Reconsidering Open and Distance Higher Education: A Life-History Analysis of Adult Learners in Korea National Open University

Becoming a competent self: A developmental process of adult distance learning

“…Other research reaches similar conclusions from rather different argumentation. Joo's (2014a;2014b) works, for example, reveal the complex and multi-level contradictions existing between aspects of adult learners' personal lives, the institutional offerings of DE universities, and the broader societies to which both learners and institutions belong and with which they interact. By illustrating the vulnerability of adult learners as social and cultural beings strongly influenced (though not controlled) by external factors, Joo's works effectively challenge some of the artificially-drawn distinctions between children as non-autonomous beings and adults as autonomous beings.…”

“…One of the most salient discourses about adult students in DE contexts highlights how they seek to gain 'second opportunities' to access university education (Brändle, 2016;Joo, 2013a;Joo, 2014b;May & Bunn, 2015;Nair & Hindle, 2016). That is, a large number of researchers portray adults enrolling in open universities as nontraditional students who have missed out on earlier opportunities to attend traditional campus-based universities: often because of the limitations of the social, cultural, or economic capital that they or their family possessed (Brändle, 2016).…”

“…Although it is true that many open universities, including KNOU, suffer from relatively low institutional rankings; that there is a prevailingly negative perception about the pedagogical quality of many DE programmes; and that there is a lack of social recognition of university degrees from open universities (see Joo, 2014a;2014b), the accounts of participants do suggest that there is a high level of respect for those who have 'made it': "everyone who knows how hard it is to get a degree from KNOU, values this degree and I do. I am one of them" said Participant H.…”