The context and the proposal

Adult educational practice doesn't adequately promote adult participation in VET in Latvia (OECD, 2019). One of the obstacles is the discrepancy between the offer provided by VET and the demand adults can accept. This issue is significant from an international perspective. Adult education professionals, working in formal or non-formal VET educational structures with diverse educative patterns and various professional practices, should be better equipped to meet the demands expressed by adult learners with fewer opportunities to combine education, training, employment, and family. Adult educators' mission is to mobilise the potential contribution of these learners to bring an alternative cultural perspective that would enrich all learners faced with many challenges in their personalised social and cultural life and work contexts and better support them all in a world that is increasingly diverse. This paper presents evidence from secondary analyses of low-educated and low-skilled adults who frequently struggle to maintain their lives, are disoriented in life and at work, and have low self-esteem.The secundary analysis of the interviews conducted in 2011–2015 in the framework of the Latvian National Research Program project "Identification and Analysis of New Challenges and Solutions that Have Influence on Engagement and Reintegration of Adults (18–24 years) in Lifelong Learning" funded by the ESF project "Support to Education Research" (sub-activity 1.2.2.3.2.), and in 2016–2019 in the Horizon 2020 project "Adult Education as a Means for Active Participatory Citizenship" (EduMAP Grant agreement ID: 693388), in relation to the research question: What are the key elements of classroom practice that could support adult learning in VET? The paper will discuss the kind of support adult educators need to ensure in order to provide confidence and hope to adult learners who might feel lost, misunderstood, or even abandoned by the VET formal or non-formal education system.

Conceptual framework

Increasingly, literature reviews (e.g., McFadden & Minns 2000) emphasize that young people have diverse needs. This has enabled a conceptual approach to addressing young people's unmet needs and recognizing the diversity in their experiences (e.g., Stokes 2000), which has made a significant contribution to a holistic, inclusive approach (Dwyer et al., 1998) in transnational perspective and particularly in Latvian education practice (Lieginiece, 1999).

Several psychological studies have been conducted in recent years, with Downes (2014) mapping them with a holistic approach that "addresses why people are reluctant to engage in education and training" (p.4) investigated in the context of the need to implement a new holistic structural system of preventive measures. Based on Burkhart (2004), Downes's (2014) holistic inclusive approach implies three interconnected sub-systems: 1) universal sub-systems apply to broad educational and community-wide systems for all VET learners; 2) selective sub-systems target learners at risk of early school leaving and early school-leavers with a high potential for re-entry to VET; and 3) indicates specialized, individualized sub-systems for learners at high risk of early school leaving, chronic needs, or multiple risk factors.According to Downes (2014), recognizing a range of needs of the individual that are not just academic and professional (particularly in dual VET practice), has to be mentioned. Following this argument, the multi-faceted nature of the super-diversity of learning needs in this paper is understood as diverse combinations of self-confidence, mental health, sleep, relationships with teachers and peers, and assumed connection with the individual's life, relevance for life and work, emotions, and relationships (social and emotional).

Methodology The evidence on the reasons of 18–24 year old youths for leaving school early (1.objective) was explored using the methodology of "perspective discrepancy assessment" on early school leaving. The theoretical basis for exploring the reasons for leaving school early is built on the "organizational concept of perspective" developed by Mezirow (1981), which consists of three components: 1) a definition of the situation one is in, why one is in it, and what one can do to get out of it; 2) the activities that it is proper and reasonable to engage in, given the situation; and 3) "criteria" of judgment value against which people are judged, developed in the notion of "perspective discrepancy assessment" (p.144-145). An objective hermeneutic analysis approach (Wernet, 2009) in favour of the NET youth 18–26 judgments as the creators of real VET practice and research subjects was chosen. The researcher was tasked with developing a category system using "open coding," which reveals the conceptual framework of the support adult educators must provide to adult learners who may feel lost, misunderstood, or even abandoned by the VET formal or non-formal education system (2.objective).Two hermeneutic analysis strategies were used for this purpose: empathy and assumption formulation. In the first cycle of hermeneutic analysis, the possibility of software word analysis of the judgments was used to understand the judgment as close as possible to the text (word codes). The second strategy revealed what was meant by the "open coding" judgment in the second cycle of analysis (content codes). In the third cycle of the analysis, a meta-code system was created. To provide answers to the research questions posed in this paper (3.objective), "What are the key elements of classroom practice that could support adult learning in VET?", the statements were coded (Saldaa, 2016), particular codes analysed, meta-codes created and added to the texts, a meta-codes analysis table was created and implicants determined for minimisation using AQUAD 7 Qualitative Comparative Analyses (QCA) options (Huber & Gürtler, 2012) to inspect the properties of sufficient and necessary conditions in a data frame, most notably, of minimally sufficient and necessary conditions that appear in cases (Benoît & Ragin, 2008, 63-68; Baumgartner & Thiem, 2015, p. 6).

Findings The findings of the study reveal the "resistance theorists' perspective" (students react to the form rather than the substance of schooling) (Harshman, 2013), confirmed by evidence of "young adults and their educators' voice" (there are differences between young adults and adult educators' expressions) and suggest changes in organization, processes, and didactic design as key elements of schooling culture that seem to speak well for this argument: 1) Important aspects of school organization The thoughts of 18–24-year-olds and teachers on how teaching should be organized are in contradiction. According to teachers, peer learning in group work is an important condition for achieving learning results. 18-24 year old adults favor "learning in dialogue" technology, preferring to learn from experienced, life-wise people, most of whom are teachers. 2) Key elements of the process of schooling The findings of the study reveal that a productive classroom experience is almost always related to positive emotional well-being and is frequently affected by social well-being. 3) Crucial didactic design elements Guiding the learning classes towards understanding subject topics in a way that helps the students to clarify their thinking and participation in productive dialogue encourages adults to explore new knowledge. A sense of belonging and a sense of trust or confidence since their own point of view is acknowledged by others helps to develop a sense of collaboration that leads to understanding fundamental concepts and the ability to describe the ways to test and apply the created knowledge and develop solutions that can be applied in practice.  Conclusion Key elements of classroom practice affect youth's attitudes toward learning and, in turn, their behaviors. All of this means that the analytical results of the current two studies will be of interest to a wide range of VET stockholders where the value of adult learning is central.

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