Examining the “Weak Field” of Adult Education

Vratký triumf: vývoj účasti na neformálním vzdělávání dospělých v České republice v letech 1997 až 2016

“…(1) Neustálé komparativní analýzy, která původně vychází ze základních analytických postupů "zakotvené teorie" [Glasser & Strauss, 1967] a dodnes tvoří skelet její poznávací strategie [Clarke, 2005] Schuller, 1999;Elfert & Rubenson, 2019]. Až mnohem později, po roce 2000, jsou jedním z nástrojů vládnutí skrze čísla, na jejichž základě jsou organizovány politické agendy některých států a mezinárodních organizací, které předepisují politicky závazné normy účasti na celoživotním vzdělávání [Grek, 2008].…”

The business of teaching: Vocational educators’ experiences of marketization reforms

“…The vocational education and training (VET) sector has been a regular target for government reform, as it lacks autonomy from external influences. Rubenson and Elfert (2019) characterize the sector as a weak field due to it being 'deeply interwoven with neighbouring fields' (Vauchez, 2011, p. 342), lacking a central focus in terms of identity and being too entangled with the field of politics. Its relative lack of autonomy is often contrasted in the literature to that of higher education, which is used as illustrative of a field more impervious to external influence (Billett, 2014;Jamieson & Naidoo, 2004;Wheelahan, 2015).…”

“…Sometimes these categories of students overlap and sometimes they do so in the same program and the same classroom or learning site (Wheelahan, 2010). Based on this diversity of both teachers and students it can be misleading to understand the sector as homogenous, with this fragmentation within the field resulting in diverse ways of working across the field (Krarup & Munk, 2014;Rubenson & Elfert, 2019).…”

Establishing the adult learning sciences through a shared scientific attitude: A vision for the Future

“…By this we refer to a seeming inability of the field to respond to the needs of adult education practitioners and the policy community. (Rubenson & Elfert, 2019, p. 9)…”

“…Might it be the epistemological and methodological turn the field took toward interpretivism and small‐scale qualitative research in the 1980s (Daley et al., 2018; St. Pierre, 2006)? Or maybe it is the field's continued lack of interest in research with implications for the practice and policy of the field (Dean, 1999; Roessger, 2017; Rose, 2011; Rubenson & Elfert, 2019)?…”