This document discusses theories related to research on adult education and learning. It provides a brief history of the field, noting key figures and concepts like andragogy. It also examines debates around how to conceptualize adult education, including whether it should be viewed as a theoretical field that draws on other disciplines, or a practical field. Additionally, the document analyzes four academic journals to explore current theories being used in adult education research, such as critical pedagogy, post-structural perspectives, and transformative learning. It concludes by calling for strengthening the research community to allow for more diverse theoretical development.

1. THE ROLE OF THEORY IN
RESEARCH ON THE
EDUCATION AND LEARNING
OF ADULTS
ANDREAS FEJES, PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF ADULT
EDUCATION RESEARCH, LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY

2. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL
DEBATE

3. SOME HISTORICAL NOTES
• Professorships in adult education -Nottingham 1923
• In the 1960s a conceptual separation of the adult
learner from the child
• Andragogy
• Alexander Kapp in 1883
• Lindeman in 1926
• Knowles in the 1970s and 1980s
• At least two different meanings of andragogy
• Andragogy in the US –signifying adult education as a field of
practice based on normative grounds
• Andragogy in Europe –signifying empirical and theoretical
research on adult education

4. FORMS AND FIELDS OF KNOWLEDGE
(HIRST, 1974)
• Forms of knowledge such as physical science or human
science
• Fields of knowledge made up of composites of forms of
knowledge
• Theoretical – e.g. geography (the study of man in relation to his/her
surrounding)
• Practical – e.g. education or engineering
• Moral knowledge – elements of how things should be done in
practical affairs could be included in fields of knowledge, e.g.
education
• There is an „epistemological vandalism‟ that ignore „the nature
of its own activity and content‟ (Bright, 1989, p. 34) within adult
education - Adult education research has traditionally seen
itself as a theoretical field of knowledge, but researchers in the
field are not true to the source disciplines.
• Instead, Bright argues, adult education should rather be seen
as a practical field of knowledge that base itself on, and with
a reflexive engagement with, source disciplines.

5. SOCIO-PRACTICAL FIELD (USHER, 1989)
• Adult education as a socio-practical field with a
necessary concern with purposeful action.
• The starting point for adult education as a socio-
practical field is then a „“necessary concern” with
purposeful action‟ (p. 67), no restrictions to theory
as theory should help solve problems (pragmatic
view), and the use of knowledge aimed at solving
problems is always related to a context.

6. CONCLUSION????
• The epistemological debate was mainly going on in
the 1980s and into the 1990s, but has since then
almost disappeared.
• Adult education research draws inspiration from a
range of disciplines and fields of knowledge such as
cultural and gender studies, policy studies, working
life research, psychology, etc.
• Maybe, it could then be possible to draw the
conclusion that adult education is a practical field
of knowledge that borrows from a range of
disciplines, producing inter-disciplinary
knowledge!(for purposeful action)?

7. STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS
- LIMITING AND MAKING POSSIBLE THEORETICAL SOUND
RESEARCH?

8. FUNDING FOR RESEARCH
• Faculty/basic research funding
• Differs across Europe (sparse in south and eastern Europe)
• Chairs in adult education – decreasing (Germany), non-existing
(Portugal, Spain)
• Provides basis for development of theory (theorising)
• External research grants
• Competition (14% success rate in Sweden 2011)
• Might provide opportunities for development of theory (theorising)
• Commissioned research
• Commissioned by governments, study associations, the EU (Grundtvig)
etc.
• Research for policy or research related activities for development of
best practice
• Does (often) not provide any wide space for development of theory
(theorising)
• A common way to fund research related activities for researchers
within the field of adult education research across many European
countries

9. TROUBLED RELATIONSHIPS
• „On the other hand, research on adult education is still
troubled by its problematic relation with the fields of
practice and policy. Much applied research remains
predominantly a-theoretical in its approach, while many
research and development activities in support of policy
measures are problematic in that they do not necessarily
contribute to the long-term development of empirical
data, the body of knowledge and theoretical work‟
(Hake, 1999, 145)
• Basic/faculty funding is important in order to create
opportunities to develop theory (theorisations) in relation
to adult education practices!

10. A RESEARCH COMMUNITY
• Indicators of a strong research community:
• Researchers communicate in the same spaces (e.g.
Journals and conferences)
• Contributions in these spaces have good geographical
distribution
• Researchers in the community cite each other

11. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COMMUNITY OF
ADULT EDUCATION RESEARCHERS
• Researchers publish across a range of different
journals
• Anglophone dominance
• The Americans cite the Americans, British
researchers cite the Americans and each other, as
do the Australians
• Low level of citations between different adult
education journals (Larsson, 2010)

12. A RESEARCH COMMUNITY
• National organisations for research on adult
education e.g. in the UK, US, Finland, Canada,
Germany etc. mostly gathers researchers from the
national arena (and to some extent beyond for the
Anglophone based organisations).
• ESREA, the European society for research on the
education of adults gathers researchers across
Europe and beyond. However, as English is the
official language, some language regions are
excluded from participation.
• Is then the adult education research community
strong or weak?

13. ONE POSSIBLE STORY OF THE
PRESENT
ANALYSING FOUR JOURNALS

14. ANALYSING FOUR JOURNALS
• Analysis of the 2011 issue of four journals
• Adult education quarterly (US): 19
• Studies in continuing education (Australia): 21
• Studies in the education of adults (UK): 15
• European journal for research on the education and
learning of adults (Europe): 12
• Biased in several ways as the analysis is limited to a
few journals. What about other journals, books,
conference papers etc?
• Does however provide some indication of how the
field looks like today.

15. THEORIES/THEORISATIONS
• Critical pedagogy: 15 (AEQ: 3; SEA: 11; RELA: 1)
• Post-structural theorisations: 12 (AEQ: 4; SCE: 4; SEA:
1; RELA: 3)
• Socio-cultural and situated perspectives on
learning: 10 (AEQ: 2; SCA: 6; SEA: 1; RELA: 1)
• Quantitative studies: 5 (AEQ: 2; SCE: 3)
• Transformative learning: 3 (AEQ: 3)
• Biographical learning: 2 (RELA: 2)

16. CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
• Critical pedagogy „regards specific claims…as parts of systems of
belief and action that have aggregate effects within power
structures of society. It asks first about these systems of belief and
action, who benefits? The primary preoccupation of critical
pedagogy is with social injustice and how to transform
inequitable, undemocratic, or oppressive institutions and social
relations‟ (Burbules and Berk, 1999, p. 47).
• „How well organizations are able to make use of this [ICT] technology
to further their goals of promoting social movement learning and
activism‟ (Irving and English 2011)
• „Elaborate what I consider to be the major challenges which new
forms of social movement organising pose for adult education
research interested in advancing social justice‟ (Holst, 2011).
• Zielinska, Kowzan and Prusinowska (2011) focus on describing a social
movement that started at a university in Poland aiming at
„democratising the university and implementing various changes
concerning space management and decision-making processes
both within the academia and in terms of future education in
general‟.

17. POST-STRUCTURAL THEORISATIONS
• Although also possible to speak about as critical theorisations,
poststructural theorisations are anti-essentialist and non-dualist.
• How are students, within a basic adult education program in
social and health care, „positioned and position themselves in
relation to the discourses mobilised in the programme‟
(Winther Jensen, 2011, p. 107)
• How are workers in elderly care mobilised through a
technology of activation and technique of invitation (Fejes
and Nicoll, 2011).
• Michelson (2011) directs post-structural critique towards
autobiographical writing used within adult education
• Mulcahy (2011) draw on actor-network theory in order to
critique fixed ideas about relationships between learning and
work

18. SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
• Sociocultural perspectives focus on how culture and society
shape cognition.
• Baker and Pifer (2011) draw on a sociocultural perspective on
learning in combination with developmental network theory
when studying the relationships in identity development processes
of doctoral students in the US. The interdisciplinary framework,
they argue, „allowed us to explore whether and how students‟
relationships within and outside of the academic community
influence the development of their professional identities‟ (p. 7).
• Schecter and Lynch (2011) draw on a social-cognitive
perspective in order to analyse how health learning and teaching
would look like if adult literacy classrooms would become
communities of practice.
• Bound (2011) analyse the „tensions between espoused and
current pedagogical practices in a team of trade teachers as
they adopt information communication technologies (ICT) tools‟
drawing on social theories on learning that puts a focus on
contextual factors at work (e.g. Billett and Engeström).

19. TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING
• Transformative learning has an interest directed at how
individuals can transform their worldview through so called
perspective transformation, with three dimensions:
psychological (changes in understanding of the self),
convictional (revision of belief systems), and behavioural
(changes in lifestyle). An important part is for people to
change their frames of references by critically reflecting on
their assumptions and beliefs.
• For Moon (2011), transformative learning theory was used in
order to understanding „older adults‟ (elders) transformative
learning through bereavement in late life‟.
• Ntseane (2011) discuss how Mezirows theory could be more
useful if it was applied in a more cultural sensitive way.
• Swartz and Triscari (2011) wish to deepen the understanding of
transformative learning for the researchers themselves by
analysing their own collaborate research.

20. BIOGRAPHICAL LEARNING
• Although including a wide range of different branches,
generally speaking, the focus of biographical research is the
individual learner and the “importance of engaging with the
everyday and small scale in building understanding of how
the world works, based on social interactionism perspectives”
(West et al., 2007, p. 46).
• Maier-Gutheil and Hof (2011), p. 75) “compare individuals‟
[adult educators] narratives of their professional work at
different times in their biographies” in order to understand “the
differences in professional learning through the life course and
the influence of institutional and social context in the
development of professionalism”.
• Gualda et al (2011) analyse how identity is built in a cross-
border area drawing on group interviews and biographical
interviews.

21. SOME REFLECTIONS
• A need to strengthen the research community in
order to create possibilities for different and sound
theory trajectories
• A stronger focus on theorising adult education practices
• Cite each other
• Greater geographical distribution of authors
• Conferences and organisations where people from many
locations meet
• At the same time encourage inter-disciplinary
knowledge production and dialogue
• Create a greater basis of basic funding

22. EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR RESEARCH
ON THE EDUCATION AND LEARNING
OF ADULTS
• Aim to debate issues at stake for adult education in
Europe
• Linguistically open access, ambition to broaden the
current Anglophone dominated debate
• Open access, free of charge
• Same quality standards as traditional journals with a
double blind peer review process and the aim to be
included in the major key databases/indexes
• Available at www.rela.ep.liu.se
• Each issue have a specific theme, but thematic papers
as well as non-thematic papers are invited for submission
• Next issue, April, theme: Approaches to research on the
education and learning of adults: Papers drawing on
sociomaterial perspectives, transformative
learning, biographical learning, critical pedagogy and
sociology of education (Bernstein).

23. POPULAR EDUCATION, POWER AND
DEMOCRACY – SWEDISH EXPERIENCES
AND CONTRIBUTIONS
• Ann-Marie Laginder, Henrik Nordvall & Jim Crowther,
(eds.) Leicester: Niace
• Contributors: Kjell Rubenson, Bernt Gustavsson, Kerstin
Rydbeck, Staffan Larsson, Eva Andersson, Ali Osman,
Berit Larsson, Sylvia S. Bagley, Val D. Rust, Alan Rogers,
Yukiko Sawano
• Chapters focus on aspects such as the democratic idea
of Bildung, Folk high schools as Avant-gardes in Sweden,
Popular education and empowerment of women,
Popular education and integration, Popular education
meets the global social movement, a radical dimension
of popular education, Translations of the Folk high school
tradition in the US, Tanzania and Japan.

24. Book in honour of
professor Staffan
Larsson in
connection to his
retirement in June
2012.

25. LÄRANDETS MÅNGFALD: OM
VUXENPEDAGOGIK OCH
FOLKBILDNING
• Andreas Fejes (red.) Lund: Studentlitteratur.
• Chapters by Liselott Aarsand, Song-ee Ahn, Robert
Aman, Eva Andersson, Per Andersson, Madeleine
Abrandt Dahlgren, Bernt Gustavsson, Eva-Marie Harlin,
Bosse Jonsson, Susanne Köpsén, Ann-Marie Laginder,
Martin Lundberg, Louise Malmström, Henrik Nordvall, Erik
Nylander, Sofia Nyström, Kerstin Rydbeck, Fredrik
Sandberg, Jorun M. Stenøien, Per-Olof Thång, Sigvart
Tøsse och Gun-Britt Wärvik
• Chapters about e.g. The emergence of Muslim study
associations, the history of reading circles, why the use of
literature in adult education, the value of Folk high
schools, Educational paths for social democratic
politicians, pedagogy (didaktik) for adults, RPL and
lifelong learning, identity formation of vocational
teachers, sociomaterial perspectives in adult education
research.