Ideas for further study and co-operation2

Group 2
The group started by thinking of the similarities in the non-formal adult education between the Nordic countries knowing that it is not easy to find them because of different concepts and practices. There are concepts used like liberal / popular / non-formal / non-vocational / edifying / civilizing and cultivating education.

It was asked if there is a Nordic tradition of adult education, but some members of a group have found that there may not be even a shared tradition in one country or in one form of adult education. It may be difficult to find words for the every-day work and practices even with colleagues let alone explaining them to others.

It is time to start sharing ideas between the forms of adult education in one country and between the Nordic countries.

It is also important to collect people together for example in the conferences to talk to each other and share cases and support the networking that way.

We already have networks like MIMER in the University of Linköping, Folkbildningsrådet in Sweden, VSY and ATS in Finland and Folkhögskolerådet, NFR. Students doing their master´s and doctoral theses, that is often small-scale research with cases, need to be connected, too.

The discussing and sharing cases with other researchers should have a continuation as basic historizating and comparative research and senior researchers should also be involved in this. By means of working together, arguments about the similarities and traditions in adult education could be made.

It is a problem in the working culture of the school-like universities and departments that teachers and researchers don´t have a responsibility to share ideas with the students and collaborate with them writing together for example. More important than this kind of activity seems to be to get students to finish their studies quickly so that the university will get the money off.

(Notes by Sini Teräsahde.)