Educating Rita’s Grandchildren: Formal Adult Education in the Shadow of Educational Expansion

Abstract

Formal adult education (FAE) has become a frequently used category within cross-country comparative research on adult learning. It refers to adults returning to a qualification-awarding education offer involving at least the equivalent of half a year of full-time education. As an umbrella term, it captures rather different fields including adult basic education, second chance education, higher education for mature students, VET and retraining for adults, formal corporate training programs, continuing higher education, and continuing professional education. Beginning with a historic account of the concept, the chapter explores the common core of FAE, how it differs from non-formal adult education, and introduces data collected and different types of FAE. In essence, FAE is an often-neglected part of the education system characterized by its promise to support adult participants’ social upwards mobility. FAE is thereby necessarily tainted by education’s ambivalent role within social stratification and imprinted with the social conflicts waged about purpose and equity of education. Moreover, six decades of educational expansion have made it even more essential to design policies that allow FAE to deliver what participants are encouraged to expect in return for their continuing educational efforts.