ESREA (European Society for Research on the Education of Adults) Access, Learning Careers and Identities Network Conference 2015

25 – 27 November, 2015, University of Seville, Spain
First Call for Papers

Continuity and Discontinuity in Learning Careers: Potentials for a Learning Space in a Changing World

The last ESREA Access, Learning Careers and Identities Network Conference in 2013 had the ‘crisis’ as its theme. Two years on the economic crisis, which also has social and political consequences, is still with us and continues to be particularly dominant in the south of Europe. As a consequence younger and older adults are finding themselves in a labour market which either offers no jobs, low paid jobs and/or jobs with zero contracts which impacts on the self, identity and their communities.

New challenges as well as new threats are posed to adult education in such times which could both offer a potential way out of the crisis and an alternative to the dominant stories played out by the economic discourse. Within this framework continuity and discontinuity in learning careers are an interesting dimension to interrogate. In a complex way they can be conceived as two sides of the same coin, not opposite but complimentary and mutually generating and impacting upon the learning career and identity of an adult student. What individual and social choices do these processes involve and what meanings do learners give to them? What disorientating dilemmas do they bring to a person’s biography? The idea of continuity and discontinuity underlies the possibility (or the constraint) for a new personal and work life trajectory which may represent a critical moment in a person’s life. Some adults also actively choose to leave their study before finishing. Although it is a disrupted learning career it may not necessarily be a negative one. What factors at the micro, meso and macro levels come into play?

In a changing world, what potential learning spaces – formal and informal – can be identified to encourage adults, particularly non-traditional adults, to learn in ways which are beneficial and positive to them as well as in ways which enables them to challenge the inequalities they experience in society?