One of the most often repeated goals in modern society is making education available to all on equal terms, regardless of social origin, culture or individual characteristics such as age, gender or the socio-economic status of an individual. However, in relation to gender inequality within learning environments, in the Czech Republic the traditional roles of men and women are still deeply inscribed. The results of the present study are primarily based on an Adult Education Survey which provides high quality data on the participation rates of the Czech population in formal and non-formal adult learning and education (ALE). Despite equal gender participation rates in ALE, the presented findings show that men participate more in job-related training and job-related purposes, while women manage domestic tasks, a situation which reflects the predominance of women in part-time employment, earning a lower monthly income and obtaining less work-related learning. This socio-economic profile influences not only women’s income but also affects their access to education and becomes the main barrier in the concrete form of family-related responsibilities and costs. Moreover, for women more personal-related learning has been shown to predominate as opposed to job-related education.

Digitisation of social life is one of the most profound social processes that change the nature of current societies (Castells, 2009; McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2017). Part of this large-scale transfor...

Participation in non-formal adult education (NFE) is considered an essential part of lifelong learning, aiming to foster the development of individuals and societies. This significance is particularly evident today, given the era of extensive digitalization and disruptive technological advances. Nevertheless, not all adults participate in organized learning and have equal chances. Therefore, this study addresses the absence of up-to-date comparative findings on participation in NFE in the post-COVID-19 world. To this end, we examine current trends in NFE participation in four European countries: Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic (RQ1), where we explore the impact of key micro (social and behavioral), meso (job-related), and macro-level (country-specific) factors on this participation (RQ2). Our findings indicate that NFE participation remained relatively stable in 2022 compared to 2016, except for Sweden and Germany, which achieved higher participation rates. However, differences in participation between countries are diminishing. Simultaneously, NFE participation is becoming increasingly job-oriented and receives more support from employers. However, it is important to note that inequality in access to NFE persists, as the main predictors of NFE participation, such as learning intentions, educational attainment, economic and occupational status, remain consistent, regardless of the participants’ economic activity and country of birth. This underscores the enduring significance of a key concept behind this study: the willingness to engage in organized NFE exhibits a complex structure with multiple layers.

Students' uses of metacognitive reading strategies are an important part of effective learning during university studies. Universities may place varied emphasis on the use of different strategy types, and the students employ them accordingly. A purpose of this study was to examine the use of analytic and pragmatic reading strategies by university students from a cross-cultural perspective. Data were collected about students pursuing education study programmes in four Central European countries, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic (n = 2692), with the assumption of finding convergent results. Another purpose of this study was to examine the association between students' ratings of the metacognitive reading strategies and their demographic and academic characteristics. The research instrument was the Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire translated into the national languages of students. Generally, the study confirmed similar results among the participating universities. The closest are the findings about the dominance of pragmatic metacognitive reading strategies over the analytic ones, no difference between the genders in the rating of analytic strategies and a female preference for pragmatic strategies. Other demographic and academic characteristics did not demonstrate such strong converging tendencies among universities in the rating of metacognitive learning strategies as gender, but they contributed in creating a complex picture of university students' learning.

Despite the increasing pace of technological change and digitalisation of workplaces, low-educated workers continue to participate in non-formal adult education (NFE) to a significantly lesser degree than do other workers. At the same time, low-educated workers also face many other barriers to participation. One key question related to their non-participation is what role the different types of perceived barriers play. Based on an earlier investigation, we have identified dispositional, situational, and institutional barriers to non-participation in NFE. The aim of the present two-step empirical research is to determine the structure (first step) and occurrence (second step) of these barriers in low-educated workers. For this purpose, we have used the specially developed research tool Non-Participation in Non-formal Education Questionnaire (NP-NFE-Q). Based on this validated tool, we have done a two-step empirical investigation on representative sample of low-educated workers from the Czech Republic that shows the strength of situational barriers related to the workplace, and distinguishes individual groups of non-participants through a cluster analysis. The results expand knowledge in the field of adult education and offer practical implications towards the higher participation of low-educated workers in NFE.