Adult education as a common good: conceptualisation and measurement

ABSTRACT

The article outlines a theoretical framework for conceptualising adult education – and more broadly, lifelong learning – as a common good. It argues that the extent to which adult education as a common good is accomplished in a given society/country reflects its accessibility, availability, affordability and the social commitment to its functioning and that it depends on a country’s specific institutional arrangements. Building on this conceptualisation and using data from the Adult Education Survey (AES), the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Continuing Vocational Training Survey (CVTS) for 24 European countries, the authors develop a composite index, based on these four dimensions, which measures the extent to which adult education as a common good is practiced in a given country. This index can be used to assess the effectiveness of national policies in the sphere of adult education across Europe. The results indicate substantial cross-country differences, with North European states and Luxembourg scoring best and Romania scoring worst. Finally, applying cluster analysis, the article identifies six distinctive clusters of countries with regard to the extent of adult education as a common good; the authors designate these cluster categories as reality, feasible, ambiguous, problematic, possible and invisible.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult education
• common good
• index of adult education as a common good
• social justice
• Adult Education Survey

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article. This article uses data from Eurostat, Adult Education Survey, 2011, obtained for the needs of Research Project Proposal 124/2016-LFS-AES-CVTS-CSIS. The responsibility for all conclusions drawn from the data lies entirely with the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In the discussion on common goods, we refer to contemporary societies, which, to various degrees, adhere to the principles of democracy and market economy.

2. For a further discussion on the similarities and differences between public good and common good, see Deneulin and Townsend (2007), p. 32.

3. See, for example, Simon Marginson’s discussion (2016) on the public goods that higher education produces and how it can contribute to the common good, and Ellen Hazelkorn and Andrew Gibson’s discussion (2017) on how higher education serves the public good.

Additional information

Funding

This research was undertaken within the ENLIVEN project and received funding from the European Union (EU), Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 693989, and within the Programme for support of young researchers and doctoral students in Bulgarian Academy of Sciences – 2017 under grant agreement 17-173/03.08.2017.

Notes on contributors

Pepka Boyadjieva

Pepka Boyadjieva is a professor at the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and honorary professor of sociology of education at the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on higher education, university development, educational inequalities, lifelong learning and university/school to work transitions.

Petya Ilieva-Trichkova

Petya Ilieva-Trichkova is an assistant professor at the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She holds a PhD from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. Her research interests include educational inequalities, social justice, higher education, adult education and graduate employability.