AJAL promotes critical thinking and research in the field of adult learning as well as the theory, research and practice of adult and community education. It has been published for over fifty years and covers a wide range of topics of interest to those in adult education.

In this edition researchers turn their attention to examining how initiatives to widen access and participation in higher education, which has been a central policy aim in Australia for nearly a decade, are playing out.

AJAL is free for members of Adult Learning Australia.

Author: Karsten Mellon - Roskilde University, Denmark

In Denmark various non-traditional students are mature-age students who already have some kind of a vocational background. When applying to do a professional degree, most of them fall outside the traditional admission requirements, which is why individual assessment of applicants is necessary for bachelor programmes. This article examines the case of a woman named Amy, a mature, nontraditional university college student who becomes a social pedagogue. Read more

Author: Monika Popow - Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

This paper addresses the meanings given to learning by Polish migrant bloggers. It presents the result of an analysis of ten blogs, written by Poles living abroad. The paper discusses how the meanings given by authors are linked to a broad socio-cultural context. It analyses also the impact of learning into identity creation processes. Read more

Author: Sandris Zeivots – University of Technology, Sydney

Despite knowing that positive emotional experiences tend to be beneficial for adult learning, our incomplete understanding of the emotional system rarely allows us to incorporate emotion adequately in real learning situations. The experience of emotional highs, as observed in adult experiential learning courses, has been selected as the phenomenon of the study. Read more

Author: Dorit Alt – Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel

This study was aimed at assessing the relationships between college students’ pre-entry factors, self-efficacy and motivation for learning, and the perceived constructivist learning in traditional lecture-based courses and seminars (SM). Read more

Author: Jung Yin Kim – University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA

This study examines, from a sociocultural perspective, the factors that explain why a group of seven Korean students attending an undergraduate business program in a US university are initially labelled as silent participants when first engaging in group work, and how these factors impacted the students’ overall adjustment process. Read more

Author: Masilonyana Motseke - University of South Africa

The aim of the study was to investigate the reasons why adult learners took longer than required to complete their Master’s and Doctoral degrees. All 16 participants lived in the townships, and obtained their primary, secondary and tertiary education from the township schools. It was found that the lack of computer skills, poor research skills, inadequate access to the internet, stress, supervision problems, as well as employer’s workload contributed enormously to the adult learners’ inability to complete their studies within the prescribed period. The study also highlighted the impact of apartheid education on adult learners at postgraduate level. Read more

Author: Ya-hui Su – National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism, Taiwan

There is an assumption that any contemporary society should become a learning society to maintain stability in the face of change. Although proponents and policymakers take for granted that a society has the ability to learn, can this idea be defended? Read more

ALA would also like to invite your to join us at our upcoming conferences in Ballarat, Melbourne and Wellington.

We take intersecting themes in our attempt to better understand the nature and future of learning in later life. The themes are about place, equality, empowerment and identity. More information