This presentation provides a brief overview of qualitative and quantitative cross-national patterns and trends associated with Adult Learning Systems (ALS). We consider the dynamics of institutional design/redesign of ALS in post-industrial market democracies over the last three decades, which can be discerned from 15 country case studies (Desjardins and Kalenda, in press 2025). In emphasising both shared trends and country specific variations, our analysis reveals a simultaneous presence of both converging and diverging tendencies. Converging tendencies constitute some basic elements which we think underlie a set of configurations which we call Late Modern ALS. These elements characterize the governance, provision and financing structures underlying ALS at a synthetic level of analysis. Diverging tendencies are also observed with respect to national models of coordination and governance, including variations in provision and financing, underscoring the importance of studying institutional variation. The latter follow from context specificities and not least institutional histories along with the path dependency these imply. In addition to patterns observed from the qualitative case studies, we provide some preliminary findings on trends in cross-national patterns associated with participation in organized adult learning, which we derive from the 2022-23 OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey data in combination with its predecessor studies in 2012-16 and the 1994-1998 International Adult Literacy Survey. Together, these data enable an overview of participation patterns over the last three decades on the basis of high quality comparative data which are representative of adult populations.

Desjardins, R., & Kalenda, J. (in press, 2025). Modern Guide to Adult Learning Systems. Edward Elgar.