A quick review of national and supranational policy documents reveals the increasing importance that is attributed to adult learning for promoting the well being of nations and individuals. The urgency of expanding adult learning to support economic growth and higher living standards has put the policy focus on how to better foster adults’ readiness to engage in learning. This has resulted in the development of major national and supranational policy driven surveys focusing on the extent and distribution of adult learning, the performance of adult education and training system and the affect of different policy levers on participation. Meanwhile, the contribution from the scholarly community to the new policy interest in adult learning has overwhelmingly consisted of critical discourse analyzes laying bare the economistic and neo-liberal underpinnings of recent policy initiatives. Judging from what has been published in the major scholarly journals over the last two decades there has, with a few notable exceptions, been very little interest from the scholarly community to engage with participation and barriers, two classical issues in the field. It is against this perspective that this paper briefly reviews the evidence on barriers and participation in adult education, and some of the defining parameters that may explain the observations. This is done using an international comparative perspective by contrasting results from the 1994-1998 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) as well as 2003 Eurobarometer data between Nordic and non-Nordic countries. An emphasis is placed on the constraining and enabling elements to participation and how these may explain why certain groups participate more or less than others. A theoretical perspective based on bounded agency is put forth to take account of the interaction between structurally and individually based barriers to participation. Our view is that the welfare state regimes can affect a person’s capability to participate. In particular, the state constructs the broad structural conditions relevant to participation and can support targeted policy measures that are aimed at overcoming both structurally and individually based barriers. It also supports the development of social consciousness and affects individual consciousness. Features of the Nordic model of adult education and empirical results from the 2003 Eurobarometer are discussed in relation to this theoretical perspective.

Multivariate analysis of two large comparative micro data sets: The International adult Literacy Survey and the Euro-baromether on lifelong learning

Provide some evidence that policy does matter provide a new model on participation in adult education