Conference Program

This contribution aims to propose a project for the design of an education course on affectivity and sexuality for adults with intellectual disabilities. If, on the one hand, there are international
guidelines that recognize sexuality as an inalienable right common to all people; on the other hand, it is also true that, although there is a lot of talk about the combination of sexuality and disability, in Italy there are few pedagogical practices inherent to the topic in question and contextual. At a national level, the need emerges to build and consolidate a network of transdisciplinary professionals and educational services who experiment and disseminate theories and good practices regarding affectivity and sexuality education projects in the field of disability. However, as often happens, targets of the projects are not included among the actors,
creating top-down projects. Instead, in the socio-health district of Ventimiglia, we want to use the participatory logic of health promotion, based on agency and empowerment. This project was born as part of the experience of a curricular training internship of a pedagogist training for the 1st level inter-university Master's degree in "Health promotion, community development and operational networks. Planning, management, evaluation of integrated health promotion and
salutogenesis actions" at the University of Cagliari. Therefore, it is essential to understand the perception and point of view of adults with intellectual disabilities, who are social actors who
co-participate in the construction of an affectivity and sexuality education project based on their needs. For this reason, it is necessary to actively involve other social actors: on the one hand
the family members of adults with intellectual disabilities and on the other hand social and health workers such as educators, psychologists, social workers, pedagogists and social health workers, coordinators and managers of educational services. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) foresees the opening of two Residential Centers for people with intellectual disabilities: the aim is to accompany parents, reference adults and social and
health workers involved in a common cultural vision with respect to the possible inherent educational needs affectivity and sexuality.

The project, which has a total duration of three years, with short-term (1 year apart) and long-term objectives, aims to encourage the active participation of: parents in order to build and strengthen the educational alliance and have a common project direction, listening to perplexities, fears and doubts through participatory methods aimed at problematization (Focus Group, Self-Mutual Help Group and Phylosophy for Community); operators of the socio-health team of the Ventimiglia district, to have adequate knowledge relating to the themes of affectivity and sexuality and build practical and planning skills, using needs analysis, monitoring and ex post evaluation tools available from international scientific literature; people with intellectual disabilities for a bottom-up planning vision, involving them starting from the definition of needs and objectives
up to the co-construction of the units of the sexuality education path through participatory and laboratory methodologies, in order to expand and disseminate experiences and evidence with social actors and bodies from neighboring districts.

This paper examines the impact of the Erasmus+ programme on the adult education (AE) system in Slovenia, its organisations, the professional development of adult educators, and on adult learners participating in Erasmus+ mobility exchanges from equality perspective. Majority of scholars emphasised that the European Union (EU) strengthened primarily economic, instrumental, and vocational perspective on AE (e.g., Rasmussen, 2014; Mikulec, 2018; Holford & Milana, 2023), although with present concern for social inclusion as well (Holford & Milana, 2023; Wildemeersch et al., 2023). However, there is a lack of research addressing the Erasmus+ programme, “an EU flagship policy” (European Parliament, 2023), in the field of AE, its conceptualization addressing equality issues – i.e., non-vocational AE, which aims to promote solidarity, equity and inclusion, diversity, tolerance, intercultural awareness, democratic participation by providing learning opportunities for (disadvantaged groups of) learners and institutional development of AE providers (European Commission, 2018, 2023) – and its impact (through funding) on AE in Member States. Therefore, we explore what might be considered “a non-vocational Cedefop” (Holford, 2016) EU AE and its impact Slovenia.

Theoretically, our discussion draws on studies exploring (1) European governance in AE (e.g., Field, 2018; Milana et al., 2020), as well (2) equality debate in education (Lynch & Lodge, 2002). (1) The EU as intergovernmental organisation promote certain discourses of AE and stimulate policy transfer. Although AE’s policies do not have legal implications for member states, they are exercised and supported through “soft law”, various governance mechanisms, and policy instruments (Milana & Klatt, 2020). These include various funding programmes (e.g., Erasmus+; see CEU, 2021), which can be understood as the EU’s most effective instrument for policy transfer to European countries (Mikulec, 2021; cf. Jakobi, 2012; Portnoi, 2016). (2) As shown by Lynch and Lodge (2002), inequality in (adult) education and achieving greater social justice in AE is related to addressing “3Rs” issues: redistribution (inequalities arising from socio-economic distribution of goods and resources), recognition (inequalities arising from status differentiations) and representation (inequalities arising from power relations).

The impact of Erasmus+ from equality perspective is analysed at three levels: macro (policy, funding, governance), meso (curricula, professional staff development, quality assurance) and micro (basic skills of learners, learning opportunities and self-confidence). We use mixed methods research (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) that includes both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data, targeting all AE organisations involved in Erasmus+ learning mobility (KA1) and partnership (KA2) projects during 2018-2023, were collected through online survey. Qualitative data were collected through: (1) document analysis of existing sources (database of Erasmus+ project results); (2) 5 focus group interviews with selected AE organisations involved in Erasmus+; (3) 12 interviews with adult learners involved in mobility exchange; and (4) 4 interviews with decision-makers.

This work is in progress, but we anticipate that it will contribute to knowledge creation by highlighting (1) the key organisations that provide nonvocational AE; (2) knowledge acquired by professionals and learners; (3) capacity development of AE organisations; (4) policy development and change; and (5) contribution of Erasmus+ towards fulfilling “3Rs” and challenging inequality.

Despite some valuable studies (Williams, 2011; Riddell et al., 2012; Francois, 2014; Tuckett, 2015; Boyadjieva & Ilieva-Trichkova 2017, 2020; Wildemeersch et al., 2023), the social justice implications related to adult education have still not been systematically or thoroughly discussed. That is why, albeit acknowledging the growing interest towards social justice in adult education, some authors point out that there is continuing uncertainty about the manifestations of social justice in the field of adult education (Johnson-Bailey et al. 2010). In addition, the research on adult education from social justice perspectives focuses mainly on social inclusion/exclusion through adult education and different individual factors, influencing it, such as class, gender, age, race and disability (Wildemeersch et al., 2023; Merrill & Fejes, 2019).

In turn, there is also a substantial body of literature which focuses on social cohesion (Chan & Chan, 2006; Schiefer & van der Noll, 2017; Leininger et al., 2021). The present paper makes an original attempt to adopt a macro perspective and explore the relationship between social justice in adult education and social cohesion.

Theoretically, the analysis is based on understanding of both social justice in adult education and social cohesion as multidimensional phenomena. More concretely, social cohesion is defined as the state of interactions among members of society as revealed by a set of dominant attitudes and acts such as trust, connections and engagement with others, activism in favour of society, and sense of belonging. Regarding social justice, the paper defines different dimensions of social justice in adult education and focuses on equity as capturing inequalities in adult education participation caused by adults’ level of educational attainment.

Empirically, our study is made up of country-level data drawn from the official statistics and the European Social Survey (ESS Round 10, 2020). Using available data for 22 European countries, we have calculated three indexes: equity index for adult education, index of equality of participation in adult education and social cohesion index.

The index of equality of participation is calculated as the ratio between the predicted probabilities of participating in adult education for people aged 25–64 with low and medium-level educational degrees and those of adults (25–64) with higher education, multiplied by 100.

The equity index for adult education represents the ratio between the percentage of all people aged 25 to 64 years possessing higher education degrees in a given country and the percentage of all adults with higher education among those who participated in adult education in the previous 12 months.

The social cohesion index is comprised of 14 indicators grouped in the following dimensions: trust, social activism, connection and engagement to others, and sense of belonging.

By using correlation analysis, our preliminary results reveal a positive relationship between social justice in adult education participation and the overall index of social cohesion and some of its dimensions. Thus, the paper turns attention to the role of adult education for the development of society beyond its economic growth and to the need for developing policies which acknowledge and stimulate this contribution.

The transformations occurred in the last decades have increased social and territorial inequalities and the policies implemented by the relevant institutions do not seem to have succeeded in reversing this trend. The proposed contribution focuses on the vocational education and training (hereinafter “VET) policies aimed at young people, which calls into question the role of the Regions and Autonomous Provinces, especially after the constitutional reform of 2001.

Over the last twenty years, regional VET policies for young people, mostly financially supported by the European programmes, have been attempting to restore the image and attractiveness of the sector by giving it a national and strong identity based on quality, in the light of the ever-stronger competition exercised by the national education system. The broader regional autonomy gained on a regulatory level kicked off a season of closer cooperation among them, which has given impetus to a deep transformation of the VET provision: the establishment of IeFP paths at upper secondary level, the introduction of IFTS and ITS at post-secondary level, the renewal of apprenticeships from a European perspective. All these measures are finding lieu for integration at a national level within the proposal to establish the technical-vocational training channel.

Following a supply-side approach, the proposed contribution investigates the reasons that make VET unattractive for NEETs by focusing on a policy measure of renewal of overall apprenticeships and specifically aimed at introducing a dual apprenticeship inspired by the German model. Originated with the general objective of combating school dropout and promoting youth employment, pursuing as a corollary the fight against the phenomenon of NEETs, the operational translation of the measure does not currently seem to achieve until now the desired results in terms of participation of young people and businesses.

The available data seems to highlight a context in which the dual apprenticeship becomes an element of amplification of social inequalities, combining the selection power exercised by the school system with that practised by the labour market. Such result finds a confirmation in the study of the evolution trajectories of other European countries (D'Agostino, Vaccaro, 2021), which examined the transformations undertaken in Germany, France and England in recent decades in order to maintain the attractiveness and increase the perceived quality of the dual systems.

Moreover, the results of the implementation of the dual apprenticeship seem to widen the territorial gaps, whereby the financial resources allocated for its implementation benefit more the already stronger areas, where school dropout is less relevant, the labour market is much more dynamic ensuring a smooth transition to young people. These results are rooted both in the structural differences that underlie the existing territorial gaps, whose reasons are as endogenous as exogenous to the training system, and in the inability to define a policy design capable of combining the pursuit of a unitary national objective with the flexibility which is needed to give space to an adequate territorial declination which might prevent the widening of existing gaps.

This paper examines the impact of the Erasmus+ programme on adult learning and education in social justice and soxial inclusion in Portugal.

The discussion on adult learning and education policies at the European Union has stressed lifelong learning guidelines, aims relating to economic purposes and the social dimension of adult learning and education as a social and employment policy issue (Lima & Guimarães, 2011; Rasmussen, 2014; Mikulec, 2018; Holford & Milana, 2023). However, few research has been developed on Erasmus+ Adult Education and fewer are directed to describe and debate (non-formal) adult learning and education practices deriving from projects funded and their impact on the meso level (in terms of organisational issues) and micro level (in what concerns staff and learners) (Guilherme, 2022; Vieira & Silva, 2020).

Social justice and in specific social inclusion have been a policy concepts in which several policies are based on. Social incluision was at first related to the enhancement of participation of disabled persons through educational initiatives. Later policies enlarged their scope, including very different domains. Social inclusion became a significant arenas for the promotion of social justice.

Adult learning and education have over the last decades been active in these domains. In many practices developed promoting social justice by fighting social exclusion has been a significant goal as well as to support the (economic, social, cultural, civic, ecological and political) participation of vulnerable individuals and groups in society . These practices can be linked to different theoretical approaches (Morrow & Torres, 1995; Schreiber-Barsch, 2018).

However, the debate on social justice and social inclusion needs to be reassessed, in particular when it comes to the humanistic, emancipatory and democratic character of social inclusion programs, such as the Erasmus+.

After a request made by the Portuguese national agency of Erasmus+, the impact of Erasmus+ (2018-2022) in portugal is analysed at the meso level pf funded organisations and at the micro level of adult learners and educators. The analysis at the meso and micro levels are linked to the macro level of lifelong learning policies and guidelines of the European Union and their impact on national level, namely in Portugal.

Data were collected from a quantitative online survey to organisations funded. Qualitative data were also collected deriving from semi structured interviews with organisation-responsible staff, adult learning and education staff and adult learners. Document analysis of existing sources (database of Erasmus+ project results, final participant and project reports provided by the National Agency) was also considered (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).

This study started in September 2023 and is in progress. However, data collected up until now allows the debate on (1) organisations involved in non-formal adult learning and education funded by the Erasmus+ program (2018-2022); (2) main topics addressed by these organisations; (3) knowledge and competencies developed by adult learning and education staff and adult learners; (4) characteristics of the adults involved in the different projects activities . The interpetation of data will be made following theoretical debates on social justice and social inclusion.