Adult Education Between Research, Policy and Practice

Borut Mikulec

Summary:  This paper discusses key contemporary trends in adult education research, policy and practice that can be identified in the international (European and Anglophone) contexts and, in doing so, it examines classifications of leading concepts, theories, epistemologies, methodologies, policies and practices in adult education. The paper proceeds from the premise that understanding adult education as a phenomenon is grounded in research as well as in policy and practice, and that this conception of adult education is a recurring theme in international debate. In classifying research, the paper highlights the plurality of theoretical and epistemological approaches and the diverse purposes of adult education. In classifying policy, it emphasises adult education as an object of public policy and substantiates the cross-sectoral nature of adult education policy. In classifying practice, the paper demonstrates how its multifaceted and diverse nature can be systematically examined as a system of adult education; it also classifies adult education organisations, defines adult educators’ core activities and presents adult learners’ key characteristics.