Adult education, higher education, and informal learning settings

Adults participate in different learning activities and educational environments. Our research focus in this theme is formal education organised n different settings such municipal adult education, commonly known as KOMVUX (Ali Osman), Higher Education (Agnieszka Bron, Carina Carlhed Ydhag, Camilla Thunborg and non-formal educational institutions like study associations and folk-high schools (“FOLKBILDNING”) (Agnieszka Bron). The research group in this theme examine learning among other aspects that take place at work places and during leisure time (Camilla Thunborg).

An array of pedagogical and didactical approaches and practices are applied in these different learning settings. Our knowledge of the character, the epistemological principles and the theoretical underpinnings for the various adult education practices is however limited. Adult learning in general and its many practices need to be continuously researched, reflected, evaluated and further developed because of a fast, changing world.

Educational policies

This theme involves studies on how educational policies shape conditions for practice, for example, different subject positions in stating what is desirable and what is not. Occasionally, policies within an educational area may create paradoxical effects in educational practices. Policy texts are critically analysed as empirical material, policies are here not only legislation texts but also government reports, authorities’ governmental instructions etc.

Many different educational policies at different levels influence the educational system. The research group has for example critically analysed: (1) How policies for migration intersect with policies for adult education (Ali Osman), (2) European and Swedish policies for enhancing equality and employability and its paradoxes (Agnieszka Bron & Camilla Thunborg) and (3) the striving in European educational policy for comparative measures of drop-out and continuation in European Higher Education has been analysed and consequences of this for the ways that scientific knowledge is produced (Carina Carlhed Ydhag).

Migration, adult education & social inclusion

Migration has created different challenges, but also opportunities for adult education. How do immigrant acculturate in their new context? By acculturation, we mean a process of becoming and this means acquiring relevant cultural and social capital to successfully navigate the systems immigrants encounter in the new context. How do they mobilize the resource in the new society to forge and shape their life careers? How do adult education institutions limit but also widen the structure of opportunities for immigrants in the new host communities and society? How do immigrants negotiate the barriers they encounter in the new society? How does different compensatory education/training that are made available to immigrants facilitate the transition of immigrants in the labour market? These institutional objectives intersect with immigrant individual resources (cultural capital) to facilitate and shape the process of inclusion of immigrant in the Swedish is of interest to some of the members of the research group.

Social inclusion in different settings such as adult education, higher education the labour market or in civil society is a main interest for the group. One theme is to investigate how institutional/ organizational strategies of social inclusion or exclusion in the Swedish labour market are formed and to what extent they attract immigrants’ applicants or discriminate immigrant them (Ali Osman). Another form of social inclusion in relation to migration has to do with the inclusion of immigrant parents in their children’s education. 

Adult learning and identity formation

Adult learners are diverse in many aspects. They vary in learning experiences and styles, work experiences, age, socioeconomic status, cultural backgrounds, personal motives and goals, skills and abilities etc. Adult learning generally needs to be further investigated and developed. All researchers in the group have an interest in adult learning in any way or the other. In some of our research projects, we have had a specific focus in how people form and transform identities through their participation in different life settings. The interest and focus of some members of the group is on how individuals form and trans¬form their identities and their identities as learners. In different projects, we have studied people from various social and ethnical backgrounds, different ages and in different life settings such as in education, work, and leisure. This topic also includes an interest by the group for biographical research (Agnieszka Bron and Camilla Thunborg).

Young adults

In a newly started project (“Spatial pockets of (in-) equalities”) we are especially interested in young adults educational- and life careers in rural and suburb areas conceived as disadvantaged. We will explore how spatial pockets of (in-) equalities are formed in the borderland between young adults’ biographies (i.e. their social background and previous life experiences), the geographical places where they live and their participation in different activities, both physically and virtually. This project is at its starting point and we would be pleased if someone wants to join us. Connect to the aim of the project or to some part that you find especially interesting. (Agnieszka Bron, Ali Osman & Camilla Thunborg)

Middle aged and older adults

Malgosia Malec Rawinski have a special interest in middle aged and older adults learning in different settings (local communities, Men’s Sheds, U3A) and context (e.g. migration, transition). Our research focus on middle aged and old age and ageing, problems, and needs of middle aged and older people, learning while becoming older or being old, education of aging and keeping the orientation on biographical learning. Recent projects are involved in are called: Old Guys say Yes to Community financed by EU by and U3A – Learning- Crea¬ting- Supporting - financed by Ministry of Sciences and Higher Education, Republic of Poland.

Professionalisation

Within the research group, we also have an interest in the formation of professions, how people form vocational or professional identities and professional careers.

Professional fields

There is an interest in studies on specific professions and their professional knowledge and claims for legitimate expertise. In the group, there has been a project focusing on how professionalization among several professions within Medicine have risen historically. The research interests include struggles on jurisdictional issues, such as the legitimate view of the “real experts” with legal rights to work in the profession. How the professional groups use different closure strategies towards competitive professions and mobilise strategies to claim their expertise. We have also experience of studying the formation of expertise through struggles and alliances between several professional and associations in a particular social field, thus creating a system of expertise beyond professions and associations (Carina Carlhed Ydhag).

The formation of vocational and professional identities in education and working life

Within the research group, there is an interest for how vocational and professional identities are formed during education and in different organisations related to the labour market. We have studied different occupational groups within different organisations in health care services, such as physicians, nurses and assistant nurses, physiotherapists, HR specialists (Camilla Thunborg).

Adult learning in the transition between different life phases and life settings

In the research group, there is a strong interest to understand the transition between different forms of education and work as well as between different life phases. We work with three themes now; student transition from school to higher education, student transition during exchange studies and adult transition from education to working life and back.

Student transition from school to higher education

This theme involves studies on student success in upper secondary school and transition into higher education. In the research group, we have an ongoing project following footprints of resilient youth: successful educational trajectories and transition into higher education to which you can align your PhD-project application. In this project, our focus is on mapping the students’ social network and students from disadvantages settings and how they mobilise the resources they are embedded in to succeed in their educational career. It should be related to the aims of the project but your design and methods could be different, but relevant (Ali Osman & Carina Carlhed Ydhag).

Adult transition from education to working life and back

One example of transition that adults are facing in their transition from education (post-secondary or higher education) to work life is that we live longer and change our professions. This often implies or involves a reveres transition, i.e. coming back to education. In our recent project called EMPLOY, we examined non-traditional students (students from underrepresented groups) transition from higher education to labour market in seven European countries (Agnieszka Bron & Camilla Thunborg).

We recently finalised a research project, which focused on the access, retention, and dropout from the perspectives of non-traditional students in higher education (RANLHE). In this project, we interviewed non-traditional students during their first, second and third year in HE, trying to understand how they formed and transformed their identities and what made them continue to study or drop out (Agnieszka Bron & Camilla Thunborg).