citizenship

Research and community-based learning against rural shrinking
The KiNESIS project shows how research can change the course of rural shrinking. It also shows the value of real-life experience of students and the transformative power of communities.

What role can companies play in civic education?
As political trust wanes and populism rises, there are calls for Europe’s corporate sector to step up. The Civic Scouts at Work programme empowers employees to promote democracy through civic education in corporate training. Can corporate social responsibility help adult learners cope with policy changes in Europe?

Collective practices: Inclusion in public spaces
Who has the power to create public spaces? Educators and architects reveal how empty, abandoned spaces can be filled with life and what popular education has to do with it.

Work opportunities for people with disabilities
An EU project produces learning videos to increase employers’ willingness and ability to hire people with disabilities. The main target group are small and medium-sized companies.

Power and joy at the core of EAEA’s new Manifesto for Adult Learning
“The manifesto tells policy makers: Listen, this is what we can do. Adult education is not one small area, but a holistic way of learning and supporting people and communities,” says Gina Ebner, Secretary General of the EAEA.

How to cultivate the Finnish learning concept of ‘sivistys’
In Finland, 2024 marks the year of 'sivistys', a wide-ranging concept that encompasses education, a broad base of knowledge, and much more. We ask two of Finland’s leading thinkers, Kristiina Brunila and Sixten Korkman, to elaborate.

Adult education and civil society organisations: Learning spaces in times of democratic turbulence
Nils-Eyk Zimmermann, in his column, argues that adult education addressing civic competence and active citizenship should be better supported. According to him, civil society organizations play a key role in bringing about social change and solving problems in societies.

Making health literacy everyone’s business: How Ireland got adult and health literacy on the government agenda
Helen Ryan, in her column, tells how a crucial strategy by the new government played a vital role in prioritising health literacy on the national agenda in Ireland. According to her, the most successful way to promote health literacy issues among health professionals was by telling about people’s lived experience. Data and statistics were important, but it was the human stories that resonated the most.

Ukraine: Overcoming the war with adult education
Adult education institutions in Ukraine have chosen to continue their fundamental educational tasks, even under the extreme conditions of war. “They face the challenge of maintaining regular teaching activities but also ensuring that protective measures are in place for learners and staff,” says Tetyana Hoggan-Kloubert from the University of Augsburg in Germany in her interview with ELM Magazine.

Nordic view: Peace as a prerequisite to gender equality and human rights
Polarisation is an obstacle to peace and equality, but lifelong learning can play a key role in reducing it, says Prof. Ólafur Páll Jónsson of the University of Iceland’s School of Education.