This volume presents a scientific and practical trend in lifelong education, which focuses on "human activity". This trend is particularly apparent in French speaking countries where a seminal tradition of ergonomics, born in the middle of the 20th century, produced studies about work and workers’ activity in various contexts. Results demonstrate that working activity, firstly, is always complex, creative and enigmatic despite the efforts done by the designers to create prescribing working environments and by managers to control production procedures, and secondly, cannot be understood without specific field studies about real work. This approach influenced adult educational researchers and trainers to develop programs in order to help trainers to better know human activity and its transformations in various social practices (and not only in working context). It also helps them to design learning environments accompanying human activity transformations at various time scales. The chapters in this volume present a range of original studies on human activity in various social practices, such as tourism, theatre prop-makers in opera, manual job environments, management in a small company, high level athletes illegal practices, school teaching and finally during teachers retirement ceremonies. These studies of the relationships between social practices and human activity and its transformations, give empirical and conceptual bases for designing programs aimed at emphasizing and accompanying specific individual and collective learning, and human development in a lifelong perspective. This book was published as a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education.

This volume presents a scientific and practical trend in lifelong education, which focuses on "human activity". This trend is particularly apparent in French speaking countries where a seminal tradition of ergonomics, born in the middle of the 20th century, produced studies about work and workers’ activity in various contexts. Results demonstrate that working activity, firstly, is always complex, creative and enigmatic despite the efforts done by the designers to create prescribing working environments and by managers to control production procedures, and secondly, cannot be understood without specific field studies about real work. This approach influenced adult educational researchers and trainers to develop programs in order to help trainers to better know human activity and its transformations in various social practices (and not only in working context). It also helps them to design learning environments accompanying human activity transformations at various time scales. The chapters in this volume present a range of original studies on human activity in various social practices, such as tourism, theatre prop-makers in opera, manual job environments, management in a small company, high level athletes illegal practices, school teaching and finally during teachers retirement ceremonies. These studies of the relationships between social practices and human activity and its transformations, give empirical and conceptual bases for designing programs aimed at emphasizing and accompanying specific individual and collective learning, and human development in a lifelong perspective. This book was published as a special issue of International Journal of Lifelong Education.

This book generates a comprehensive account of ways in which practice-based learning has been conceptualized in the Francophone context. Learning for occupations, and the educational and practice-based experiences supporting it are the subject of increased interest and attention globally. Governments, professional bodies, workplaces and workers are now looking for experiences that support the initial and ongoing development of occupational capacities. Consequently, more attention is being given to workplaces as sites for this learning. This focus on learning through work has long been emphasised in the Francophone world, which has developed distinct traditions and conceptions of associations between work and learning. These include ergonomics and professional didactics. Yet, whilst being accepted and of long standing in the Francophone world, these conceptions and traditions, and the practices supporting them are little known about or understood in the Anglophone world, which is the dominant medium for scientific and educational discussion. This book addresses this problem through drawing on accounts from France, Switzerland and Canada that make accessible and elaborate these traditions, conceptions and practices through examples of their applications to occupationally related learning. These accounts offer variations and culturally-specific developments of these traditions, but collectively emphasize a preoccupation with how both work and learning need to be understood through situated considerations of persons enacting their work practice. In this way, they offer noteworthy and worthwhile contributions to contemporary global considerations of learning through work.

"The book provides comprehensive coverage and definitions of the most important issues, concepts, trends and theories in adult education, adult ESL (English as a Second Language) and information communication technologies, offering an in-depth description of key terms and theories/concepts related to different areas, issues and trends in adult education worldwide"--Provided by publisher.

The Encyclopedia of Adult Education is the first comprehensive reference work in this important and fast-growing field, and is an invaluable resource for adult educators who research and teach in the fields of higher education, work in community-based settings, or practise in public or private organizations. Its 170+ articles, written by an international team of contributors from over 17 countries, detail the research and practice of the field from its emergence as a separate discipline to the present day, covering key concepts, issues and individuals and providing a cutting-edge summary of ongoing debates across a wide range of perspectives, from self-directed learning to human resource development. Entries are arranged A-Z and extensive cross-referenced, with detailed bibliographies for each topic to facilitate further research.

Sponsored by the American Association of Adult & Continuing Education"This monumental work is a testimony to the science of adult education and the skills of Wilson and Hayes. It is a veritable feast for nourishing our understanding of the current field of adult education. The editors and their well-chosen colleagues consistently question how we know and upon what grounds we act. They invite us to consider not only how we can design effective adult education, but also why we practice in a particular socio-economic context." --Jane Vella, author of Taking Learning to Task and Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach "This new handbook captures the exciting intellectual and professional development of our field in the last decade. It is an indispensable resource for faculty, students, and professionals." --Jack Mezirow, emeritus professor, Adult and Continuing Education, Teachers College, Columbia University For nearly seventy years, the handbooks of adult and continuing education have been definitive references on the best practices, programs, and institutions in the field. In this new edition, over sixty leading authorities share their diverse perspectives in a single volume--exploring a wealth of topics, including: learning from experience, adult learning for self-development, race and culture in adult learning, technology and distance learning, learning in the workplace, adult education for community action and development, and much more. Much more than a catalogue of theory and historical facts, this handbook strongly reflects the values of adult educators and instructors who are dedicated to promoting social and educational opportunity for learners and to sustaining fair and ethical practices.

This book examines professional learning and relates it to the acquisition of expertise, and the influence of individuals. Professional learning, as discussed in the book, comprises all kinds of occupational domains because employment and paid work usually follow the achievement principle, i.e. workers are expected to perform efficiently. The book suggests that the perspective of expertise research is an appropriate lens to use for gaining insight in how individuals can be prepared and enabled to autonomously master the requirements of daily working life. Expertise is understood as the capacity to reliably perform on an extraordinary level, and the basic assumption is that experts are best prepared to successfully cope with future challenges at workplaces. The book comprehensively discusses issues of expertise research and explores the nature of a successful individual and an impeded individual. It proposes an integrated model of individual and social components of expertise development, the i-PPP model. The model provides insight in and an understanding of how individuals can be enabled to develop and maintain professional expertise in the context of daily work. Across all paradigms, researchers, policy-makers, employers and trade unionists agree that working conditions undergo permanent change through economic, societal, and technological developments. Recently, the digitalisation of (working) life became a hot topic of scientific and societal discourses. Workplaces, thus, provide challenges for individuals who have to be able to cope with workplace changes. Accordingly, new challenges emerge for an adequate understanding of learning for work as well as learning during work.

Economic globalization, modern transportation, and advanced communication technologies have greatly enhanced the mobility of people across national boundaries. The resulting demographic, social, and cultural changes create new opportunities for development as well as new challenges for lifelong learning. Transnational Migration and Lifelong Learning examines the changing nature of lifelong learning in the current age of transnational migration. The book brings together international scholars from a range of countries in a dialogue about the relationship between work, learning, mobility, knowledge, and citizenship in the context of globalization and migration. It covers a wide range of topics, including: global perspectives and analyses of migration; the impact of migration on lifelong learning; processes of exclusion and inclusion in lifelong learning; the tension between mobility, knowledge, and recognition; and transnationalism, learning communities, and citizenship. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Lifelong Education.

This unique text provides a valuable route map to the development of thinking in adult education and lifelong learning. It includes more than twenty-five seminal articles from the first two decades of the International Journal of Lifelong Education, written by leading authors in the field from the UK, the USA, Australia and Europe. Compiled to show the development of the field, the articles are divided into four sections: From Ault Education... ...to Lifelong Education ...and Lifelong Learning ...to the Learning Society and Beyond. The specially written Introduction by the editor contextualises the selection and introduces readers to the main issues and current thinking in the field. This is the only text of its kind to demonstrate practice and policy internationally over this period, and as the collection of articles are now available in one easy-access place, this is an excellent resource for students and scholars.

Concern with learning throughout life has become pervasive in market-driven societies. Will most workers need to become more continuous learners in a new knowledge-based economy or will much of their learning be ignored or devalued in relation to their work? These papers critically assess dominant views of learning and work.