Cogent Education

Adult and Continuing Education Research: Transversing Boundaries of the Global and the Local

In an increasingly globalized world, educational researchers often draw on internationally established repertoires of theories, methodologies and standards of quality. However, context remains important, including the contexts from which theories, methodologies and standards arise and the contexts to which they are applied or adapted. Much of the educational research repertoire, and the disciplines and fields that shape it, have their roots in the Global North. Metrics of research production and measurement of ‘what counts’ as knowledge are massively skewed in favour of the Global North: the current global scholarly ecosystem (Scopus, Web of Science) is heavily biased towards countries in the Global North and research published in English. This entails the danger of discrimination “against different forms of knowledge, particularly that which does not hail from the English-speaking Western world” (Tennant 2020:1).

However, this situation is contested and is changing, informed by factors such as:

• The decolonial ‘turn’ that contests taken-for-granted assumptions about what ‘counts’ as knowledge and draws attention to how historical and contemporary power relations influence research ecosystems;
• Increased attention to indigenous knowledge systems and their implications for theory, research and practice
• Collaboration among researchers from different countries, disciplines and/or research orientations;
• Comparative studies across national and international boundaries;
• The development of research cultures, outlets, publishers, institutions in Global South countries.

To some extent Cogent Education reflects these changes. Although published in English, and by a multinational publisher, it draws contributions from a wide geographical spectrum, often based on collaborations across this spectrum.

This article collection seeks to interrogate and trouble the relation between the local and the global in educational research and what our positioning as global-local researchers means for:

• Selection of research topics and subject matter;
• Choice of philosophical orientations, theories, models and frameworks;
• Orientation towards research paradigms, approaches, methods and types of data;
• Local engagement with ‘globalized’ AI resources such as ChatGPT
• Engagement with extant scholarship and ‘authoritative’ sources;
• Grounds for generalizing and/or localizing findings.
• Researchers’ global-local identities, the tensions and affordances that these involve.
• The emergence and function of local epistemologies from the global South

It welcomes contributions from contexts within and across geographical, theoretical and methodological ‘hemispheres’.

Key words: adult education; continuing education; higher education; educational research; epistemology; decolonial turn; research ecosystems; global-local nexus.

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 12 October 2026.

Please contact Kristen Brida at [email protected] with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system.
Please select Adult and Continuing Education OR Higher Education from the list of available sections during submission. Failure to select the appropriate Article Collection or Section name can result in delays.

About the Guest Advisors

Peter Rule is Director of the Centre for Higher and Adult Education at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His main research interests are adult learning, dialogue and learning, adult learning and disability, and case study research methodology. He has collaborated with authors from Europe and Africa and edited collections including authors from all five continents. His academic books include Handbook of case study research in the social sciences, edited with Vaughn John (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024), The global scholar: Implications for postgraduate studies and supervision, edited with Eli Bitzer and Liezel Frick (African Sun Media, 2021); Dialogue and boundary learning (Sense Publishers, 2015); and, with Vaughn John, Your guide to case study research (Van Schaik, 2011). He is a senior editor for Cogent Education’s ‘Adult and Continuing Education’ section.

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Veena Vohra (PhD, MBA) is Professor – Human Resources and Behavioral Sciences and Associate Dean at the School of Business Management, NMIMS, Mumbai. Her research focus areas include contexts of change, organization development, leadership, emotional intelligence, employee silence and work family conflict. She teaches case study research and qualitative research. She has published several research papers, case studies, book chapters and co-authored several books. She has engaged in consulting and training assignments related to leadership development and personal effectiveness enhancement.

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ORCID Page

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

The Guest Advisors do not have any Conflicts of Interest to disclose.