The role that adult education can play in supporting young adults with vulnerabilities

This chapter presents research findings on the communicative practices of adult education (AE) providers and young learners in situations of vulnerability, from 40 AE cases in 20 countries. The research was undertaken as part of the EduMAP project (Horizon 2020, 2016-2019) and serves to highlight the importance of communication practices in activating the potential of adult education to cultivate active citizenship amongst young people at risk of social exclusion. We introduce the Communicative Ecologies and Assemblages (CEA) framework (Tacchi et al. 2019) which is designed to help analyse the role of communication in AE and identify matches and mismatches with the communication practices of young adults. Built upon the two related concepts of communicative ecologies and communicative assemblages, the CEA framework can help to map current conditions and processes, to gather knowledge for an educational intervention, or to map progress and effects of a programme or intervention. We explore communication in two cases to illustrate some of our research findings, and to demonstrate the variety of communicative ecologies and assemblages that can be crafted by those experiencing vulnerability and precarity. Attending AE often leads to developing and pursuing goals and aspirations and engaging actively in society (e.g., Holford & Mleczko 2013; Jarvis 2012; Kersh et al 2021). Attention to information and communication helps identify both challenges and opportunities to improve outreach of adult education and engagement in AE for young people at risk of social exclusion.