| Kurzbeschreibung |
During the last two decades, widening adult participation in higher education has become a central issue in international and especially European lifelong learning policy debates. At European level this is reflected in the Europe 2020 strategy set out by the European Commission. One headline target is to boost the share of the population aged 30–34 that has completed tertiary or equivalent education to 40 per cent by 2020. In the face of general trends such as the intensive use of ICT, the evolution of knowledge-based economies, changes in labor markets and employment structures, demographic ageing and increased migration dynamics, the need to provide adults (also) with high level possibilities to acquire knowledge and qualification, to update and to enhance their skills throughout their lives has become obvious. Opening higher education to adult learners or so-called ‘non-traditional’ students is seen as crucial in this context. However, pertinent research proves that in many higher education institutions in the European countries there is still a discrepancy between the envisaged change and the empirical development. Given this situation, there is an emerging need for theoretically and/or empirically based explanatory models. Recent research results will be presented in this issue. Yet another issue on this topic will be forthcoming in late 2015.
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