ESREA-Conference "Adult Learning in Europe - understanding diverse meanings and contexts"

Adult education or lifelong learning or adult learning? Debates about choice of words announce differences in what we conceive of as our research field. Not only do the concepts vary, but also the contexts which we think are proper study objects: it can be learning at work, civic education, formal adult education, higher education or folkbildning (popular/liberal adult education) or informal learning among adults. Behind these labels are practices, which have been shaped into local versions. We need to explore this diversity in order to better understand each other’s research. By making differences understood we might be clearer about what we have in common.

Source: ESREA