The TRANSIT think tank is a platform for developing and discussing perspectives for learning and adult education. In the newest trend report it ventures a look at the perspectives that flexibilisation opens up for the future of learning and adult education.
Last year TRANSIT focused on the topic of flexibilisation and discussed it in several events with the TRANSIT community. The latest trend report entitled “The more flexible – the better?” concludes the topic.
Flexibilisation: opportunities and challenges for adult education
In the first part, the report discusses flexibilisation trends from a theoretical and empirical perspective in the three areas of “life courses”, “world of work” and “sources of knowledge”. In a second part, the authors derive perspectives and pose questions that are intended to stimulate critical, in-depth reflection on the implications of flexibilisation trends for adult learning. For it already seems clear that while all perspectives offer opportunities, they also inflict many challenges.
For example, the consistent attention to meaningfulness and co-determination enables learners’ empowerment and can arouse additional interest in learning processes. At the same time, it also carries the risk of excluding people who have hardly any opportunities to practice meaningfulness and co-determination in their everyday and working lives and whom this perspective does accordingly not address.
Perspectives as a source of inspiration
The trend report addresses all interested readers who would like to reflect on social issues beyond the pressing challenges of everyday life and to ask themselves how the future of adult learning could look like. Ideally, the perspectives will inspire readers to draw on the potential of flexibilisation, to think more deeply about a wide range of adult education issues and to solve upcoming problems.