Learner-Centred Education for Adult Migrants in Europe: A Critical Comparative Analysis

Learner-Centred Education for Adult Migrants in Europe: A Critical Comparative Analysis contributes to the field of Adult Education by investigating the ways in which Learner-Centred Education (LCE) is being enacted, implemented or neglected in specific settings.

The book addresses the lack of research on how LCE is used in adult education as a tool for social change across different national contexts. This comparative approach is crucial for exploring the complex global, regional, national and local dynamics that account for varying implementations (or non-implementations) of LCE in different settings, for appreciating the thin or wide differences in practices of implementation, and for assessing the successes, failures and needs for improvement of diverse LCE programmes. The book’s primary focus on migration as a social process, and migrants as active citizens is useful in unravelling the convergences and divergences of different national and urban settings where migrant adult learners live as citizens, or as non-citizens, and how this intersects with their experiences as learners.

This research is contextualised in a larger political context. What emerges from the parting reflection is a European scenario marked by ambivalent and contradictory relations with migrants, and an educational intervention that is located somewhere between the assimilationist-integrationist dialectic. The four cases presented (Estonia, Malta, Scotland and Cyprus) generally respond to the learners’ needs on the ground while rarely problematising the ideological stance of the state in relation to the educational plight of migrants. The final chapter introduces and elaborates on a new concept, Emancipatory LCE, to help generate a deeper analysis.

Maria N. Gravani, Ph.D. (2003), University of Bristol, is Associate Professor of Adult/Continuing Education at the Open University of Cyprus. Her research has focused on the teaching and learning of adults as a means of individual empowerment and social change, and professionalisation of adult educators.

Bonnie Slade, Ph.D. (2008), University of Toronto, is a Professor in Adult Education at the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, and Programme Leader of the International Masters in Adult Education for Social Change (Erasmus Mundus).