Adult Education Research: Exploring an Increasingly Fragmented Map

TY - JOUR

T1 - Adult Education Research

T2 - Exploring an Increasingly Fragmented Map

AU - Elfert, Maren

AU - Rubenson, Kjell

PY - 2015/4/14

Y1 - 2015/4/14

N2 - Against the background of internal developments of adult education as a field of study, and new external conditions for research, this article examines how the configuration of adult education research has been evolving, particularly over the last decade. Our analysis draws on a two-pronged approach: a reading of four seminal articles written by adult education scholars who have conducted bibliometric analyses of selected adult education journals; as well as our own review of 75 articles, covering a one-year period (2012–2013), in five adult education journals that were chosen to provide a greater variety of the field of adult education in terms of their thematic orientation and geographical scope than has been the case in previous reviews. Our findings suggest that the field is facing two main challenges. First, the fragmentation of the map of the territory that was noticed at the end of the 1990s, has continued and seems to haveintensified. Second, not only practitioners, but also the policy community voice their disappointment with adult education research, and we note a disconnect between academic adult education research and policy-related research. We provide a couple of speculations as to the future map of adult education as a field of study and point to the danger of shifting the research agenda away from classical adult education concerns about democracy and social rights.

AB - Against the background of internal developments of adult education as a field of study, and new external conditions for research, this article examines how the configuration of adult education research has been evolving, particularly over the last decade. Our analysis draws on a two-pronged approach: a reading of four seminal articles written by adult education scholars who have conducted bibliometric analyses of selected adult education journals; as well as our own review of 75 articles, covering a one-year period (2012–2013), in five adult education journals that were chosen to provide a greater variety of the field of adult education in terms of their thematic orientation and geographical scope than has been the case in previous reviews. Our findings suggest that the field is facing two main challenges. First, the fragmentation of the map of the territory that was noticed at the end of the 1990s, has continued and seems to haveintensified. Second, not only practitioners, but also the policy community voice their disappointment with adult education research, and we note a disconnect between academic adult education research and policy-related research. We provide a couple of speculations as to the future map of adult education as a field of study and point to the danger of shifting the research agenda away from classical adult education concerns about democracy and social rights.

UR - http://www.rela.ep.liu.se/article.asp?DOI=10.3384/rela.2000-7426.rela9066

U2 - 10.3384/rela.2000-7426.rela9066

DO - 10.3384/rela.2000-7426.rela9066

M3 - Article

SN - 2000-7426

VL - 6

SP - 125

EP - 138

JO - European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults

JF - European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults

IS - 2

ER -