What is Comparative Learnology

The chapter discusses how globalization has affected institutional changes in adult education. In the background it introduces first the necessary definitions and presuppositions for the analysis of both adult education and globalization, and second, it highlights the underpinnings of the changes in adult education and learning in the last decades. The main thrust of the chapter deals with three main issues that relate adult education and globalization: first, the importance of contexts, systems and trends in changing adult education under the age of globalization; second, the relation between globalization and adult education and lifelong learning policies; and thirdly, the case of lifelong learning policies in the European Union is presented as an example of supra-national continental economic and political integration on national policies. Finally, after pointing to several future research directions, some concluding remarks are offered.