Adult and continuing education and lifelong learning as lived experience: Diverse adults navigating educational opportunities.

This article presents a synthesis of ten research papers exploring diverse aspects of adult and continuing education and lifelong learning across global contexts. The studies examine informal learning in Thailand’s floating markets, online language education in China, international professional mobility, school dropout consequences in Greece, workforce upskilling for artificial intelligence in the UAE, professional skill decay among U.S. physical therapists, agricultural education’s disciplinary challenges in South Africa, faculty support’s impact on Korean adult learners, reading format preferences of professional actors, and critical andragogy within a prison–university partnership in the UK. Collectively, the research highlights the contextual nature of adult learning, the interplay between formal and informal education, the varied needs of adult learners, and the nuanced role of technology and pedagogy in supporting lifelong learning. These findings underscore the importance of flexible, evidence-based, and learner-centered approaches in adult education policy and practice. [Extracted from the article]