Understanding the Experiences of Adult Educators: Narrative Lessons for Professional Knowledge, Values and Practice

This edited volume will give readers an in-depth grasp of the dynamics and intricacies of the field of adult education and provide an investigation of the journeys of adult educators, exploring how their experiences shape and influence their learning and teaching methods.

Focusing on the professional lives of adult educators and the core meanings that they attach to their experiences, the book uses a narrative approach to unfold the depth and complexity of the varied backgrounds and experiences that adult educators bring with them into the adult learning arena. Split into three parts, Part 1 sets out some key theoretical and methodological insights into narrative inquiry and underlines its (phenomenological) power to illuminate (oft hidden and conflictual) encounters. In Part 2, ten adult educators tell their stories of working in diverse adult education settings across eight European jurisdictions: Cyprus, England, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Serbia and Switzerland. In Part 3 readers are presented with the opportunity to reflect again on, and ‘read into’, these stories. Here, a number of narrative lessons are given that prompt readers to recall and reimagine forms of knowledge, values and practice that are distinctively innate to the profession. These include lessons about identity formation, cross-cultural learning, resistance and activism, coping with professional vulnerability, embracing experiential learning, acknowledging gender and broader power dynamics, discovering the power of storytelling, managing the emotional labour of adult education, and navigating growing institutional constraints.

Ideal reading for all those working in adult education, this book can be used to inform new directions and recommendations for the most effective research, policies, and practices, and, seminally, be used to reimagine how we (re-)conceptualize professional teaching and learning in this field.

Caitlín Fahy is a lecturer on the Postgraduate Diploma in Further, Adult and Community Education at University College Cork, Ireland.

Maria N. Gravani is an Associate Professor in Adult & Continuing Education and Academic Director for the Masters in Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Open University of Cyprus.

Stephen O’Brien is a Senior Lecturer and Academic Director for the Postgraduate Diploma in Further, Adult and Community Education in the School of Education and Adult Continuing Education, University College Cork, Ireland.

George K. Zarifis is Professor of Continuing Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.