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The aim of this paper is to explore the historical representations of adulthood, citizenship and the ideal social bonds of an individual and the society in the transforming moral orders of Finnish adult education. The research is based on a thematic reading of data, which consist of texts written during the past 150 years by theorists of adult education. In regard to the outcome of the analysis, it can be claimed that the definitions and relations, which define adult education / lifelong learning, adult individuals, citizenship and the society, are in perpetual motion transforming from spiritual determination to material determination and back. As a conclusion, we claim that adult education / lifelong learning is a morally regulated field of study, where morality is adapted to any social changes at any given time, marginalising social groups on moral grounds; from lack of spiritual aspirations to lack of employability skills and with a wrong attitude towards the ideals of neo-liberal economics in present-day society. The main result of our analysis is to address the importance of understanding the main logics of historical change in adult education.

The invasion of managerialism in universities has changed the prerequisites for academic work. Decision making and control over academic work based on the expertise of academics have declined; in turn, managers have gained more decision-making power. Our study's target group comprises academics representing educational sciences in two Finnish universities, where large managerialist reforms have been carried out. We explore how the academics positioned themselves towards the new management system based on managerialism. In the analysis of our qualitative work welfare survey data, we applied a narrative-discursive approach. The positionings traced in the analysis ranged from resistance to managerialism to desire for strong management. The new management system was regarded as problematic because it was perceived as neglecting traditional academic ideals. We conclude that increased managerial control, accompanied by many administrative duties, may disturb the basic work of academics and therefore decrease the quality of research and teaching in universities.

The article focuses on the struggles over ethos in academic adult education tradition that grows from the frameworks of student generations in Finnish adult education. It brings together elements of present-day analysis and historically sensitizing memory data on generations of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. My interest here lies in how the rhetoric of lifelong learning and education has revised the basic assumptions of adult education. The data suggest that the dominant narrative of adult education is increasingly the discourse of marketization. Finnish present-day student generations seem to have lost their intrinsic connections with the Scandinavian traditions of popular enlightenment and the values of equality and basic logics enabling 'second chances' for all adult citizens within the Nordic welfare state. One of the results of the analysis was the following question: Should we reinvent adult education again from the standpoint of sustainable development of 'ordinary people'?

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