In the past decade, the numeracy component in adult basic education has gained scholarly attention. The issue has been addressed by large-scale assessments of adults’ skills and intergovernmental ...policy agendas, but also by qualitative research into numeracy from the perspective of social practice theory. However, some aspects of numeracy are still under-researched. This article argues that adults with learning difficulties (also referred to by some as intellectual disabilities) and their numeracy-related abilities are still hidden in the blind spot of large-scale testing regimes. To address this underrepresentation, the authors present an overview of the key paradigms of a global testing culture, outline their two areas of interest, disability and numeracy, and identify the blind spots of large-scale international surveys. They consider ways of extending the range of methodological approaches to investigating (literacy and) numeracy, and opt for a participatory research approach, for which they identify five guiding principles. They showcase and reflect on these guiding principles by presenting selected data from a small-scale qualitative study on numeracy practices of adults with learning difficulties. Their aim is to demonstrate the benefits and limitations of using participatory research approaches in the context of investigating numeracy among all members of a country’s adult population.
Les aptitudes dans l’angle mort des procédures de tests : révéler les avantages et les limites des méthodes de recherche participative concernant la numératie dans l’éducation de base des adultes – Durant la décennie passée, la numératie, en tant qu’élément de l’éducation de base des adultes, a suscité l’attention des scientifiques. Des évaluations à vaste échelle des compétences des adultes et des programmes politiques intergouvernementaux se sont consacrés à cette question qui a également fait l’objet de recherches qualitatives du point de vue de la théorie de la pratique. Cependant, certains aspects de la numératie restent sous-documentés. Le présent article affirme que les adultes qui ont des difficultés d’apprentissage (que certaines personnes appellent aussi des déficiences intellectuelles) et leurs aptitudes en matière de numératie restent invisibles, demeurant encore dans l’angle mort des procédures de tests menées à vaste échelle. Pour se pencher sur cette sous-représentation, les auteures livrent une vue d’ensemble des paradigmes clés de la culture mondiale du test, exposent brièvement leurs deux champs d’intérêt, le handicap et la numératie, et font un relevé des angles morts des grandes enquêtes internationales. Elles envisagent des façons d’élargir l’éventail des approches méthodologique pour explorer (la littératie et) la numératie, et optent pour une approche par la recherche participative pour laquelle elles déterminent cinq principes directeurs. Elles les mettent en avant et réfléchissent à leur sujet en présentant des données sélectionnées, extraites d’une petite étude qualitative sur les pratiques de numératie d’adultes ayant des difficultés d’apprentissage. Elles se proposent ainsi de démontrer les avantages et les limites des méthodes de recherche participative dans le contexte de l’étude de la numératie chez tous les membres de la population adulte d’un pays.
"The English language volume offers a current stock-take of central areas in adult and vocational further education in France. The author Silke Schreiber-Barsch bases her work on various types of ...data and information. Beginning with historical developments, Schreiber-Barsch covers the topics of political, financial and institutional framework conditions, as well as offer, participation and teaching personnel. In closing, she outlines the current research status in terms of adult education and its role in the third level education system. The regional portrait offers well founded starting point and good orientation for getting to know the French system for adult and vocational further education."
The question: 'who counts?' is raised in this paper at modern democratic society's fabric, and, more specifically, at the arena of adult education and its counting procedure regarding its clientele, ...bringing the issue of dis/ability to the fore. For, thus, interlinking citizenship, adult education, and dis/ability, the paper explores the work on disagreement and dissensus by the French political philosopher Jacques Rancière as a theoretical framework. References to qualitative empirical research, elaborating on citoyen sanspapiers (= people without legal papers) in France and on planning and managing activities towards inclusive learning settings by adult education practitioners in Germany, serve to illuminate the theoretical underpinnings' strengths and limitations. It shall lead not only to a fruitful encounter between interdisciplinary theoretical approaches, but also to push the claim that deliberation and civic learning ultimately depends on expressing voice and being listened to, not least by adult education academia, profession and practitioners. (DIPF/Orig.).
Editorial Learning in times of crisis Henning Salling Olesen; Silke Schreiber-Barsch; Danny Wildemeersch
European journal for research on the education and learning of adults,
2022, Letnik:
12, Številka:
3
Journal Article
This article explores the potential of adult learning and education, its pivotal role in addressing social transformation and promoting global-local partnerships, and its relationship to the issue of ...sustainability. The authors' conceptual setting helps to reveal the closely connected yet contested and always power-related perspectives of adult learners, adult education practitioners, academic researchers and intergovernmental organisations under the auspices of a required "great transformation". The article provides a critique of indicators, monitoring exercises and needs-assessment procedures while exploring accountability and the mandate of adult learning and education in not only raising, but also hearing, voices as part of a partnership dialogue on equal terms. The authors suggest a framework for systematising and connecting conceptual approaches to sustainability. They then propose transferring this framework to the domain of education policy tools (e.g. the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) and applying it to adult learning and education (ALE) as a contributing factor to sustainability. Two examples, one from Finland and one from Ghana, serve to illustrate the components of the suggested framework. Apprentissage et éducation des adultes, une réponse aux défis mondiaux : promouvoir les facteurs de transformation sociale et de pérennité – Cet article explore le potentiel de l'apprentissage et de l'éducation des adultes, leur rôle pivot pour amorcer une transformation sociale et favoriser les partenariats de type mondial-local, ainsi que leur rapport au thème de la pérennité. Le cadre conceptuel des auteurs contribue à exposer les perspectives, étroitement liées et pourtant contestées et toujours associées à des questions de pouvoir, des apprenants adultes, des praticiens de l'éducation des adultes, des chercheurs et des organismes intergouvernementaux, sur fond d'attente d'une « grande transformation ». Les auteurs procèdent à une critique des indicateurs, des mesures de suivi et des procédures d'évaluation des besoins; ils explorent parallèlement la redevabilité et le mandat de l'apprentissage et de l'éducation des adultes, en collectant mais aussi en écoutant des témoignages, démarche qui fait partie d'un dialogue partenarial mené à pied d'égalité. Les auteurs préconisent un cadre qui permette de systématiser et de relier les approches conceptuelles de la pérennité. Ils proposent ensuite de transférer ce cadre au domaine des outils de politique éducative (par exemple les Objectifs de développement durable des Nations Unies) et de l'appliquer à l'apprentissage et à l'éducation des adultes en tant que facteur contribuant à la pérennité. Deux exemples, tirés l'un de Finlande et l'autre du Ghana, servent à illustrer les composantes du cadre proposé.
The article brings into question the issue of regional network strategies aiming at implementing structures of lifelong learning in the local context, the so-called learning communities. Facing a ...broad diversity in their implementation all over Europe, one can observe on the other hand much less effort to discuss conceptual frameworks that deal explicitly with this subject as a whole. Yet it seems essential to categorise these colourful patterns of practice and to identify key issues-notably with regards to the aspect of lifelong learning-to develop the discourse further and to render it adaptive to international debate.
For this purpose the paper draws attention to three instrumental case studies of learning communities (a Norwegian one, an English one and a German one) that were conducted within an exploratory research strategy. Designed as a between-method triangulation, the case studies represent a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach by means of an anonymous questionnaire and half-standardised interviews. The members of the network and its key stakeholders from the meta-level were investigated just as the local framework itself. Hence, the study intends not only to demonstrate exemplarily the European variety of learning communities, their origins and leading structures, but also to propose a further structuring of the topic by introducing a typology of learning communities. This eventually opens up controversial issues about lifelong learning strategies in general; for example the question, if these strategies will possibly rather widen already existing structures of inequality and exclusion than raising participation in lifelong learning.
In this paper we explore the numeracy practices of adults with learning difficulties (also termed intellectual disabilities). For this purpose, the perspectives of a social practice view on numeracy ...practices and the concepts of disability and vulnerability were adopted. We argue that little research attention has been paid so far to this social group from an adult’s perspective, using the benefits of a small-scale qualitative approach and principles of participatory research. It is for this reason that in the paper we present selected insights gained in an exploratory qualitative study in which we conducted shadowing and interviews with adults with learning difficulties as well as focus groups with professionals. The unit of analysis is social practices, which shifts the attention from behavioural or cognitive facets of individuals towards the ways of acting out numeracy in everyday contexts. In our conclusion, we argue for a resource-oriented perspective on numeracy learning, thus recognising the voices of all adult learners, and for emphasising the emancipatory potential of acting out numeracy, which help enable rather than disable learners.
Der Beitrag diskutiert das Phänomen der Digitalität aus erwachsenenbildungswissenschaftlicher Perspektive am Lernort Hochschule und in besonderem Bezug auf eine nachhaltige und diversitätssensible ...Gestaltung von hochschulischen Lehr-Lernformaten. Aktuelle Studien betonen Erwerb und Entfaltung digitaler Kompetenzen als Voraussetzung und Schlüsselfähigkeit von Subjekten für die Teilnahme (an Lernen und Bildung) und Teilhabe an einer Kultur der Digitalität. Dies unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit einer Professionalisierung von Lehrenden wie Lernenden für das interdisziplinäre Handlungsfeld von Erwachsenenbildung, Medien- und Inklusionspädagogik sowie unter Leitmotiven von Gerechtigkeit, Diversität und Inklusion sowie Nachhaltigkeit. Entlang des Spannungsfeldes des digital divide, insbesondere des digital disability divide, nimmt der Beitrag eine Analyse und kritische Reflexion des empirischen Beispiels eines partizipativ ausgerichteten hochschulischen Lehr-Lernformats vor (der Partizipativen Forschungswerkstatt an der Universität Hamburg). Dieses hat Forschendes Lernen von Teilnehmenden mit und ohne Lernschwierigkeiten (auch als sog. geistige Behinderung bezeichnet) unter Nutzung sowohl analoger als auch digitaler Tools durchgeführt und evaluiert. Ziel ist, das Potenzial solcher Formate für gerechtere Zugänge zu Infrastrukturen des Lebenslangen Lernens über den Aspekt der reinen Zugänglichkeit hinaus herauszuarbeiten und entlang von Systematisierungsebenen einer Unterscheidung in Inhalte, Prozesse und Strukturen in den Transferbedingungen für pädagogische Handlungsfelder zu prüfen. Hieraus lassen sich Überlegungen zu einer interdisziplinären Verschränkung von Erwachsenenbildung, Inklusions- und Medienpädagogik ableiten.
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