Abstract
This chapter explores what it means to have a career in adult education through the narratives of six adult educators in England and New Zealand who are at different stages in their work lives. Their stories exemplify some of the challenges to the notion of a career in adult education – the haphazard nature of entry into the field, the opportunities and difficulties of portfolio or contingent working and the uncertainty and disillusion faced by adult educators as they contemplate the future.
I feel like a Polar Bear sitting on an iceberg which is slowly melting. My environment is being slowly whittled away, and what’s left of it is not enough to make a living. I’m virtually unemployed in a sense.
(Carla, England, part-time adult educator and volunteer, 30 years plus)
I think the first point I’d make is that it’s definitely a non-career.
(Imogen, New Zealand, part-time adult educator and volunteer, 30 years plus)
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Notes
- 1.
Principles and ideas informed by a Māori world view.
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Bowl, M. (2017). A ‘Non-career’: Occupational Identities and Career Trajectories. In: Adult Education in Neoliberal Times. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50883-2_6
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