Adult education and training in Portugal: a multi-case study focused on autobiographical experiences

Abstract

In our actual framework of constant social and cultural changing, we are witnessing a transformation of the adults’ patterns and pathways of life. Currently, people’s lives cannot be analyzed using a macro‐perspective, marked by partitioning phases, but the various stages we undergo from childhood to the third age are being overlapped and this is reflected with particular relevance in the field of learning, where the notion of lifelong learning is present in our personal, social and professional everyday contexts. In Portugal, the New Opportunities Initiative is building new and innovative education and training pathways, which privilege the autobiographical methods, where adults, from their life stories, are challenged to resort to new ways of valuing their experiences, potentiating the acquisition of new skills, in a logic of personal, social and professional empowerments. This formative/training logic has shown to be the promoter of a growing autonomy from the adults. We will present, here, the qualitative multi‐case study we are developing in this area, which is centered on adults’/professionals’ autobiographies and focuses on the understanding of adult education, lifelong learning and on the analysis of the mediation figures associated with them.