Country-level Indicators and Adult Learning Strategies: Adult and Workforce Education Policy Implications

• In Event: Poster session I
  In Poster Session: Poster session 1

Proposal

Adult literacy, learning, and skills development are more important than ever before. As evolutions in the global economy continue to transform the world of work for adults, the basic literacy and skills necessary for employment that provides family-sustaining wages have also continued to increase. Consequently, many working families the world over need additional education and training to access and participate in the global labor market, or risk remaining on the margins of the workforce and society. Forecasts of growing labor gaps project an increasing demand for adult and continuing education, tasking governance systems with the challenge of providing core education and vocational training to help facilitate the economic and social mobility of these adults and their families. The policy strategies leaders utilize to provide solutions to these changing demands are critical to the wellbeing of working families in our rapidly evolving global society.

The paper reports recent trends in policy development for adult learning and workforce development systems in the EU and the US, and findings from a comparative analysis of between-country adult learning patterns detected in the international OECD PIAAC database. The research suggests major policy implications which will be discussed to offer some insight into and considerations for developing more socially responsive and sustainable adult learning policy and workforce development programming. The presenter will also pose questions as an invitation to imagine new avenues for building socially and culturally responsive adult learning and workforce development systems that respect cultural and demographic differences of citizens as well as promote economic participation.

Current AWE Policy Trends

Adult and Workforce Education (AWE) policy trends in both the EU and the US have been shifting toward more formal, centralized systems for adult and workforce education; efforts to combine basic literacy and education programs with vocational training; and more uniform policy aimed at interoperability between local, regional, national, and cross-national systems. Both policy systems are framed in terms of global competition and are primarily aimed at the development of viable adult workforces. Federal EU policies offer a somewhat more culturally oriented and social systems view of the AWE policy area, whereby US federal policies invoke the technological competencies and skillsets necessary to fully participate in the metamorphosizing regional and international economies. Human capital development perspectives notwithstanding, both systems are also built on some tenuous assumptions about adult learners and how governments might go about “developing” their adult populations.

Assumptions About Adult Learners

In a comparative study of adult learning preferences across the 33 OECD countries that participated in the most recent waves of PIAAC data collection, significant between-country differences in adult learning preferences/strategies were discovered. When it comes to adult learning strategies, the initial findings reveal statistically significant variance between countries, as well as by age group, gender, education-level, and type of occupation. Succinctly, the international comparative data suggest patterns about learning preferences that are counter to commonly held assumptions regarding adult learning upon which training and education programming are based. Commonly taught general principles regarding adult learning (andragogy) claim that as adults mature they are more autonomous in their learning, seek out learning activities that are relevant to their lifeworld, and are oriented toward solution-seeking. However, the patterns in the data across all countries suggest that these learning strategies actually decrease with each increasing age category. The data across all participating countries also suggest that there are significant differences between women and men in their inclination to use these learning strategies, where women prefer these strategies less than men. The data also reveal that these strategies are valued more by people who have higher levels of education, and by adults who are in highly skilled occupations. The general demographic group that most closely reflects these “general principles” are men who have a college education and are in high skilled occupations. These findings suggest that the common assumptions held about adult learners actually reflect a very narrow view of adult learning that does not hold for the majority of adult learners between countries.

Based on further modeling of the PIAAC data by adding country level variables, nearly all of the learning strategy variance between countries was explained by adding cultural value scales and sociostructural indicators such as a country’s Human Development Index. The findings suggest that cultural values play an important role when it comes to adult learning strategies, as well as sociostructural indicators. Adult learning strategies are largely informed by cultural values (socialization) and the level to which country systems meet their general population’s basic needs (social positioning).

The very data developed to globally compare competing countries reveal the social and economic biases of the systems and policies. Centralized AWE policy based on the very narrow preferences and social values of well-educated men in skilled occupations is not likely to address the needs of the demographic groups who the policies and programs intend to serve. While similar conclusions have long been argued in international and comparative education, this comparative analysis of macro-level AWE policies and PIAAC data illustrates that even large-grained country-level data reveal these patterns: the values promoted by systems are not necessarily aligned with the realities and differing values held by diverse peoples internationally. Macro-level policies such as those developed in the US and the EU need to remain cognizant of these significant differences and biases. The data patterns provide evidence that one-size-fits-all policies for adult learning and workforce development may not be appropriate. In order to be socially responsive and sustainable, AWE policies must attend to economic justice by meeting basic needs of adults and their families, and must also attend to social justice by recognizing cultural differences and systemic discrimination based on age, gender, background, and occupation. If we want our adult populations to “be competitive,” then we need to make sure that their basic life needs are equitably met, and that their cultural values and social differences are respected and protected so that they are equally given the opportunity to pursue lifelong learning.

Author

• Elizabeth Anne Roumell, Texas A&M University