This article briefly reviews the evolving role of major institutions thought to form, reproduce and transform individual as well as collective identities and values, with an emphasis on the impact of state vs market forces via educational systems. This is accompanied by a discussion of various pressures against the state to exert social control on identity and value formation processes. The growing influence of market forces on education and in turn on identity and value formation processes is outlined with reference to specific policy prescriptions that are aligned with the neoliberal agenda, for example the No Child Left Behind Act in the US. The analysis suggests that these prescriptions have contributed to a narrower role for education which may have positive as well as negative implications on identity and value formation processes.

The model acknowledges all potential sources of knowledge and skills relevant to economic as well as social well- being by constructing indicators spanning the entire spectrum of life-wide learning. Moreover, learning undertaken for ...

This article presents recent evidence of the labour market outcomes of adult education from a global perspective. There is evidence that adult education has positive impacts on a wide range of labour market outcomes, including enhancement of employment and career prospects, of performance and earnings, of job satisfaction and commitment to work, and of innovative capacities. While this evidence is widespread, it is also fragmented and incomplete, which thwarts sustained support for and investment in adult education. Moreover, some findings suggest that positive outcomes do not arise in all situations. After providing an overview of perceptions of labour market outcomes of adult education and a summary of the available evidence, the author discusses a number of key contextual and structural factors which are helpful in interpreting the evidence and for understanding the systemic underinvestment in adult education. The article concludes by presenting some implications of the findings for adult education research, policy and practice. These include a need to foster a balanced evidence base to inform policy and to institutionalise flexible and diversified adult education provision structures that recognise and value all kinds of adult learning and education.

Introduction This chapter aims to examine how both labour supply and demand characteristics may influence participation in adult education/training. Particular emphasis is placed on skill use at work as well as situations of skill match or ...

This article analyses comparative data from the 1994–1998 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the 2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). At the micro level, the author considers factors involved in the development of an individual person’s literacy from a lifecycle perspective. At the macro level, he investigates trends in literacy proficiency profiles for countries that participated in both the IALS and PIAAC studies. In a number of countries, small average declines in literacy were recorded. This apparent stagnation in overall literacy at the population level in so many member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) merits a closer look at the trend data made available from IALS and PIAAC. The aim of this research is to understand the determinants of literacy proficiency in terms of (1) how they may be affecting the development of literacy from an individual lifecycle perspective, and (2) how they may be affecting the development of national profiles of literacy proficiency as countries’ sociodemographic compositions, sociocultural practices and economies change over time. There are few other comparative data like these that can help to improve insights on what drives the development and maintenance of literacy in adult populations. The data suggest that macro trends in literacy practices in work-related contexts may be on the decline, an impression the author discusses in relation to the observed stagnation in literacy profiles across many of the countries for which trend data are available. He considers the implications of his findings in relation to the upskilling and deskilling of occupations, changes in the distribution of work tasks, and the continued measurement of practices in PIAAC.