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This article explores the International Journal of Lifelong Education archives in the period 1982–2020. We analyse how the Journal engages with the issue of inequality. This is accomplished by systematically identifying relevant articles within the archives, and reviewing these whilst taking account of the societal, cultural and political or economic contexts in which they were written. Most articles identified for review focused on specific disadvantaged groups, discussing ways in which adult education might help, support and strengthen them. A minority took a more critical approach, assessing the drivers for inequality, or problematising the role of lifelong education as a catalyst for addressing inequality or social injustice.

In our analysis, we distinguish between inequalities related to class, gender and migration/ethnicity as themes emerging from our initial sweep of the archives, however these themes are represented unequally both in terms of number and attention given across the decades. Perhaps surprisingly, given the different forms of inequality addressed in the Journal, it seems that only very few of these papers can be directly associated with historical events and contexts relevant to the times in which they were written. Theoretically driven conceptualisations of inequality are rarities within the archives, with some notable exceptions.

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This article argues for the need to regard social origin as a complex phenomenon in order to better understand the determinants of individuals' participation in adult learning. It: 1) discusses the conceptualisation of social origin; 2) analyses how two of its components - parental (both father's and mother's) class and education - are interrelated with participation in non-formal job-related adult learning; 3) explores whether this relationship is embedded in different welfare regimes. We argue that social origin includes different interrelated but not interchangeable components that refer to both fathers and mothers. Each one of them has its own influence and that is why all of them should be considered at once in exploring adults' involvement in learning.

Empirically, the analyses are based on the latest data from the ninth round of the European Social Survey, carried out in 2018, for 29 countries. The data were analysed with logistic regression modelling. The results show that parental (mother's and father's) class and education have an independent influence on individuals' participation in adult learning and that this influence is embedded in different welfare regimes creating considerable differences between welfare regimes in terms of whether father's or mother's characteristics and which ones are more important.

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This article examines the importance of education in creating differences across European countries with regard to how young people experience job insecurity during their transition from school to work. On a theoretical level, two sets of educational system features which influence job insecurity are identified: institutional (stratification, vocational orientation, standardisation) and structural (expansion of education, development of lifelong learning, education spending). On an empirical basis, data from the Labour Force Survey (2009), the European Social Survey Round 5 (2010/2011), the official statistics, and previous research are analysed. The results show that higher vocational prevalence in secondary education is associated with lower levels of early job insecurity. Our findings contrast previous studies which have not yet revealed any effects of standardising input and output on experiencing qualification mismatches. We found that in countries where the standardisation of the output of educational systems is higher, individuals are less likely to be unemployed. However, the standardisation of input is associated with increased job insecurity. Our analysis also revealed that educational expansion has a negative effect on the likelihood of young people to work part-time jobs and that government expenditure on education is negatively associated with early job insecurity.

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The article claims that equity is an indispensable dimension of the widening of access to adult education. Building on the understanding of social justice in adult education as a complex phenomenon, two indicators are developed: an index of inclusion and an index of fairness in participation in adult education. The article analyses social justice separately in formal and nonformal education for two social groups - people with low and high education. Using data from the Adult Education Survey from 2007 and 2011 for 25 countries, it is shown that in most of the countries, there are signs of improvement in the fairness aspect of social justice as a result of a decrease in the overrepresentation of people with high education and in the underrepresentation of people with low education. However, the inclusion of people with low education in adult education remains considerable lower in comparison with the inclusion of people with high education.

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Education and skills are central for both economic performance and societal well-being. This insight has been increasingly addressed by policy-makers on national and European level. In order to address these overarching challenges, an increasing share of countries have used strategic policy documents in the area of skills policy. However, the overall goals and orientation of different strategies and their proposed actions can vary substantially. Policy-making in industrialized economies has long focused on the benefits of acquiring skills for realizing prospective economic returns via access to well-paid jobs, but the importance of skills for a wider range of social and human/personal development aspects has in part also been taken up by policy-making.

The tensions between such different orientations and approaches will be analysed as part of Skills2Capabilities Work Package 2 on skills policies. Skills2Capabilities is about understanding how skill systems need to develop if they are to assist people in making labour market transitions - i.e. between jobs, employers or sectors - and thereby reduce the level of skill mismatch which might otherwise arise. The focus is on the capabilities individuals will increasingly need to acquire if they are to effectively manage labour market transitions. The paper provides a review of the literature, presents the analytical framework for analysing skills strategies as well as the empirical approach, and an analysis of strategic policy documents on skills in six country case studies, capturing the main foci of the documents, their comprehensiveness and the extent of their implementation.

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This book re-imagines the role of adult education at individual and societal levels. It deploys several theories and approaches including recognition theory and the embeddedness approach. The book was conceived before the coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic, but it was realised during the months of lockdown and social isolation caused by the crisis. The theoretical framework of the book is a synthesis of insights from different analytical approaches; the analyses focus on adult education not just as a means for improving knowledge and skills, but we try to imagine it as an agency and empowerment process; social inequalities in adult education are discussed from a social justice perspective; adult education is conceptualised as performing different roles (instrumental, intrinsic, transformative) as well as contributing to both personal development and important public goods.

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The contents are as follows: Introduction: the feasibility of re-imagining adult education as empowerment. Part one, 'Structure, agency, and empowerment in adult education reconsidered', contains the following chapters: The lifelong learning hybrid; The heuristic potential of the capability approach in studying (adult) education; Adult education as an agency and empowerment process; The social embeddedness of the capability to participate in adult education; Lifelong striving for recognition: a recognition perspective towards adult education. Part two, 'Adult education, public good, and common goods', contains: Towards a holistic understanding of the missions and roles of adult education; Equity for whom, to what and where: the multi-dimensional character of social justice in adult education; Fragile sociality: inequalities in access to adult education and social trust; Irreducibly social: rethinking adult education as a common good. Conclusion: adult education as an instrument for empowerment or social control?; Methodological note: pros and cons of large-scale international surveys. Show less

The article's aim is twofold: to outline the specificity of the embeddedness approach and to explore the embeddedness of graduates' education-job mismatch and the formation of lifelong learning policies. The study is based on both quantitative and qualitative data, obtained from the Bulgarian Universities Ranking System, and from interviews with experts and young adults engaged in a lifelong learning programme. The analysis uses multilevel modelling. It also relies on mapping lifelong learning policies in Bulgaria through a thematic content analysis. The article argues that the misbalances for highly educated people on the labour market mirror structural problems in the economy and the educational system. The argument is reflected in the historical and structural embeddedness of graduates' education-job mismatches and the lifelong learning policies applied to overcome this. The results show that the extent of vertical education-job mismatch depends on the different profiles of higher education institutions and professional fields; they also demonstrate different ways in which the embeddedness approach could help shed new light on, and critically assess, lifelong learning policies. The findings reveal a differentiation between national and local levels of lifelong learning policy towards graduates and that regional policies are actively embedded in local contexts.

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The article aims to show that taking into account diverse characteristics of the wider social environment is indispensable for a better understanding of participation in adult education (PAE). It explores the association of corruption as a macro factor with PAE, arguing for an integrated approach to PAE. By using two indexes for corruption at country level Corruption Perception Index and the Index of Public Integrity - and micro-data for adults aged 25-64 from 29 European countries in the Adult Education Survey, 2016, as well as by applying random-effects logit models, this study has demonstrated that a country's higher corruption level is associated with the lower probability of PAE. Our article also reveals that the relationships between individual-level variables such as gender, higher education, social background, and PAE are embedded in a wider social milieu, and corruption is an essential characteristic of that milieu which deepens some of the inequalities in PAE.

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This article aims to explore how the situation of unemployment and - more generally - early job insecurity affects young people's scope for exercising agency with regard to decisions about continuing and improving their education. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of the capability approach, the article develops the concept of patterns of agency regarding continuing education. This concept refers to the mediating processes (interactions with others) whereby young people may convert available resources into new prospects for strengthening their capability to attain education as well as broadening their real choices with regard to education. Relying on information from a wide range of life-course interviews with young people born between 1990 and 1995 from seven European countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom), the present study applies the concept of patterns of agency regarding continuing education to the case of young people who have experienced early job insecurity. The analysis reveals the existence of two broad groupings of agency: enabled agency (patterns of realised interactions with institutions and individuals) and stumbled agency (patterns of non-realised interactions with institutions and individuals). The elaborated patterns provide a basis for fruitful future comparative analyses from different perspectives.

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