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Colleges and universities are increasingly becoming significant sites for adult education scholarship—in large part due to demographic shifts. With fewer U.S. high school graduates on the horizon, higher education institutions will need to attract “non-traditional” (i.e., older) adult learners to remain viable, both financially and politically. There is a need to develop a better corpus of scholarship on topics as diverse as, what learning theories are useful for understanding adult learning? How are higher education institutions changing in response to the surge of adult students? What academic programs are providing better learning and employment outcomes for adults in college? Adult education scholars can offer much to the policy debates taking place in higher education.
A main premise of this handbook is that adult and continuing education should not simply respond to rapidly changing social, economic, technological, and political environments across the globe, but should lead the way in preparing adults to become informed, globally-connected, critical citizens who are knowledgeable, skilled, and open and adaptive to change and uncertainty.
The Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education provides rich information on the contemporary issues and trends that are of concern to adult and continuing education, of the programs and resources available to adult learners, and of opportunities to challenge and critique the structures embedded in the field that perpetuate inequity and social injustice. Adult education is a discipline that foresees a better tomorrow, and The Handbook is designed to engage and inspire readers to assist the field to seek new paths in uncertain and complex times, ask questions, and to help the field flourish.
The Handbook is divided into five sections. The first, Foundations situates the field by describing the developments, core debates, perspectives, and key principles that form the basis of the field.
The second, Understanding Adult Learning, includes chapters on adult learning, adult development, motivation, access, participation, and support of adult learners, and mentoring.
Teaching Practices and Administrative Leadership, the third section, offers chapters on organization and administration, program planning, assessment and evaluation, teaching perspectives, andragogy and pedagogy, public pedagogy, and digital technologies for teaching and learning.
The fourth section is Formal and Informal Learning Contexts. Chapters cover adult basic, GED, and literacy education, English-as-a-Second Language Programs, family literacy, prison education, workforce development, military education, international development education, health professions education, continuing professional education, higher education, human resource development and workplace learning, union and labor education, religious and spiritual education, cultural institutions, environmental education, social and political movements, and peace and conflict education.
The concluding Contemporary Issues section discusses decolonizing adult and continuing education, adult education and welfare, teaching social activism, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and straight allies, gender and its multiple forms, disability, older adults and intergenerational identities, race and ethnicity, working class, whiteness and privilege, and migrants and migrant education.
The editors culminate with consideration of next steps for adult and continuing education and priorities for the future.
Tonette S. Rocco, graduated from The Ohio State University and serves as a professor in adult education and human resource development at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She is a Houle Scholar, a member of the 2016 class of the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame, 2016 Outstanding HRD Scholar and recipient of more than 25 awards for scholarship, mentoring, and service. Her other books include Challenging the Parameters of Adult Education: John Ohliger and the Quest for Social Democracy (with Grace, Jossey-Bass, 2009); Handbook of Scholarly Writing and Publishing (with Tim Hatcher, Jossey-Bass, 2011); Handbook of HRD (Wiley, 2014; with Chalofsky and Morris) and the Routledge Companion to HRD (2014; with Poell and Roth); Disrupting adult and community education: Teaching, working, and learning in the periphery (SUNY, 2016; with Mizzi and Shore). She is Editor-in-Chief of New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development.
M Cecil Smith is a professor in the Department of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the College of Education and Human Sciences at West Virginia University, where he also previously served as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education. In addition to publications in several leading journals in education, he has edited books on reading, adult literacy, adult learning and development, and teaching educational psychology. He earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Robert C. Mizzi is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, Canada. He is also former president of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education and the current editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education. Robert has worked in over 15 countries as a researcher or educator, has authored over 50 articles on his research, and has published five books. Robert’s research in adult education includes topics relating to sexual and gender diversity, transnational identities and work, and social justice.
Lisa R. Merriweather is an associate professor of adult education at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and Co-founder and Senior Editor of Dialogues in Social Justice: An Adult Education Journal. She received her PhD in Adult Education with a graduate certificate in Qualitative Inquiry from the University of Georgia in 2004. Her research interests include: anti-Black racism and race pedagogy; equity and social justice in adult education; and mentoring in doctoral education. Dr. Merriweather is dedicated to the project of communalism, and is guided by the spirits of Sankofa and Ubuntu that provide the ideological culturally informed grounding for the work in which she engages.
Joshua D. Hawley is Professor in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. He is also Associate Director for the Center of Human Resource Research and Director of the Ohio Education Research Center. He received his Ed.D. and Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and M.A. and B.A. in History and Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
