Young Adults and Active Citizenship: Towards Social Inclusion through Adult Education
About this ebook
Social exclusion, disengagement and disaffection of young adults have been among the most significant concerns faced by EU member states over the last decade. It has been increasingly recognised by a range of stakeholders that there is a growing number of young people suffering from the various effects of the unstable social, economic and political situations affecting Europe and its neighbouring countries. Young adults who experience different degrees of vulnerability are especially at risk of being excluded and marginalised. Engaging young adults through adult education has been strongly related to addressing the specific needs and requirements that would facilitate their participation in social, economic and civic/political life in their country contexts. Fostering the active citizenship of young people, both directly and indirectly, is an area where many AE programmes overlap, and this has become a core approach to integration.
This book considers social, economic and political dimensions of active citizenship, encompassing the development of social competences and social capital, civic and political participation and the skills related to the economy and labour market. The cross-national consideration of the notions of vulnerability, inclusion and active citizenship underpins the complexity of translating these concepts into the national contexts of adult education programmes.
About the author
Hanna Toiviainen is Professor of Adult Education at Tampere University, Finland. In the EduMAP project she worked as co-coordinator and contributed to the broad research on adult education in the EU. Her other research interests relate to work-based learning in interorganizational networks. Drawing on the concepts of cultural-historical activity theory she has developed analytical frameworks for multi-layered expansive learning in the contexts of work-life learning networks and global workplaces. Recent studies address both industrial cooperation and client orientation in public social and health care. She is the co-editor of Working and Learning in Times of Uncertainty: Challenges to Adult, Professional and Vocational Education published by Sense in 2015.
Pirkko Pitkänen is Professor Emerita at Faculty of Education and Culture , Tampere University, Finland. Her areas of expertise include transnational migration, cross-cultural work and multicultural training. She has extensive experience in leading large-scale international and national research projects. These include five EU Framework Projects (FP3; FP5; FP7; H2020). She has published widely in national and international fields. Among her international publications are Migration and Transformation: Multi-Level Analyses of Migrant Transnationalism (Springer 2012); Characteristics of Temporary Migration in European-Asian Transnational Social Spaces (Springer 2018); Temporary Migration, Transformation and Development (Routledge 2019)
George K. Zarifis is Associate Professor of Continuing Education in the Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His research interests focus on adult educators' training and professionalisation, university continuing education, and comparative examination of adult learning and vocational education and training policies and practices in Europe. He is the convener of the ESREA’s Research Network on the Professional Development of Adult Educators (ReNAdET). He publishes, edits and co-authors in the area of adult and continuing education, and participates in a large number of national and European research projects in the same field.
