Pathways from adult education to well-being: The Tuijnman model revisited

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There is a growing interest among researchers and policy-makers in the influence of adult learning on a range of outcomes, notably health and well-being. Much of the research to date has tended to focus on younger adults and the immediate benefits of course participation. The longer-term outcomes, such as the potential of accumulated learning experience for enriching later life, have been neglected. The study presented in this article adopts a lifecourse approach to participation in learning and the potential benefits of learning. The authors concentrate on adult education in mid-life, that is between the ages of 33 and 50, as the measure of learning participation. Their research draws upon previous work conducted by Albert Tuijnman which used Swedish data and which was published a quarter of a century ago in the pages of the International Review of Education. The authors of this paper seek to replicate and extend his pioneering work, using data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a large-scale survey containing information on all those born in Britain in one week in 1958. Follow-up data were collected at various points in childhood and adulthood, most recently when the cohort reached the age of 50, thus enabling insights into long-term developments. The authors analyse well-being at age 50 as an outcome in structural equation models (SEM). This approach helps to understand the pathways through which adult education has an impact on well-being. The estimated models show how adult education in mid-life has an influence on the type and quality of jobs which are accessible to individuals, and how this in turn can contribute to higher well-being at age 50.