Editorial

This is my final contribution as Editor of Studies. After six years I step down to make way for Miriam Zukas from the University of Leeds, UK (m.zukas@leeds.ac.uk). In my first Editorial in 1998, I referred to a journal being like a super-tanker, as it has its own momentum and trajectory. To slow it down or move in new directions is not easy. Nor has it proved, although I am pleased at the way in which Studies has become more international, more diverse in terms of the theoretical perspectives embraced and a little broader in terms of the range of contexts for adult education and lifelong learning that we examine. This edition illustrates this well.

Producing a journal is a collective endeavour. A journal relies on prospective authors submitting their research and scholarship, peers giving of their time to referee submissions, book reviewers, a Board to steer the overall direction of the journal, a readership and, of course, a patient publisher. The final text, such as the one in your hands or on your screen, therefore emerges from a network of people and objects interacting with one another across space and time. As Editor, it has been my great pleasure to be the one who has translated all those strands of connectivity into six volumes of this journal. This has enabled me to engage in and be part of conversations with a huge diversity of colleagues around the world. Such is the rich experience of being Editor. Of course, not all those conversations have been happy ones, given that my role has involved me in being a bearer of bad tidings to many colleagues. However, the Board has consistently made the decision that we wish Studies to be at the forefront of research and scholarship in the education of adults internationally. How well we succeed depends upon contributors and readers, of course. I do, however, wish to extend a warm thanks to all those colleagues with whom I have had the opportunity to converse over the last six years and, who in their different ways, have supported the work of Studies.

As I mentioned above, this edition illustrates some of the directions I think the journal has taken in recent years. While still very much located in the core Englishspeaking developed countries, we nonetheless have contributions from Australia, Canada, England and Scotland. Theoretically, the contributions of Tara Fenwick and John Field extend the frames that can be brought to bear on issues in this diverse arena of study. Fenwick draws in insights from complexity theory to examine how it might help in addressing the problems she identifies as existing in much writing on experiential learning. This article was based on a keynote presentation to an international conference in Glasgow this summer and I am grateful to Tara for so speedily turning it into an article and then responding to referees’ comments. Complexity theory, like actornetwork theory that Julia Clarke introduced in an earlier edition of Studies, provides interesting theoretical resources upon which to draw. Neither provides an all-embracing grand narrative, but they add significantly to our frames of reference.

Field draws upon more familiar terrain, that of social capital. However, rather than the somewhat gestural engagement with social capital theory that we sometimes see, he draws upon some of the different types of social capital that have been identified, and explores empirically how this might result in differing forms of lifelong learning. He therefore provides an opening for further research of a more detailed and forensic sort into issues of learning and social capital.

The last two contributions to this edition of Studies take us into territories not previously covered during my editorship. Phil Bayliss offers a study of prison education in England. This is a hugely important area of study for the education of adults, particularly for those concerned with equity and inclusion. While prison education research has its own networks and journals, it is important for those conversations to be represented in the broader journals such as this one. Similarly with the piece by John Egan. Drawing on research in Canada, Egan explores the differing educative roles of those working with people with HIV. Once again, this is an area of work of huge importance, and research and scholarship on this topic is welcome. I say that on behalf of the Board, who have discussed the issues we cover in Studies and those yet to be covered on a regular basis.

As a journal in our field, Studies is inherently eclectic. We do not have disciplinary foundations that provide a core canon of research and scholarship. This eclecticism has probably become more pronounced in recent years. But it adds to the stimulus for different thinking as well as disorientates. More and more diverse groups are engaging in research and scholarship about the education of adults. Some of them do not always realise that there are existing bodies of knowledge. Similarly, those who have been more centrally located within this domain do not always engage with the wider social scientific and other academic research that would make our own contributions more robust. Not all would consider that good news, but I have to say that I do and have done. This arena of research and scholarship remains prone to hyperbole, overgeneralisation and a gestural engagement with theory. But we are not alone in this. And there is much of merit that continues to mean that I leave my position as Editor in reasonable spirits, although things can always get better...

The title for this Editorial is taken from song. “Go now” was a track produced by the Moody Blues in an earlier decade. I heard it as a teenager and it has always stuck in my mind. Knights in white satin do reach the end you see. This is me gone...