Research Network 5: Learning Transitions
Network Coordinator:
Lyndsey El Amoud,
University College Cork,
Ireland
Asian Network Coordinator:
Dr. Shalini Singh, International Institute for Adult & Lifelong Education, India
European Network Coordinator:
Dr. Soren Ehlers, Helmut Schmidt University of the Federal German Army, Germany
As this is a new network, we are inviting researchers with an interest in this area from Asia and Europe to participate. Please email Lyndsey El Amoud (l.elamoud@ucc.ie) to express your interest.
Lifelong Learning Transitions
While we learn throughout our lives, the quality of our learning often depends on the quality of our educational experiences. Good outcomes early in life can set us up for good outcomes throughout our lives. For many early opportunities are poor, for many opportunities are interrupted because of illness, natural disasters, economic crises, migration and any number of reasons. Many learners have poor outcomes at different stages of their learning journeys, some have forced transitions out of education, but almost universally, in today’s world learners will need transitions into or back into education, not just once but many times in their lives. This research network will focus on this theme of transitions as it applies to lifelong learning. It will focus on the transition into and through lifelong learning programmes from the perspective of the learner, the educator, and the education system as a whole. Through comparing and contrasting practice in Europe and Asia, the network aims to significantly add to knowledge and best practice in this field.
Key questions will include:
Transitions In:
- How can we target under-represented groups and minorities and how can we help them to overcome the barriers to access that they face in transitioning back into education as adults?
- How can we provide lifelong learning opportunities for learners from migrant backgrounds, for ethnic minorities, for learners with disabilities, or learners with mental health or addiction issues, etc.?
- How can practices such as the recognition of prior learning (RPL) and validation of non-formal and informal learning (VNIL) assist learners in their transition into lifelong learning programmes?
- To what extent can we as educators understand the clash of identities that lifelong learners may experience so that we can better support learners during their transition in?
Transitions Through:
- How can we enhance pedagogical and andragogical approaches to developing curricula for successful lifelong learning interventions where students have the opportunity to actively engage and participate in order to develop their human, identity, social, and cultural capital?
- How can we identify and implement best practice strategies for supporting learners in their transition through their learning endeavours?
Transitions Out:
- How do we instill a belief in learners that learning is a lifelong process and that their working lives may have numerous vertical and horizontal transitions?
- How do we prepare them to realise that as they graduate from a programme, it is not necessarily the end of their learning journey, that this is not a finite process, that their lives may not follow an entirely linear course? And that they may return to learning many more times during the course of their lives?
- How do we build their resilience to cope with other possible identity shifts that they may experience in their lives?
Our Publications
Studies in Adult Education and Learning is an international scientific journal of adult education. It is intended for the publication of original scientific articles (research, discussions, analyses), professional articles, reports, considerations about technical terminology and book reviews, especially in the fields of humanities and social sciences, which deal with different aspects of adult education and related phenomena. The journal also welcomes contributions from other scientific disciplines, perspectives and traditions related to adult education. The journal also publishes research on organized education (education systems, institutions etc.), non-formal education, and all forms of informal learning, and we encourage diversity in theoretical and methodological approaches.
Studies in Adult Education and Learning focuses on:
- Developing scientific and expert knowledge about adult education (including young, middle, and late adulthood) and interdisciplinary connections with research and insights into learning and education processes.
- Developing adult education theories and practices.
- Encouraging innovations and knowledge transfer among researchers, disseminating andragogic knowledge across educator networks.
- Encouraging critical reflections on adult education in both scientific and professional fields.
More information about the journal is available online at: https://journals.uni-lj.si/AndragoskaSpoznanja/index
Sisyphus — Journal of Education aims to be a place for debate on political, social, economic, cultural, historical, curricular and organizational aspects of education. It pursues an extensive research agenda, embracing the opening of new conceptual positions and criteria according to present tendencies or challenges within the global educational arena.
The journal publishes papers displaying original researches—theoretical studies and empirical analyses—and expressing a wide variety of methods, in order to encourage the submission of both innovative and provocative work based on different orientations, including political ones. Consequently, it does not stand by any particular paradigm; on the contrary, it seeks to promote the possibility of multiple approaches. The editors will look for articles in a wide range of academic disciplines, searching for both clear and significant contributions to the understanding of educational processes.