trust, and the application of experimental models. She is Programme Director for Spain of the European Values Study. ORCID: 0000-0003-0109-366X

Francesca Rapanà is a postdoctoral fellow at University of Verona, Italy, where she is researching school-community collaborations and improving students’ civic engagement. After completing a PhD on the meanings of citizenship among second-generation migrants, she worked in teacher education and prison education. Her research interests include citizenship education, adult education and qualitative research methodology. ORCID: 0000-0002-9415-4902

Palle Rasmussen is Emeritus Professor of Education at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has published widely in research areas, which include education policy, comparative education, lifelong learning, adult education and higher education. He has led or participated in several research projects on adult education, and he has been active in several European research networks. ORCID: 0000-0001-6923-7071

Maaris Raudsepp is a senior research fellow at the Institute for International and Social Studies in the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia. Her research interests include value change and intergroup relations, semiotics and sociocultural psychology. She has published on intergroup trust, acculturation processes, the regulative role of values, forms of group identity, ethnic self-esteem, social representations of human rights and equal treatment, and autobiographical memory and personal meaning construction.

Triin Roosalu is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Institute for International and Social Studies and the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia. Her research interests include social constructions and embodiments of social inequalities in work, education and lifelong learning across institutional contexts and over time, working lives, understanding and managing change, organisational practices and policies, and gender diferences. ORCID: 0000-0001-5862-8448

Eve-Liis Roosmaa is a researcher and Lecturer in Sociology at the Institute of International Social Studies and the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia. Her research interests are in cross-country comparisons in adult education and training with an emphasis on inequalities and barriers to participation. She is participating in a Horizon 2020 project ‘Technological Inequality: Understanding the Relations Between Recent Technological Innovations and Social Inequalities’. ORCID: 0000-0001-8058-5739

Ellu Saar is Professor of Sociology in the Institute of International Social Studies and the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia. Her main research interests are educational inequalities, lifelong learning, social stratifcation and mobility. She is participating in a Horizon 2020 project ‘Technological Inequality: Understanding the Relations Between Recent Technological Innovations and Social Inequalities’ and in a Twinning project ‘Life Course Perspectives in Studying Youth Transitions to Adulthood: Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches’. ORCID: 0000-0002-9682-448X

Eva Steinheimer is a researcher at 3s (www.3s.co.at) in Vienna, Austria. She holds a master’s degree in Scandinavian Studies and Political Science

and completed the European Studies programme at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna. At 3s she is involved in project management and in research projects at national and European levels in the feld of lifelong learning, adult education systems and evaluation of lifelong learning policies. ORCID: 0000-0002-2006-4322

Rumiana Stoilova is a Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where she was formerly director of the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge. She is chair of the Bulgarian Sociological Association and author of Gender and Stratifcation (2012), Inequalities and Community Integration (2001) and over 100 articles. ORCID: 0000-0003-3615-5111

Ivana Studená is a researcher at the Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava. Her research interests include labour market adjustments, adult learning and skills policies, organisational and adult skills development, and workplace learning. She provides expert consultancy to public and non-government institutions in the area of lifelong learning and adult education policies, adult skills development and inclusiveness of lifelong learning policies. ORCID: 0000-0002-1174-2056

Marti Taru is a researcher at Tallinn University, Estonia. Active in the areas of youth work, youth policy and youth participation in labour market, nonformal learning, education focusing on assessing public policies for more than a decade, he was elected a member of the pool of European Youth Researchers in 2010 and has contributed to youth work and policy processes at the level of European institutions. ORCID: 0000-0002-2415-5096

Sandra Vatrella is a research fellow at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. She holds a PhD in Sociology and Social Research and specialises in prison ethnography, the sociology of education and adult education. Her recent publications include Europe’s Lifelong Learning Markets, Governance and Policy (Palgrave Macmillan 2020). ORCID: 0000-0001-7145-2205

Lourdes Villardón-Gallego is a Professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Education at the University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, and the main researcher of the Deusto education research team (eDucaR). Her research focuses on the development and evaluation of competences and on improving teaching for human learning and development. ORCID: 0000-0001-7011-2444

Janine Wulz is a Lecturer and researcher at the University of Victoria, Canada, and at 3s in Vienna, Austria. She is working on an interdisciplinary PhD in Teacher Education and Holocaust Studies. She is interested in critical approaches to adult and higher education, policymaking, historicpolitical education, and language education. ORCID: 0000-0001-93263050

List of Figures

List of Tables

Table 6.3 Results for two-level random intercept logistic regression models on whether an adult had received ‘Partial or full