Adult Learning

This article reports a descriptive case study conducted at a community-based adult English language program over 7 weeks. The participants were three Afghan refugee women, who were at beginning-level proficiency in English without prior education and native language literacy. Although phonics is a recommended approach for beginning-level literacy instruction, its effectiveness depends on how actively learners engage with the instruction. This study investigated the benefits of contextualized phonics-based instruction, focusing also on learner agency (engagement and resistance) during the instruction. Based on analysis of class observation notes, teacher reflections, lesson materials, and pre- and post-test scores, the findings are presented as learner profiles, describing their gains in literacy skills and patterns of engagement and resistance. The patterns of resistance are discussed as the result of the value discrepancy between the teacher and the participants. The article recommends that resistance be viewed as valuable feedback from learners and be incorporated when making instructional decisions.

Megumi Hamada

Elizabeth M. Riddle

Afghan Refugee Women’s Agency in Learning to Read in English

阿富汗难民妇女学习英语阅读的能动性

This literature review examines transitioning challenges faced by Chinese international students who pursue graduate degrees in the United States. Based on existing research on adulthood in U.S. and Chinese contexts and the features of Chinese graduate students, Chinese adults, and international students as learners in Western countries, the examination includes the adult learning environment in American graduate education, the demographic features of Chinese international students who pursue graduate degrees in the United States, and the challenges they are confronted with inside and outside the classroom. The emphasis is given to two types of transitions experienced by Chinese graduate students in the United States: learning to live into adulthood and learning to learn in an adult learning setting. Findings of this literature review shed light on understanding Chinese graduate students as a particular group of learners, provide practical suggestions for practitioners in the United States and other Western countries who teach or mentor Chinese graduate students, and inform future research on Chinese international students.

Ying Huang

Transitioning Challenges Faced by Chinese Graduate Students

中国研究生面临的过渡挑战

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) affirms that millions of people across the globe are displaced annually because of “persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations.” Given the abrupt departures from their countries of origin and their time in resettlement camps, these migrants are typically denied access to educational opportunities. They thus arrive in countries like the United States as students with limited or significant interruptions in their formal educations (SLIFE). They then access adult education, often ESOL, programs that are typically ill-equipped to address their unique needs and staffed by instructors who are ill-prepared to provide impactful instruction. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore the extant research literature to formulate policies and practices that could be implemented to address the needs of adult SLIFE, ideally in more culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and decolonized ways. In addition to Universal Design for Learning (UDL), the approach most often cited in this literature review was the Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm (MALP) as devised by DeCapua and Marshall (2023). Using this paradigm and its corollaries as a conceptual foundation, the authors offer practical suggestions regarding administrative policies and instructional practices for adult education programs to address the psychosocial and instructional needs of adult SLIFE more effectively. Areas for future investigation and implementation were identified, including incorporating these best practices into preservice preparation and continuous professional development for instructors of adults, especially those of emergent bi/multilingual learners

David A. Housel

Maz Nikoui

Practical Recommendations for Accommodating Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education in Adult Education Programs in the United States

美国成人教育项目中接纳有限或中断正规教育学生的实用建议

The growing presence of technology in Adult Foundational Education (AFE) represents affordances as well as challenges for marginalized student populations. Utilizing technologies in ways that foster and support AFE students’ agency requires opportunities for practitioners to reflect on problems of practice in their classrooms and make connections to broader structural issues in the field. This qualitative study explored the experiences of AFE practitioners from a large Northeast U.S. city during an 18-month professional development initiative focused on technology integration. Findings explore the practitioners’ range of social practices during the project, including adaptiveness and vulnerability, re-framing students’ digital literacies, and questioning normative assumptions about technology platforms. Understanding how these social practices emerged over time can spark efforts in AFE and other adult education contexts to engage in critically oriented explorations of students’ engagements with technology, ultimately supporting more asset-based approaches to using digital platforms.

Jennifer D’haem Kobrin

“A New Way of Teaching and a New Way of Reaching Students”: Building Critical Awareness About Technology Through a Practitioner Inquiry Community

“一种新的教学方式和一种新的接触学生的方式”：通过实践探究社区构建对技术的批判性意识

Social and systemic barriers contribute to students’ attrition from K-12 education and enrollment in adult basic education (ABE) via the reduction of available resources. Informed by Conservation of Resources Theory, the current study assessed the impact of stress-related risk factors, including trauma and COVID-19-related stress, on ABE students’ ( N = 227) vocational confidence. Understanding these factors can inform ABE program development and retention efforts. Survey methods with convenience sampling were used for data collection. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship between trauma exposure and COVID-19-related stress on the outcomes of alcohol use, as a stress response, as well as vocational confidence. On average, past traumatic experiences were more common among ABE students who reported greater social or economic marginalization, especially those identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual or with a history of being unhoused. More past traumatic experiences predicted higher COVID-19-related stress and alcohol use. Higher COVID-19-related stress, in turn, predicted lower vocational confidence. ABE students experiencing marginalization face compounded barriers to achieving their educational and vocational goals when they experience trauma exposure and subsequent stressors. Based on findings, we make practice recommendations for ABE centers, including targeted psychoeducational resources to offset social and systemic stressors that may bolster the vocational confidence of enrolled students.

Frances J. Griffith

Sydney C. Simmons

Shannon Schrader

Brittany Miller-Roenigk

Maria C. Crouch

Derrick M. Gordon

Crisis, Confidence, and Conserving Resources: Examining How Adult Education Students Navigate Stressors and Marginalization

危机、信心与资源保护：探讨成人教育学生如何应对压力与边缘化

Democratic adult education (AE) promotes social change through active and pragmatic learning. This learning considers the impact of individual, community, organization, and broader cultural influences. Democratic civic engagement (DCE) in higher education institutions (HEIs) emphasizes inclusive participation and reciprocity. These values are deeply grounded in democratic adult education (AE) practice and community problem-solving processes in practice-based professions like Occupational Therapy (OT). In this article, we examine a new graduate OT program in the northeast region of the US and the roles of OT stakeholders as co-creators and co-educators in both institutional and community education settings. We highlight how this program is grounded in DCE which helps bridge the gap between an academic program (OT within HEI) and the broader social environment (interlocking systems not built to support diverse lived experiences) using a DCE model.

Abbreviation
Journal Impact	0.79
Quartiles(Global)	EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH(Q3)

ISSN	1045-1595, 2162-4070
h-index	24

Publication Information	Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 1989，Proportion of original research papers: 94.44%，Self Citation Rate:11.10%， Gold OA Rate: 7.35%

Adult Learning

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Share Submission Experience

Afghan Refugee Women’s Agency in Learning to Read in English

Transitioning Challenges Faced by Chinese Graduate Students

Practical Recommendations for Accommodating Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education in Adult Education Programs in the United States

“A New Way of Teaching and a New Way of Reaching Students”: Building Critical Awareness About Technology Through a Practitioner Inquiry Community

Crisis, Confidence, and Conserving Resources: Examining How Adult Education Students Navigate Stressors and Marginalization

Afghan Refugee Women’s Agency in Learning to Read in English

Practical Recommendations for Accommodating Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education in Adult Education Programs in the United States

“A New Way of Teaching and a New Way of Reaching Students”: Building Critical Awareness About Technology Through a Practitioner Inquiry Community

Democratic Civic Engagement in Occupational Therapy

Crisis, Confidence, and Conserving Resources: Examining How Adult Education Students Navigate Stressors and Marginalization